I have always been curious about belief systems, from the time I was a teenager. By the way, I came from a conservative, Catholic, home. Anyway, when I was in my mid-20's, I attended a local JW "Kingdom Hall". The people were VERY nice and I really enjoyed the feeling of fellowship and community. One of the elders asked if he could come over to my apartment and speak to my privately. I said sure!
Long story short, he came over several times and I even attended a couple more services at their "church". I never considered joining them. I found their positions on not celebrating birthdays and Christmas as pointless and unnecessary. If recollection serves, I believe they also oppose transfusions through their biblical misinterpretation. The elder gave up on me and my interest in them waned.
I've seen videos of witnesses going to homes and being verbally mistreated by nasty people who think it's funny. I detest that!
My cousin was a JW for a couple of years. His wife was too. She was the nastiest, most conceited, most hateful person I've ever met - except when she attended Kingdom Hall. She was a two-faced fake. He got kicked out for getting drunk one too many times.
Do you have any experience(s) with them?
The JW's were an instrument for God's work in my repentance and salvation at one point of my faith-journey, but we ended up finding that I could not agree with them on their interpretation of scripture, and of course they are unable to deviate from their official teachings, so I ended up going apart from them.
Nevertheless, the missionaries that I had been studying with had been impeccable in their patience with me and their moral guidance as The Lord was bringing me into repentance through the opportunity for our study of the Word together. I also remember how I had been a special student in their eyes because the way we met is that they had left a letter for me "we called by to see you but you weren't home, this is our local congregation and this is who I am etc", and I perceived (through conscience and also through the personal events at the time) that God was reaching out to me, so I took that letter along to meet them that Sunday and they said "wow! that's a first!" .. and I said "what? has nobody ever responded to your letter before?" and they said "nope! .. not even one!"
So two of the elders of the church began to come around regularly on a Saturday morning and we were studying their little book "What does the bible really teach?". I had been carrying and reading The Living Bible version daily for the past few years and I remember that the very first thing they did was take it out of my hands and put their little grey bible into my hands - the "New World Translation". At first I resisted it, but they said "just try it and let's see if you find any problems with it" and so I did begin to use it, and I found it to be more accurate and in line with the views of atonement that I had learned through having recently come to question and repent of the Penal Substitutionary Atonement doctrine, so I kept on using their translation of the bible (NWT) for a couple of years after that because I had found it to be more reliable and insightful than the TLB and more comfortable than the NKJV.
I was open minded, as I am, but also authoritative as I am, and so we found the going slow because I would often look at the parallel translation in the TLB and look with a sceptical eye at their teachings. In fact it was so painstakingly slow because I wouldn't agree to anything that I didn't agree with, that usually we would only get through two to three paragraphs of their little book in a whole hour and a half! On a good day we would be able to do four paragraphs.
Anyhow, while we had agreed to disagree about the doctrine of the Trinity and their views that Jesus Christ is the archangel Michael, it was when we got into their teachings of the 144,000 in Revelation and I went to one of their annual "Passover Feast/communion" services where they break the bread and drink the wine (only that nobody actually does it - they all just pass it on to the next person because they believe it is not for them to partake of it unless they are one of the elect) - that's when I decided that there is no way I could be joined to their belief-system, and somehow we agreed soon after that it wouldn't really be of any benefit to continue our studies together. So I have always been grateful to the members of the JW's because they were the only ones who were reaching out with the heart and the tenacity that I needed at that time, and despite that we didn't end up being of the same beliefs, I acknowledge that it is because of their ministry to me in the Word of God that The Lord was able to bring me into a place of new knowledge of His righteousness and of my basis for faith in Him when I was in need of someone to do that for me (and it is God who knows our needs, they seemed to be aware of that and I was forthcoming in acknowledging it).
I went to their services a few times and even attended a three-day function where the local congregations got together for day-long classes and they had some prominent international members speaking by video link, and I found it interesting to see first-hand how easily the JW way of thinking can rub-off and your worldview to become influenced by it.
The last time I went to a JW church must have been around 1.5-2 years ago, and I remember that The Holy Spirit was speaking quite loudly in our midst (they have the opportunity for members to contribute by giving their views in response to questions in the congregation, and so The Holy Spirit has a strong opportunity to speak with conviction and breadth of expression through that means. It's something that you cannot really see happening in mainstream churches except in bible-study).
