How do you measure success in "ministering"

Fortune cookie answer:

You will know it is a success when you no longer feel the need to measure its success.

Sorry, best I could do.

Winning lotto numbers:

23 7 15 32 12

:angel:

If you use “ministering” as a noun or an adjective, you’ve failed before you’ve begun.

I do like Nibs answer. To build on that, if you’re worrying about “success” or “failure” in ministering, you’re back to checking boxes and missed the point. Just… minister. Love your families.

I’ve been waiting for this question to come up in a stake council or high council meeting. it did on Tuesday night (high council). One very stalwart old guard asked the very similar question of how we will know if ministering is being done if we’re not measuring anything? There were some good answers, but I liked the SP’s best – “We have to think outside the checkbox.”

I have been thinking about this a lot.

I think there has been successful ministering when the person expresses a need you can reasonably meet, and you meet that need.

This has a number of implications:

1. When you meet someone at the highest level of contact they want, at their desired level of frequency (if reasonable) then you are on your way to being successful. Just make sure you’re being genuine and trying to help the person with any needs they have.

2. Families who ignore you, or don’t want to be contacted can be left alone. In ignoring you, they haven’t expressed any needs you can reasonably meet — other than to be left along – so you have done your best. At some minimal level, the person has to want you in their life to some degree. If they don’t want you, and you keep persisting, then that is ineffective ministering. ” Even Jesus left communities who wouldn’t accept him, and worked with the ones who wanted him there.

So if a person wants phone contact just to stay in touch, and you do that — success. If they want you to leave them alone, and you do that, then that is success. Meet people at the level of contact they want, meeting any needs you can reasonably help with that they express.

3. Letting your families know you are available to help them is a minimal form of need-meeting. If they don’t want to have you over or talk to you, at least they know you are there to assist them if their desires change. At a minimum, they should know you are available so they can express needs when they have them.

4. If they express a need you can’t meet reasonably, and neither can the church (like providing 5 hours of medical care a week from now to perpetuity), you are not censured for not ministering. You could, however, try to get them access to other longer term resources.

5. Gone are the days when I’m going to hound people like we used to. Am also going to use mail first to see if they are at their current address before I try to go there. Hold myself out there for them to connect, and if they choose not to, well, there are other areas in my life where I can make a strong contribution.

The analogy of pushing against the rock even though it won’t move doesn’t hold anymore. If the rock won’t move, then find another rock that will. There are lots of them.

I don’t think it’s quantifiable but such things rarely are.

How does the PH & RS address “ministering” in your Ward or Branch?

The reason I ask is last Sunday during PH I was sitting with my “old” HT companion.

At the beginning of the PH session, the new EQP gave each of us our “ministering” (HT) assignments.

It was the same list when it was call Home Teaching. Nothing seems to have changed.

Quarterly we will be having PPI’s to discuss our families.

It generated a lot of discussion with no resolution as to how this changes anything.

Next week our Stake is having a training session to discuss it further.

I believe from what I’m seeing, this program will change gradually over time to the real program

envisioned. What changes have you seen in your wards (branches) & Stakes?

I think Nibbler said it all when he declared “HT is over, long live home teaching”.

Regarding changes in our Ward — our EQ President basically gave us the talk about “ministering” and it was the same guilt trip they used to give us over home teaching. He had a great opportunity to press the reset button, reframe what we are doing as something new and better, and he blew it.

To me, it’s just home teaching but under a different name, and without the impossible goal of getting into every home with a canned message. If they are going to be ripping on us about it in the same old way, it’s not that different.

I was hopeful for a change in program… now I am not so certain…

When it came out in April, my husband (executive branch secretary) mentioned introducing ministering couples to the mix in the branch presidency meeting.. to crickets…

I sent an email to our R.S. presidency, who thanked me and said they were waiting on the formation of the EQ. Actually, technically I sent an email, and had 2 follow up conversations with the R.S. president and 1 conversation with her counselor.

I found out yesterday that the R.S. president was finally meeting with the EQ president – but that our family was not listed as one of the ministering couples. She mentioned that it was normally going to be sisters going with sisters and brethren going with brethren. I requested that we not be the “normal” ones and that it would be more effective for both the ones we ministered to and to our family to be assigned together.

So I got permission from my husband to email the branch president and the EQ president directly and request that we be partnered together. I probably should have emailed them in April instead of going up the R.S. hierarchy.