Jehovah’s Witnesses: 24 Countries Now Have More Than 100,000 Publishers, 2014 Report Shows

In 1987, Lyman Swingel, a member of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses, gave a speech to 63,580 people who met at the Plaza Monyontel bull fight in Valencia, Venezuela, according to a publication from the group’s website. Many attendees travelled through the night by bus to hear him.

The same year, more than 38,000 publishers, the group’s term for active members who share its message, were serving in Venezuela. At that time, only eight countries had more than 100,000 publishers.

The source also quotes the group’s 1943 yearbook, which said that the 1942 report “shows remarkable results, although it was incomplete because of the difficulty of communicating.” Preserving such records for later readers reflects the call to pass the faith on to the next generation (Psalm 78:4).

According to the source, Nigeria became the second country to reach 100,000 publishers in 1974. The following year, the number of publishers in Brazil and Germany also exceeded 100,000. The group said these increases on four continents showed that “Bible truth likes people everywhere in the world.”

The source states that the number of people accepting the group’s “good news” is growing throughout the earth, and it links this to a Bible prophecy about a small nation becoming a thousand and a mean one becoming a powerful nation.

According to the group’s 2014 service year report, 24 countries now have more than 100,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses. The source says Venezuela was among the countries that reached this level, doing so in 2007. The report also lists 115,416 congregations and 8,201,545 publishers worldwide.

Source: Read the original report (translated from Arabic)