Jehovah’s Witnesses have resumed their door-to-door ministry beginning Sept. 1, with the two-and-a-half-year suspension of the in-person work ending just in time for the launch of a global campaign featuring an interactive program for Bible study.
The decision to resume the door-to-door ministry marks the complete restoration of all pre-pandemic in-person activities for the nearly 1.3 million Jehovah’s Witnesses in about 13,000 congregations in the United States. Houses of worship (called Kingdom Halls) were reopened on April 1, witnessing in public places resumed on May 31 and in-person conventions are again being planned for 2023.
“We are very much looking forward to returning to the house-to-house ministry,” said Mark Landerer, a Dutton resident, who will be heading out to the neighborhood with his wife, Charlene, in the coming weeks.
“I have missed the personal interaction with people in our community,” Charlene said. “It is much easier to get to know them when we’re in person.”
The suspension of the public ministry was a response by the organization to keep communities and congregants safe. The move was also unprecedented. Jehovah’s Witnesses had been preaching from house to house without interruption for more than 100 years through an economic depression, two world wars and global unrest, but COVID-19 demanded a different response.
“We believe that the early decision to shut down all in-person activities for more than two years has saved many lives,” said Robert Hendriks, U.S. spokesperson for Jehovah’s Witnesses. “We’re now ready and eager to reconnect with our neighbors once again—person-to-person, face-to-face. It’s not the only way that we preach, but it has historically been the most effective way to deliver our message of comfort and hope.”
The return to an in-person ministry coincides with a global campaign to offer an interactive Bible study program, available in hundreds of languages and offered at no cost. The course comes in the form of a printed book, an online publication or as an embedded feature within the organization’s free mobile application, JW Library.