Adjustments in the meeting schedule – Does the Governing Body see the day drawing near ?

• The Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses decides how often Jehovah’s Witnsses have meetings and how long they are
• The Governing Body speaks often about how urgent the time is and that we live in the last part of the last days
• According to the bible text mentioned above, we should expect then an increase in our meeting together
• The bible doesn’t specify whether this is about how often or how long we should meet, so let’s look at both

Below you find a chart showing the evolution of the meetings for Jehovah’s Witnesses from 1987. For each year we calculated the total amount of hours of meetings provided for that year. We multiplied 48 weeks with the total meeting time for a week, added 2 weeks with the duration of the assemblies, 1 week with the duration of the convention and 1 week with the total meeting time in the week of the Memorial. This makes a total of 52 weeks.

• 1988: before we had each year 2 circuit assemblies of 2 days. From this year one circuit assembly is replaced by a special assembly day of only 1 day long
• 1989: for the first time the convention is only 3 days long instead of 4. Next years conventions vary between 3 and 4 days long
• 1994: from now on, conventions are always 3 days long
• 2008: the public talk is shortened from 45 minutes to 30, making the weekend meeting 15 minutes shorter
• 2009: the congregation book study is abolished: from now on there are only 2 meetings per week instead of 3
• 2014: from now on, both yearly circuit assemblies are only 1 day long
• 2019: in the week of the memorial, only 1 of the weekly meetings is scheduled instead of both, depending on the memorial being in the weekend or during the week

WHAT DO YOU THINK ?

• Why are we not meeting all the more as the bible requests in Hebrews 10:25 ?
• Is it because the day is not drawing near ?
• Is it because of disobedience to Gods word ?
• Would you call this faithful and discreet ?
• Is it wise to follow blindly ?
• What would Jesus say ?

But if ever that evil slave says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying’… the master of that slave will come on a day that he does not expect and in an hour he does not know, and he will punish him with the greatest severity and assign him his place with the hypocrites.