I know the Broadview, Brecksville, 7 hills hall in Broadview hts. Ohio is still operational, I helped build it about 67
and I drove by it this year.
Do you know the oldest Kingdom Hall personally that still exist today?
by Iamallcool 31 Replies latest jw friends
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DesirousOfChange
Having a "building project" is good for any church. It gets members involved. It makes them feel needed (financially and volunteering). It gives the group a goal to work together. Same with a new Kingdom Hall. It builds excitement. Everyone feels needed as there is lots of pre-construction work plus there is lots of money needed, though often the old hall would sell for higher market price than it costs for the materials of the new hall. It's a great uniting, come together kind of atmosphere. Pioneers get to count their time without having to knock on doors. And everybody feels good about having a beautiful new place of worship. It's not unusual to see a "new" Hall, remodeled after just 10-12 years.
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free2beme
If those walls could talk? I bet they would be real confused and say something like, "But what your saying today is not what you were saying when I was built!"
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Rocky_Girl
The organization makes more money from a congregation that has taken out a loan (from the org) in order to build a new hall in the form of interest. And there are changes in the way the org expects ownership of the building to be structured that cannot be enforced on old halls. So the org encourages new buildings; I've noticed that it is more often in richer congregations.
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blondie
***Proclaimers book/ jv chap. 20 p. 319 Building Together on a Global Scale ***The name Kingdom Hall was suggested in 1935 by J. F. Rutherford, who was then president of the Watch Tower Society. In connection with the Society’s branch facilities in Honolulu, Hawaii, he arranged for the brothers to construct a hall where meetings could be held. When James Harrub asked what Brother Rutherford was going to call the building, he replied: “Don’t you think we should call it ‘Kingdom Hall,’ since that is what we are doing, preaching the good news of the Kingdom?” Thereafter, where possible, halls regularly being used by the Witnesses gradually began to be identified by signs that said “Kingdom Hall.” Thus, when the London Tabernacle was renovated in 1937-38, it was renamed Kingdom Hall. In time, the principal local meeting place of congregations worldwide came to be known as the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
*** yb91 pp. 82-83 Hawaii ***Noting a great potential for growth on the islands, Brother Rutherford also arranged to have the local brothers construct a meeting hall in connection with the new branch building. James Harrub approached him and asked, “What are you going to call this place when it is finished?” Brother Rutherford’s reply was, “Don’t you think we should call it ‘Kingdom Hall,’ since that is what we are doing, preaching the good news of the Kingdom?” Thus, in 1935, was coined the name that would designate the tens of thousands of meeting places of Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide. That little house of worship at 1228 Pensacola Street, which has since been expanded and renovated three times, holds the noteworthy distinction of being the first to be named Kingdom Hall.
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Band on the Run
I'd love to see photos of the interior and exterior. Indeed, I worshipped at Westminster Abbey, Notre Dame de Paris, and Chartres. Parts of the Vatican go back very far, esp. the catacombs.
The financial imperative is revealing. I wonder, too, if frequently changing Halls (and Halls of very bad architectural design) doesn't give a sense of fleeting time which reinforces the imminence of Armageddon.
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dgp
Would this have anything to do with the fact that -unless I'm mistaken- Kingdom Halls are merely meeting places, never "the house of the Lord"?
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tenyearsafter
Old or new, still no windows!
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hirotaka
New Westminster, Vancouver, BC Canada built in the 1920's as a Japanese Buddist temple. Guess it appealed to the Jdubs as it is a big long Noah's ark shaped box
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blondie
Remember that the buildings they met in were not called Kingdom Halls until 1935; just as the members of the WTS were known as Bible Students until 1931 whereafter they were known as jws. So there were buildings that WTS members met in, but they were not called KHs until 1935.