![]() It can still thrive when we’re connected virtually or otherwise. Spirituality is not about a building or being with one another in person. But, he added, “we found we could be effective using other forms of ministry like letter-writing and phone calls. ![]() “People like me grew up knocking on doors and I’ve done that since I was old enough to walk,” Hendriks said. It’s irreconcilable with our Christian values and what we preach.”ĭespite that knowledge, stopping the door-to-door ministry was a “disorienting event” for practitioners of the faith because evangelism is an inextricable part of their core belief system, Hendricks said. “It’s unfathomable for us as a people or organization to be held responsible for the deaths of others. “We just wanted to make sure that our meetings, ministries and conventions did not cause the spread of this deadly disease,” he added. The church also canceled 5,600 conventions in 240 countries, something it didn’t do during the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918, which infected about 500 million people worldwide and killed 50 million, Hendriks said. “This was the first time ever in the history of our church that we stopped all kinds of public engagement.” No more door-knocking? “We shut down all public ministry, including going door to door, as well as in-home Bible studies for the first time ever in our church’s history,” said Robert Hendriks, national spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses. In March 2020, when much of the country went into lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the church closed all public meetings at its 13,000 congregations in the U.S., including 1,097 congregations in Southern California serving 150,000 members in 30 different languages. It’s been more than a year now since Jehovah’s Witnesses have gone knocking on people’s doors, and according to representatives for the faith group, even after the coronavirus pandemic ends, they may not resume going door to door - a longstanding tradition and act of perseverance for which the community is widely known. Will the pandemic spell the end of door-knocking for Jehovah’s Witnesses? Close Menu
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