DON’T KNOCK IT
Jehovah’s Witnesses can’t go door to door, so they’ve gone old school.
COVID-19 has shut several doors — literally leaving buildings, schools, churches and houses locked up tight.
As people stay inside their homes with ever greater frequency, many are wary of whatever crosses their thresholds, and whoever rings their doorbells.
And that could have been a challenge for Jehovah’s Witnesses, with their trademark door-to-door ministries.
Instead, the denomination quickly pivoted and found new opportunities to reach people.
“Even though the pandemic put a hold on a lot of what we used to do, we’ve been able to get creative and do other things,” said Claudia Lott, a resident of southwest Houston and member of the denomination.
Lott was concerned when she realized the pandemic would put a halt to door-to-door ministry and literature carts, the displays of information in public spaces that have become increasingly popular for Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“Now what do we do?” Lott wondered.
It didn’t take long to find an answer.
“It made us go back to the old ways of staying in touch,” Lott said. “It made us go back to what we’ve dismissed.”
That meant picking up a phone — or pen and paper. The church already used calls and letters for ministry, but now these “old school” forms of contact are again becoming the norm, along with texts, emails and Zoom.
“There was a learning curve at first,” Lott said. “But, then, we got busy.”
She has found that writing personal letters can be even more effective than knocking on doors.
“I’ve gotten responses from people, saying, ‘Thank you for thinking of me,’ ” she said.
Yuarva Spencer, who lives near Tomball, looks for inspiration from Scripture when she writes letters.
“We’re all facing the same difficulties now,” she said. “I think about what’s encouraged me — and I want to share that with others.”
Yuarva composes her letters with her husband, Rodney, and 9-year old son, Grant.
“Usually, I fold the letters and stuff them into envelopes,” Grant said. “I put on labels and stamps.”
Rodney said that often writing a letter shows neighbors that he and his family care about them.
“We will continue to maintain our primary focus on door to door after the pandemic,” he said. “But I personally plan to do more letter writing than I did before COVID-19. It was nice that we had this in place so we could continue our work. We just needed to adjust a little bit.”
Yuarva said that writing letters allows her family to continue working together to reach others.
“Even though you can’t physically be with people, you can still get your pen and paper,” she said. “It’s very fulfilling.”
The past few months mark the first time in history that Jehovah’s Witnesses made the decision to stop public preaching.
U.S. spokesman for the denomination Robert Hendriks said that though the decision was monumental, making the call was also simple. Protecting the sanctity of life is a guiding principle for Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hendriks explained.
“Life is more important than a building, than singing in a choir, more important than our drive to meet together in person,” he added.
Another key guiding principle is “love your neighbor as yourself,” Hendriks explained.
“Would you want your neighbor to knock on your door right now? No,” he said. “You can’t knock on someone’s door and hand someone literature from your hand during a pandemic.
That’s not love.” Hendriks said that as soon as the coronavirus began appearing in the U.S., Jehovah’s Witnesses began to limit meetings and to develop guidelines for the pandemic.
“Business as usual stopped,” he said. “This was a very fast-moving situation. The world was brought to its knees in three weeks because of a pandemic.”
By the middle of March, the church made the decision not to hold any public meetings or use Kingdom Hall buildings for anything around the world.
Stopping public ministry was determined to be what was best for their neighbors.
Still, ministry and discipleship are more than a simple part of the church’s mission. Jehovah’s Witnesses feel a duty and obligation to share Jesus’ teachings.
“The ministry is who we are,” Hendriks said. “As Jehovah’s Witnesses, we have obliged ourselves to preach the Gospel. If you’re a Witness, you’re going to witness.”
It’s not about preaching or standing on a soapbox, he explained.
“It’s about teaching,” Hendriks said. “When our savior Jesus tells us to do something, it is not an option. It’s not something for someone else to do. For a Christian to ignore that would really be to ignore the work we were put on this Earth to do.”
That meant the church had to find a new way to continue its ministry.
“Adversity has always presented Christians with opportunity,” Hendriks said.
The first step was to hold virtual meetings. Since most of the Sunday gatherings at Kingdom Halls include discussion, Zoom videoconferencing allowed Jehovah’s Witnesses to continue to talk and see each other.
The number of members watching soared. Hendriks said that the Zoom meetings averaged 20 to 30 percent above average attendance.
“People who may have struggled to go to an inperson meeting are now able to go, to see and to participate,” he said. “But while going to the meetings is good, it’s not enough. We had to find other ways to reach people.”
Revisiting letters and telephone calls — and making them more regular — became the church’s focus. Using Zoom to continue personal Bible studies also proved effective.
“We’re trying to do what we can to keep our ministry going,” Hendriks said. “Just because we are limited right now does not mean that we should stop.”
Celise Muñoz, who lives north of downtown Houston, has been organizing Zoom dates for her friends in different cities. They all tune in to compose letters together.
Before COVID-19, Muñoz would invite friends from Houston to write letters over coffee, before they embarked on door-to-door ministry. She also considered letter-writing a part of her own personal ministry.
“It was not hard for me to pick up a pen and paper and start writing letters more regularly,” she said. “I’m finding creative ways to share something positive because we all need that right now.”
Muñoz imagines how her neighbors could be struggling when she writes.
“I try to put myself in their shoes, picture how they might feel,” she said. “You send a message in a bottle out there — and hopefully, it will brighten someone’s day.”
Muñoz plans to return to door-to-door ministry eventually. “But this is a nice substitute in the meantime,” she said. “It’s also a good method of reaching people who can be hard to find at home.”
Reading a letter can be easier than talking to someone at the front door, she added. Plus, her neighbors can read when it’s convenient for them.
Hendriks said that these times offer a lesson in how to overcome this obstacle to continue ministry.
“We will be better after this crisis simply because we now know how to care for our flock better,” he said. “We didn’t have a road map for this. Now we have procedures and guidelines that we’ll be able to use forever. That will have an enduring effect on our organization. We’ll never be the same — and that’s a good thing.”
This was also the first time in the denomination’s history to cancel all of its public conventions globally.
Last year’s Houston convention was held at NRG Stadium in July. This year, there were plans to hold the event in the Rosenberg Assembly Hall. Instead, the conference went virtual.
“In less than three months, we switched everything online,” Hendriks said.
That included producing films and translating the messages into hundreds of languages. “Every single Jehovah’s Witness in the world on the second weekend in July was able to access the convention in their own language,” Hendriks added.
The theme for the online event this year was “Always Rejoice.” In a time of isolation, uncertainty and fear, Hendriks explained that spreading a theme of hope has an added significance.
“We have a message of joy — what a gift that is to the world,” he said.