Jehovah’s Witnesses, Practices

Worship and Preaching

The Jehovah’s Witness organization is primarily focused on evangelism, which is considered a major responsibility of believers. All members are expected to regularly engage in preaching activity to non-Witnesses and to attend congregational meetings and assemblies (Proclaimers 1993). Witnesses meet usually on Sunday for an hour and a half to hear a 30-min public talk and a 1-hour study of an article from the Watchtower magazine.

Separate from the World

Jehovah’s Witnesses are expected to keep themselves pure and to maintain themselves “separate from the world,” which they view as corrupt. Witnesses minimize social contact with non-Witnesses, limiting such contacts to work, schooling, and preaching to those who are interested.

The movement’s founder, Charles Taze Russell, was particularly critical of “social club churches,” and so primarily social activities are avoided; every meeting is directed toward Bible study and preaching (Beckford 1975). Relationships...