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If you were asked to talk about member missionary work to a large group of LDS people, what would you say? I’m really curious… if your goal was to help them be better people and show more service and love, what would you say?
1. Get involved in your community and make genuine friends outside the church. 2. Understand what you love about being Mormon, and learn how to explain that to people without using Mormon-centric lingo. Do you actually like being a member of the Church? People will pick up on that, if you do or do not.
3. Study the Gospel and know what kind of questions people outside the Church ask. Study other religions so that you know how to compare ours to others, because you will be asked. Have natural answers ready that you are comfortable with for controversial topics.
Praying to find someone to “teach” and then springing it on them out of the blue is awkward, and doesn’t work.
I agree with Brian, the most powerful form of missionary work is “being a good example.” To me that includes not acting as if you are better than everyone else. Yes, trying to improve yourself is a good thing, but so is being realistic and recognizing we are all human and imperfect – members and non-members alike. We have much more in common than not. I think it has been recognized lately that an image of “we are everyday people” helps missionary work. I had a group of HP who were not into Missionary Work at all. When I asked for input on how to do it, they gave almost nothing in terms of suggestions or input. So, I went back to them with a list of “soft” missionary work items, and got some good participation. These included:
1. Attending baptisms to show support for the new member.
2. Calling people to get them out to baptisms so there were a lot of people there.
3. Teaching new member lessons
4. Allowing missionaries to teach people in their home
5. Giving rides to non-members at Church
6. Proactively welcoming people who came to Church.
7. Visiting new move-in member households which typically have non-members in their house (often).
8. Attending Gospel Essentials to help non-members feel they are part of a larger community.
This has the effect of relieving the burden from missionary-minded members who find that when they do give a good referral to the missionaries, their efforts are not in vain, as the Ward rallies to give support to the new member.
So, consider talking about all the soft ways people can support missionary work. I’ve heard the “be a good example” argument before, and I take it to mean “I don’t want to do anything” (sorry if this seems harsh, but there is no commitment of any proactivity in it, which has always bothered me. There has to be action, in my view, and often, we do a great job of finding people, only to let them languish after baptism. The soft methods above provide a strong support structure that is sorely lacking for the people we DO find.
I’d suggest anything that serves the corollary purpose of getting the members outside of the ward circle. Volunteer as a ward or as small groups at a soup kitchen, orphanage, or thrift store
- Establish a regular ward assignment at one of the above
- Ask members to share about their dinner, party, swim, chat visits to their neighbor’s (not their own) homes/back yards.
- Ask members to share about interfaith book clubs, play groups, etc.
- Discuss the issues of alcohol and tobacco as they relate to love and friendship and interaction. Are we willing to come home smelling non-LDS? Are we willing to put ash trays at the chapel doors?
I also suggested that we designate a month when each person invites a neighbor over for dinner. That’s it — just socialize. I even suggested, as a missionary (full time) that that members have their neighbors over for dinner rather than the missionaries — if they could allot some 20 dinners for us in a month — I would have rather’d they had 20 families into their homes. Didn’t fly, and I don’t know why. All those dinner appointments were fattening as a missionary.
Quit viewing sharing the Gospel as “missionary work” and just look at it sharing the Gospel – which centers on sharing yourself and your life. Invite people into your life – no strings attached regarding baptism. Become their friends – then stay friends no matter the eventual outcome. Don’t rush any particular outcome.
Invite people to church activities and services – no strings attached regarding baptism. Be willing to attend other services if friends attend yours.
Tell the full-time missionaries quietly and privately that you will introduce them to anyone who is with you, but only in the same way you introduce everyone else. Introduce them in the middle of other introductions and move on immediately to regular members.
Thank you very much… lots of good ideas here. Many of these echo what I was already thinking, but I appreciate the different perspectives and other ways of saying what’s in my head. Keep them coming if you think of anything else.
I remember studying ‘A Marvelous Work and a Wonder’ over and over in preparation for my mission. It was a big surprise that the people in Europe didn’t care about the issues brought up in that book, which was aimed at Southern Baptists of 70 or 80 years ago, I believe. Excellent suggestions above. I have seen untold damage done through well-meaning, but misguided ‘missionary work’.
Once had some missionaries come talk to our ward who suggested the we have them do the “dirty work”. If we had a friend or neighbor who we thought might be ready for an invite to church, or to receive discussions to just give the missionaries a heads-up, make a casual introduction, and then let the missionaries do their thing. This way if it didn’t go over well you could just say “I’m so sorry about those stupid missionaries, they can be so forward sometimes!” Then you can go on and continue being their friend without any awkwardness or strain on your friendship. flowerdrops wrote:Once had some missionaries come talk to our ward who suggested the we have them do the “dirty work”.
That’s sad, isn’t it?
Hey friends, thank you for your help on this. I incorporated several of your ideas into my talk. Similar to what flower reported, I had lots of people come up afterwards and tell me things like, “that’s exactly how I feel” or “I’m glad you put it like that”, which gave me added faith and hope. I realize that there were also probably people that completely disagreed with my thoughts and ideas on member missionary work but to avoid conflict chose to not say anything (or just tell the Bishop or Stake leaders, ha). As my wife said afterwards… “I think there a lot of people who feel the same way you do, but are just too afraid to say anything about it.”
I guess I have a different perspective on this….. I do not actively attempt to “share the gospel” with friends, family and coworkers for the same reason I do not host Pampered Chef parties. I don’t want to alienate my friends, family, and coworkers.
My Mormon-hood generally tends to come up naturally and people generally have questions. I tend to err on the side of caution and answer questions the best I can with the disclaimer that I may not be the best person to ask. I tell people that Mormons are Christians and believe in the general Christian stuff, be honest, be faithful, etc.
I’m obviously not all gung-ho about missionary work.
😯 I think people should practice talking about their love of the gospel like they talk about their own children. Ok, I know I’m biased in my opinion, but I love my kids so much I think they are the best things in the world, and they make me happy. I have to be careful expressing this to others who may not have kids or have different circumstances, but one thing I can express is that I love my kids and they bring me happiness, even though it is a lot of self-sacrifice and work… and if others want ideas on strengthening relationships at home with kids, I’d be happy to share some things we try to do as a family.
If others aren’t interested…I’m not gonna keep pulling out my wallet photos and tell them stories of game winning soccer kicks…that is just annoying.
In the last 17 years, I’ve lived in Alabama, Ohio and Missouri. People in those states talk about church and religion naturally. It just comes up regularly in conversations, since it’s part of their lives. I think we’re so focused on conversion that we forget how to share.
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