This article is mainly addressed to who wants, in a short reading, understand the Jehovah's witnesses, their hopes, their main beliefs and how they are organized.
First of all, to understand Jehovah's witnesses, we must have a basic knowledge of the Bible because their beliefs, the way they're organized and their hopes are based on what the Bible says.
Are Jehovah's witnesses Christians ? Some say no because of their refusal of the trinity's teaching but Christian means to be a Christ's follower that means accepting the Christ as a leader and following His teachings and both of the things are done by Jehovah's witnesses so they can be indeed considered Christians.
The way they're organized follows the pattern left from the Bible about the first Christians in the 1st century A.C. so they're organized in congregations. Congregations are groups around a hundred people located in a certain area that attend their meeting place called the Kingdom hall, a kingdom hall could be thought as a church but is very different because its exteriority is modest and inside there're just chairs and the stage for the public speakers without sacred images inside ( Exodus 20:4 ) and outside the building. To understand what congregations are you can liken them to the cells of your body, all together make the whole organization and are directed by the governing body but at the same time have a certain autonomy. And the letters that the apostle Paul wrote and that are the majority of the books of the Christian Greek scriptures show how first Christians were grouped by cities and how they were supervised. In every congregation of the Jehovah's witnesses there're overseers that work together for the spiritual growth of the group they're attending while ministerial servants help them paying attention to the practical matters of minor complexity that otherwise would overload the overseers hampering in this way their assistance to the group they're caring for ( first Timothy 3:1-10 ).
Another important thing is that they're the only Christian denomination on this planet using the Holy Name of God to identify themselves and that comes from the tetragrammaton with which God identifies Himself as the creator of the whole universe in Genesis 2:4. The fact that they believe in God's Kingdom as the only solution for mankind's problems and the only kind of government deserving fully obedience affects deeply their lives ( Matthew 6:10 ) so that they're never engaged in wars and/or in political strife. Their weekly Bible studying as the way to build the new Christian personality ( Ephesians 4:22-24 ) and performed through group meetings, where various publications are analyzed like the watchtower magazine that always gives explanation of the Bible and of its teachings, appears indeed as an endless training program in which people are taught to live now in peace and harmony and are prepared to be components of what they believe will be the new everlasting human society after all nations will have been judged in the day of Harmageddon.
They're known and unknown everywhere for their preaching work ( Matthew 28:19,20; Matthew 24:14 ) with which they warn about the day all nations will be judged in the coming day of Harmageddon and invite people to get a deeper knowledge of the Bible that means acquiring a stronger insight into God's will and into what He requires from us to get His approval. Another important reason for which they're known and unknown is their refusal of blood ( Acts 15:28,29; I John 1:7 ) notwithstanding they accept alternatives as many no blood techniques have been developed to help them and now reveal themselves useful to cure people that aren't Jehovah's witnesses without the risks that come from a blood transfusion.
The main difference with other religions is that they don't believe in life after death ( Ecclesiastes 9:5,10; 3:19 ) but believe in resurrection ( John 5:28,29 ) and this is a curious thing because every other religion from the west and from the east believe or in an immortal soul that survives at the death or at something that migrates from an existence to another. They believe the resurrection will come in the new system that will be established after the day of Harmageddon.
Well here many things have been said and the most important things have been explained but for a deeper knowledge of the Jehovah's witnesses who wants to know more is warmly invited to get in touch with them personally or to visit their official website.