By HANK SCHALLER, Of The Oakland Press June 09, 2002
When it comes to being a house of worship, the Pontiac Silverdome has a long history.
It has served as a site of a papal Mass by Pope John Paul II, a crusade by evangelist Billy
Graham and meetings attracting thousands of men belonging to the Promise Keepers
organization.
But no faith or religious group has had more gatherings under the Teflon-coated fiberglass
roof of the Silverdome than the Jehovah's Witnesses, who have been transforming the stadium
into one of the world's largest Kingdom Halls every year since 1978.
More than 100,000 Bible-carrying Jehovah's Witnesses from 233 congregations scattered
throughout the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and northern Ohio are expected to attend the
2002 Zealous Kingdom Proclaimers District Convention, which began Friday and continues
through today.
It's a religious pilgrimage that meant a lot for 75-year-old Howard Anderson of Detroit. He was
the oldest of the 169 convention delegates who was baptized into the faith Saturday, a total
that included 73 men and 96 women ranging in age from 10 to 75 years old.
"This is what I want," Anderson said. "I want to show God how much I love him. After many
years of opposing my wife, who has been one of Jehovah's Witnesses for 33 years, I'm ready to
do God's will."
Al McCarty of Waterford Township has been at every Silverdome convention since 1978. He
told of the effort made by 3,000 volunteers to prepare the Silverdome for the faithful.
"In the Jehovah's Witnesses, there is no paid clergy and no paid staff," said McCarty, who works
as an engineer at the Chrysler Group headquarters of the DaimlerChrysler AG in Auburn Hills.
"This type of convention is important because it allows people to worship with people who are
like us with the same problems and same successes. Worshiping with a large group raises the
consciousness of your own faith."
On the day before the convention, the Silverdome was a beehive of activity. "We're probably
one of the only groups who come into the Silverdome and vacuum every inch of the stadium's
artificial turf," McCarty said. "We also wash every seat with soap and water and personally clean
each restroom and suite that we use." One hundred volunteers even spent much of Thursday setting up an elaborate sound system
to conquer the Silverdome's notoriously bad acoustics that on occasion have frustrated some
of the biggest musical acts in the world.
The fact that every Jehovah's Witness was carrying a Bible is integral to the faith. "In my
library at home, I have 16 translations of the Bible," McCarty said. "Each of those translations
can help you understand because Jehovah's Witnesses believe precisely what the Bible says and
try to mold our lives around it."
While the Detroit Lions may have left the Silverdome for Ford Field, now under construction in
downtown Detroit, the Jehovah's Witnesses plan to be back again in 2003. "Pontiac and the
Silverdome have been very good to us over the years," McCarty said. "The Silverdome is a
wonderful place to worship."
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This got me to thinking...how many times have you heard, at the meetings and assemblies, that jw's are the cleanest people to use assembly halls. But I've been to many other functions in the same buildings that seemed to be very clean too. Isnt it a little presumptuous to imply they're the only group that cleans up before and after their events?