While having held huge indoor conventions in past years, Jehovah’s Witnesses locally, nationally and around the world will be holding virtual conventions this year due to COVID-19.
“We did have, originally, a regional convention scheduled here for Sault Ste. Marie for June 12 to the 14 (at GFL Memorial Gardens), but because of our concern for the safety of not only Jehovah’s Witnesses but the public that would attend, the decision was to cancel it,” said Roy Dewar, Sault Ste. Marie Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses spokesperson, speaking to SooToday.
For the summer of 2020, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Canada had booked 27 venues across the country to hold 53 conventions in 16 languages, with an anticipated combined total attendance of 148,000.
“What our world headquarters has done is actually produced that same regional convention program and posted it on our website (click here) so that it makes it available to the congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses and any members of the public who wanted to view it. Basically that’s how we’re doing it,” Dewar said.
Dewar said two sessions of this year’s convention have already been held online via Zoom (July 2 and 19), a typical Jehovah’s Witness convention consisting of six morning and afternoon sessions spread out over three days.
“They’ve broken it down for easier viewing. We have 12 videos and we’re looking at those over the course of six weeks, so we’ve already done two and by the end of August, we’ll have it completed. As a (local) congregation we’re trying to do it all together over a video conferencing tool but anyone can go on it and view it at any time (the sessions, with keynote speakers, are recorded).”
The remaining four sessions of the regional convention, Dewar said, will be held online Aug. 2, 9, 23 and 30.
The Sault’s Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation, located at 928 Second Line East, has approximately 425 members, Dewar said.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses region in which the Sault congregation is situated stretches from Atikokan, in northwestern Ontario, to North Bay.
Dewar said convention sessions are available for viewing not only locally and regionally, but also internationally through teleconferencing technology such as Zoom.
“What they’ve done is quite amazing. We’re getting the same program streamed to all the congregations and they’ve translated this program we’re viewing in English into 511 different languages.”
The convention was recorded for Zoom at the World Headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses in Warwick, New York and posted on the organization's website to view, Dewar said.
“Our (local) congregation had over 400 attending (the convention sessions held online earlier this month).”
Local congregation members have not returned to their Second Line building during the pandemic, despite some recent provincial government loosening of restrictions on religious gatherings.
“We won’t go there until it’s safe to do that,” Dewar said.
Local services have been held online throughout the pandemic.
“It’s been a change. You miss the person to person contact but you still get the sharing through (online) meeting. There can be interaction through it. It’s nice to be able to see the faces of people on Zoom and interact with people even though you can’t be physically with them.”
The theme for the 2020 Jehovah’s Witness conventions, Dewar said, is ‘Always Rejoice!’
“Very appropriate, because we live in such a trouble-filled world today. It’s a good reminder happiness can be found, and it can be found by looking into God’s Word, the Bible, it can help us in our daily life, our family life and give us meaning to life.”
COVID-19 and the availability of teleconferencing technology notwithstanding, Dewar said he hopes (as we all do) for a post-COVID world.
“We’re hopeful of returning to the Kingdom Hall and being able to meet but we won’t do it until government regulations (allow for full, normal unregulated meetings) and we get direction from our headquarters that it’s safe. We have a high standard of safety as most people do, and we want to make sure we’re safe and anyone else who would attend the meetings would be safe as well, our neighbours. We don’t want to infect anyone.”
There are more than 8 million Jehovah's Witnesses around the world, over 100,000 in Canada.
