Beginning in March of 1949 and until late in year 2007 all Jehovah’s Witnesses who held Bible study sessions with private individuals were expected to complete and hand over a record of each of these individuals.[1-2] This record included the name and address of the individual. There was no protocol to inform individuals that this information was being entrusted to anyone beyond the person they invited into their homes.
The form
The standard procedure was for one of these reports to be turned in each month as long as the study session continued. The completed report was handed to a local congregation official among Jehovah’s Witnesses in the position of congregation secretary. The congregation secretary may or may not have another individual help him collect and process these reports.
So what was done with these reports?
Congregation secretaries were to collect and then retain these particular reports for six months. That is to say, at any given time the congregation secretary should have on file a six month history of all individuals having study sessions and their address.
For the most part, nothing was done locally with these reports. They might be useful in the event a member of the congregation suffered unexpected demise. In that case local congregation officials could use the record to reach out to the individual who they otherwise may or may not know otherwise. They would know the individual’s name, their address and how long they had been having study sessions. Local elders could also review these forms to get an overview of who was conducting Bible study sessions and with whom. But, again for the most part, local congregation officials did not use the information on these forms for much, if anything.
In my experience the only regular inspection of these reports occurred twice each year when a Watchtower appointed official—known as circuit overseer—would visit the local congregation and review its files. The typical procedure was for these officials to send an advance request to congregations detailing which congregation filings they wanted to review. These Bible study reports were on that list for review.
The S-3 form is notable because of the type of information—name, address and remarks—it records and that this information is then provided to a third-party without having first notified the individual. This collection of information was conducted for more than fifty years in congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world. My guess is that more than a few of these individuals would have had reservations about inviting the Witness into their home for study sessions if they knew in advance that this personal information were being recorded and shared without their knowledge.
Marvin Shilmer
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1. “Publishers no longer need to submit a Study Report (S-3) for each home Bible study conducted during the month.”—(Our Kingdom Ministry, published by Watchtower, November 2007, p.3)
1. Informant, published by Watchtower, March 1949, p. 1
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