![]() ![]() The third, the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, will oversee religious matters. ![]() Another, the Religious Order of Jehovah's Witnesses, will interact with full-time workers, who take a vow of poverty. One, Kingdom Support Services Inc., will focus on the everyday needs of individual congregations. WTBTS formed three new corporations last fall. Russell himself predicted that Christ would begin his visible reign on Earth in 1914. Failed attempts to pinpoint the return of Christ have marked the group's history. ![]() Evangelicals have long labeled the group, founded in Pittsburgh by Charles Taze Russell in 1870, a non-Christian cult. The controversial sect, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, is non-Trinitarian. ![]() Globally, the group claims nearly 6 million publishers but added fewer than 300,000 members worldwide in 2000, a significant drop from 1997's high of 375,000. With nearly a million active "publishers" (members) in the United States last year, the group baptized only 30,000 converts, down from a high of nearly 50,000 in 1988, according to statistics in the group's January 1 Watchtower magazine. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania (WTBTS), the corporate body of the Jehovah's Witnesses, has restructured itself at a time when the group's growth rate is slowing. ![]()
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