How Long Is A Jehovah Witness Sunday Service

1. No birthdays, Christmas, or any other holidays

All the other kids are doing fun Thanksgiving drawings of Turkeys by tracing their hands. That looks like and so much fun! It's too bad I have to go sit in the principal's office while you guys do fun Thanksgiving arts and crafts. My mommy and daddy are in a cult, and then we don't celebrate any holidays. None—not even my altogether. God says birthdays are bad.

2. Never existence able to talk honestly with a friend

Jehovah'southward Witnesses are commanded to "report what is bad"; in other words, to snitch on their all-time friend if they tell them they did something like smoke a cigarette or picket an R-rated pic. During my time as a Jehovah's Witness, having a conversation with another Witness meant editing out anything that could get me in problem. And for the Jehovah's Witnesses, a lot of everyday activities such as buying a lottery ticket or stepping into another faith's church will get you into serious trouble. You couldn't show anyone—non fifty-fifty your significant other—your true self for fear of being disciplined by the elders.

3. Having to go door-to-door preaching every Saturday and sometimes Lord's day besides

I barely got whatsoever sleep when I was a Witness. I commuted an 60 minutes and a half to piece of work each way and worked long hours. I needed the weekends to catch up on my slumber debt, but instead I had to get upward at the scissure of dawn to leave preaching. The act of knocking on strangers' doors to tell them their religion is incorrect and that they better change or face up God'southward wrath is bad plenty. When you lot're so exhausted you tin can barely stand up, it becomes absolute torture—both for yous and the person yous're trying to recruit into a cult at 9AM on a Saturday.

four. Having to fill up out field service reports

Jehovah's Witnesses take to fill out a monthly report that details how much time they've spent preaching, how many books and magazines they've distributed to people, and how many Bible studies they've conducted. While the slips are non shown to anyone but the elders of the congregation, other Witnesses take note if you haven't been out preaching with them during the regular times. The elders, on the other hand, do have access to your performance records. They will "encourage" y'all if you lag behind the national average, which was about x hours a month when I was a member of the organized religion.

Beingness a Jehovah's Witness is similar having a 2d unpaid task that y'all work on nights and weekends for no pay. If your performance lags on the job, your invitations for dinner and movies suddenly stop. Yous are constantly judged by anybody else, especially the elders.

5. Not being able to date

Jehovah'due south Witnesses don't really engagement. The Jehovah'due south Witness idea of dating is this: When you're interested in marrying someone, you get out with them, but e'er with a chaperone. Y'all are never alone, never without a 3rd wheel until you go married, which volition commonly exist less than a year afterwards you've met them. It might sound like I'm describing some sort of weird threesome state of affairs, but trust me, it's much more deadening that that. Because when you're a Jehovah's Witness that also means…

vi. No sex earlier marriage

Nothing. At least the Mormons do that weird soaking thing. Jehovah'south Witnesses get goose egg earlier spousal relationship—and I mean nothing. After matrimony it doesn't become much better, since oral and anal sex are banned even for married couples. And if you're gay, well, you're doomed to a lifetime of abstinence and loneliness.

7. Non existence able to accept non-Witness friends

Jehovah'southward Witnesses aren't allowed to befriend non-Witnesses. Why would you become close to someone whom God was going to execute at Armageddon? I bankrupt this rule a lot during my thirteen years as a Jehovah'southward Witness, but I always kept my non-Witness friends a secret.

8. Keeping up with their ever-changing, made-up doctrine

When I start became a Witness, claret was not allowed to be consumed in any form, whether it was blood pudding or a life-saving claret transfusion. When I left the religion, they had changed the dominion to permit for blood fractions. The Jehovah's Witnesses believe that God's system periodically receives "New Light" from God, and their doctrine changes with it. Prediction for the cease of the earth turned out to exist false? New Light—just move the date frontward. A policy is a fiddling too costly due to lawsuits? New Light—but alter the policy.

ix. Looking similar a jerk when someone sneezes

Jehovah'due south Witnesses don't say "god anoint you" when someone sneezes, because that practice supposedly has a pagan origin. The issue is that you lot look like an asshole every time someone sneezes as you merely sit in that location staring at them blankly.

10. The constant feeling of being watched

Jehovah's Witnesses take no concept of privacy and tend to view secrets they discover out about other Witnesses as some sort of gift from God. Pair this with the "report what is bad" rule mentioned in #ii, and yous have a recipe for disaster. The elders once told me that I had negatively influenced my former roommate. The reason? My onetime roommate worked for Blockbuster Video, and he had searched my records to snoop on the movies I had been watching. He decided to go through my individual records at work, and even so I was the bad guy because I rented Die Hard.

My life every bit a Jehovah's Witness was Orwellian. I lived in constant fright that someone would meet me walk into an R-rated motion-picture show, catch me playing a fierce video game, run into me talking to a girl, know that I had non-Witness friends, find out that I liked rap music, etc. Leaving that faith was the best decision I ever made. Thought Catalog Logo Mark