Assembly Time Is Here!
1 Will the district assembly you attend this summer be your first, or have you attended many assemblies since becoming associated with Jehovah’s people? In either case, we are sure you will find the program at the “Divine Rulership” assemblies this summer of special interest. You will not want to miss any of it. The program has been arranged with particular emphasis on the needs of Jehovah’s people in the closing days of this time of the end. As the discourses are given and the dramas unfold, you will undoubtedly agree that you would have missed invaluable encouragement and instruction had you not attended. Be sure to attend all four days!
2 The assemblies have been arranged with your convenience in mind. A few congregations have been invited to attend an assembly a little farther away than the nearest one due to limitations of accommodations (see the May Kingdom Ministry). Even so, for most congregations it will be a matter of traveling only a hundred miles or so. Throughout the United States there will be sixty assemblies at fifty-seven different locations. If you will need rooming accommodations we invite you to send in for them right away.
3 Are travel arrangements completed? Do you have room in your automobile for a pioneer, for a family that does not have a car, for an elderly brother or sister who needs special help, for an interested person who wants to attend? Make their joy complete as you share in this greater happiness of giving in their behalf.
4 It is good to remind ourselves of the importance of being thoughtful and considerate. We are Jehovah’s people. When we get together we want to reflect this fact wholeheartedly, both at the assembly grounds and throughout the assembly city. By the way we conduct ourselves, we bring honor or dishonor to Jehovah’s great name. Each assembly has been planned so as to have ample seating and space for moving around. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, moderate overcrowding may occur in some places. But by being patient in cafeteria lines, cooperating with attendants, taking the lead “in showing honor to one another,” we will cause others to say, “God is really among you.”—Rom. 12:10; 1 Cor. 14:25.
5 We can also be considerate with regard to the saving of seats. When we place objects on blocks of seats, is this really “keeping an eye, not in personal interest upon just your own matters, but also in personal interest upon those of the others”? (Phil. 2:4) You will no doubt agree that, to the contrary, it is actually selfish. Sometimes in the past seats have been saved and never occupied during an entire session. People were forced to stand or go to a place where they could not see or even hear well, thereby missing that whole portion of the program. If we are saving two or three seats and the session has begun, our Christian conscience should move us to relinquish any seats we are saving, unless they are for volunteer workers who will occupy them shortly after the session starts or for someone who has gone out to a washroom.
6 Especially the older brothers and sisters, or handicapped ones, should be helped. In some circumstances a younger person may want to give his seat to an older one. Christian love on the part of both young and old will work toward the enjoyment of the assembly by everyone. Many fine points on our conduct in such matters are discussed in The Watchtower of June 15, 1970, under the heading “Showing Love for One Another at Assemblies.”
7 The assemblies will be loaded with spiritual refreshment, and we want you to enjoy them thoroughly and benefit fully from them. Complete your plans now for attending all four days!
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Prepare NOW to attend an assembly!