Uh oh! A Jehovahâs Witness is at my door!
A guide on what the fuck is happening and what to do about it as a never JW, from an exJW.
JW congregations have just been told to start doing door-to-door preaching (aka âserviceâ/âservice workâ/âwitnessingâ) again this September. They stopped for the past few years due toâŚwell. The whole state of things. But itâs starting again! Fuck!
So, to get you folks in on the Secret Inner-workings of a Cult:
JWs do service work mostly on Saturdays and Sundays, but any day of the week is fair game, just less of them will be out on other days. Generally itâll be in the mornings (anywhere between 9AM to 1PM being common, my family did 10AM to noon Saturdays), but any time of day is also fair game. Evening witnessing is encouraged, to catch parts of the service area who didnât answer during morning service, like people who were at work or asleep.
JWs are given âterritoriesâ: entire neighborhoods if theyâre a majority language and can generally bet on most of the people in a given area speaking that language; SPECIFIC ADDRESSES if they belong to a smaller language demographic. These are on âterritory cardsâ, which include areas to fill out once theyâve called on houses. They often pull addresses from the phone book or other such directory, pulling based on name, or get referred new addresses from neighborhood sweeps in other congregations and were told x language was being spoken, so if you get called on by someone speaking your language and wonder how they got your address, itâs because theyâve collected data already! On You!
On that note: JWs collect data on you! A lot of it!! Those territory cards they fill out? They can include any information they gleaned from conversation (age? gender? personal details like if youâre married, if you live with your parents, etc? what religion do you belong to? any problems in your life they can âhelpâ with? any âproblematicâ details, like if youâre queer? all of it.); if someone was home or not (yes we can see you peeking out from behind your curtains! we looked in windows!); if the person answering the door was uninterested; if they were aggressive; if they have dogs; if we were able to leave any publications with them; the details of any conversations we had, like which topics we discussed and which seemed to interest you the most; when to call on you again. The areas to fill this in on these cards are rather small so they usually only write down the most important information, but it is the most important information for trying to indoctrinate you into a cult. DO NOT give them any personal information. It will be used against you.
So thatâs the gist of it. Now, you donât want them at your door, probably.
Please do not harass them.
I know theyâre annoying. We always knew we were being annoying. They do it anyways because they think theyâre helping you. They often have children with them - not only because itâs often families going preaching together, but also because itâs a well known tactic to get a softer response from people they call on, to have a child with you. Even if there are no children, please do not harass JWs - they are cult victims, and doing so will only enforce their âus vs themâ mentality, and discourages members from leaving. The outside world hates you so much, so how can you leave?
âBut what ifââ Nope! Beyond the whole âdonât be fucking cruel to abuse victimsâ thing, it doesnât even work! Iâve been threatened with dogs; my mother has been threatened with machetes; others have been flashed, or physically assaulted - we still went back eventually. Usually someone else would get the assignment, and usually weâd wait a bit, but we still went back.
âOkay, but what the fuck do I do, then?â
You open the door (yes, open the door; if you ignore them theyâll return again, assuming they just missed you or you were busy), let them tell you what theyâre there for, and before the conversation goes further, you simply say:
âIâm not interested. Please put me on your do not call list.â
And then you tell them goodbye. Nothing more. Donât say you have your own religion. Donât say youâre queer. Donât try to use the âmagic wordâ apostate - actual former members can get harassed.
Unfortunately, despite this being the most successful and least harmful strategy, it isnât 100% foolproof. Theyâre supposed to write âdo not callâ on the territory card next to your address, but theyâre human and forget sometimes (or might not mark it intentionally, though I havenât seen that personally); the next person who gets that card might not see the mark, as well. On top of everything else, even if not forgotten, they will eventually come back. Itâs policy to come by after some time to check on you, âjust in caseâ: just in case you changed your mind, just in case you moved and thereâs someone else there now, just in case, oh, you recently had a loved one pass away and suddenly find yourself in an emotionally vulnerable position in need of support and sympathy.
If you have the knowledge and mental/emotional energy and stability to, you can go about trying to debate them, maybe help some of them doubt, but it is no easy task and there is no guarantee of any success. It takes a lot of patience. They are undergoing some extreme brainwashing and âwaking upâ is incredibly traumatizing, and you will face a lot of resistance in trying to deconvert any of them. Again, only attempt this if you have the energy, stability, and knowledge required - the delicacy required, too. Otherwise, remember, itâs
âIâm not interested. Please put me on your do not call list.â
