Their Worldwide Organization and Work

There are several links used in directing the work of witnessing in the more than 200 lands where it is being done. The overall direction comes from the Governing Body at the world headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. The Governing Body sends representatives each year to 15 or more “zones” worldwide to confer with the branch representatives in each zone. In the branch offices, there are Branch Committees of from three to seven members to oversee the work in the lands under their jurisdiction. Many of the branches have facilities for printing, some operating high-speed rotary presses. The country or area served by each branch is divided into districts, and the districts, in turn, are divided into circuits. Each circuit has in it about 20 congregations. A district overseer visits the circuits in his district in rotation. Two assemblies are held annually for each circuit. There is also a circuit overseer, and he visits each congregation in his circuit usually twice a year, assisting the Witnesses in organizing and doing the preaching work in the territory assigned to that congregation.

The local congregation with its Kingdom Hall is the center for telling the good news in your community. The areas under each congregation are mapped out in small territories. These are assigned to individual Witnesses who endeavor to visit and speak with the people in each home therein. Each congregation, consisting of from a few to some 200 Witnesses, has elders assigned to look after various duties. The individual proclaimer of the good news is the vital one in the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Every one of the Witnesses, whether serving at the world headquarters, in branches, or in congregations, does this field work of personally telling others about God’s Kingdom.

Reports of this activity ultimately reach the world headquarters, and an annual Yearbook is compiled and published. Also, a chart is published each year in the January 1 issue of The Watchtower. These two publications offer detailed reports of each year’s accomplishments in bearing witness to Jehovah and his Kingdom under Christ Jesus. The 1989 Yearbook reports that in 1988 9,201,071 Witnesses and interested persons attended the annual Memorial of Jesus’ death. During the 1988 service year, Jehovah’s Witnesses spent over 785,000,000 hours proclaiming the good news and 239,268 new ones were baptized. Literature placements totaled into the hundreds of millions of copies.

Questions Often Asked by Interested Persons

Certain questions come up more often than others. A few of such are considered here.

If God is love, why does he permit wickedness?

God does permit wickedness, and millions on earth willfully make a practice of it. For instance, they declare wars, drop bombs on children, scorch the earth, and cause famines. Millions smoke and get lung cancer, practice adultery and get venereal disease, use alcohol to excess and get cirrhosis of the liver, and so on. Such persons do not truly want all wickedness stopped. They only want the penalties for it eliminated. When they reap what they have sown, they cry out, “Why me?” And they blame God, as Proverbs 19:3 says: “A man’s own folly wrecks his life, and then he bears a grudge against the LORD.” (The New English Bible) And if God stopped their evildoing, they would protest their loss of freedom to do it!