You may have seen the banners hanging over University Avenue and 13th Street.
The Jehovah's Witnesses are knocking on Gainesville's door this weekend.
From Friday through Sunday, Jehovah's Witnesses will be walking through the doors of the O'Connell Center, where they will hold their second weekend-long convention of the summer.
Their last conference, held over Independence Day weekend, filled about 6,000 seats in the O'Connell Center on each of its three days, according to Tony Fowler, a convention spokesman.
Attendees will be coming from Florida, Georgia and Alabama, according to O'Connell Center assistant director David Lucier.
The conventions are for the purpose of Bible instruction, and there will be a number of speakers and interactive presentations with a focused message, Fowler said.
The verse they will be focusing on is James 4:8, which reads in the New World Translation, "Draw close to God, and he will draw closer to you."
During the speeches, there will be skits, demonstrations and staged interviews with people relating their personal experiences, he said.
On Saturday, there will also be a baptism ceremony, he said.
"There's a focus on ways of strengthening one's attachment to God and being able to see how we can strengthen our spirituality; to really handle the challenges and stresses we have to face," he said.
The highlight of the weekend will be on Sunday, when performers will put on a full-costume drama that will portray an account from the destruction of Jerusalem in the first century.
"It's all going to revolve around a variety of Bible topics and Bible subjects really designed to edify one's spirituality," he said.
Those on campus this weekend should watch out for parking because, as Lucier said, parking has been a problem in the past.
Between May and September of this year, Jehovah's Witnesses are holding about 357 conventions in 90 cities across the U.S.
Conventions have been held at UF for about six years now, Lucier said.
