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All wards were instructed to use the second hour of church this 5th Sunday to discuss missionary work ( https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/share/fifthSundayDiscussion Back in April I winced as Nelson resurrected the idea that all young men have a priesthood responsibility to serve a mission. I knew what impact the talk would have the instant he gave it.
The idea that a mission is a responsibility for young men is nothing new, it has been around a very long time. I was hoping it was one of those teachings that fell by the wayside like so many other church teachings. I was hoping it was another case where the church took a new direction and rather than set the record straight, they’d quietly stop repeating it and hope that people would just forget. Not so.
Nelson also implied that missions for young men are not optional by stating that missions are optional for young women. It’s right there in the lesson materials:
Quote:Help each young man prepare for and serve a mission, and help each young woman who desires to prepare for and serve a mission.
The word “desire” is only used in reference to the young woman. The agency of the young man is immaterial.
It was a tough meeting to sit through. We coerced young men to serve a mission. We attempted to employ the service of young women to apply pressure on young men to serve missions. We randomly called on young men in the ward to list ways in which they were preparing to serve a mission.
What is the young man that doesn’t want to serve a mission to do? Stay and feel guilty? Stay and be harassed? Stay and feel like a second class member? Or just leave. Leave the toxic environment we’ve created for him?
The video clips of leaders that were shared made me feel like the leaders of the church are in desperation mode. They’re obviously faced with the challenge of a decline in membership and their short-sighted, selfish approach is to apply pressure and enlist others to apply pressure to get more kids serving missions.
I wonder if they put any thought whatsoever into the negative ramifications of their decision?
I’m still angry about this meeting.
Yeah…. Today I learned I have not fully overcome the trauma of my mission experience. As everyone was going around the room talking about how non-optional missions are and sharing the blessings and wonderful experiences of missionary service, I really wanted to say something but didn’t.
Then after the lesson a member came up to me and asked how I was doing; I must have been visibly upset. And at that point I actually just broke down crying. Yikes. I thought after being home for over 5 years I had finally gotten over this, but apparently not.
Well, the stake president was visiting today and I ended up in a meeting after church with the bishop and stake president explaining to them why my mission was so horrible to cause me to have an emotional breakdown during second hour. And that got into how I lost my testimony and everything. So I’m sure I’m a project now.
But yeah, this takes the cake for my worst experience ever with a lesson.
I don’t agree with it being “mandatory”. I think a truly enlightened organization will focus on people who are willing. I also think a mission can be a terrible experience for people with certain personalities. I have spent a lot of time studying personality theory, and there are definitely types of personalities suitable to “influencing” others — as you must do as a missionary. People who don’t get a charge out of influencing other people find it difficult. I personally have a problem with rejection. I tend to take it personally. Sometimes I even feel angry inside when people are dismissive. I found the selling part of being a missionary REALLY HARD and I didn’t enjoy it.
I am personally not sad my son has elected not to serve a mission. It doesn’t fit his personality at all, and I’m not convinced he would be good at it or that he would enjoy it.
So, going back to the thread subject, some people are naturally inclined to be missionaries. Others are not. Some will flourish on a mission, others may even find it hurts their testimony. It’s too bad we are preaching that it’s mandatory.
But let’s backtrack — at one time it was “every worthy young man should serve a mission”. I heard a while ago they “raised the bar” — meaning people with certain moral problems, repented of in the past, and people with mental problems were no longer encouraged to serve a mission. Where there any limits placed on who should serve a mission in the 5th Sunday lesson you added @nibbler ?
Nibbler, thank you for sharing the post. I had no idea about the worldwide discussion. I’ve scanned it briefly. In my understanding, since the church is a missionary church, more often than not, the church leaders, particularly the General Authorities, have stressed for young men to serve missions so strongly, a bit excessively, if you ask me. For young men, the other reason I believe has to do with males holding the priesthood. There’s debate within the church about females holding the priesthood, but they’re much more restricted with how they exercise it than the men are. How the young men and the wards deal with not serving missions, I believe, has to do with how the young men and wards interpret serving or not serving missions. Leadership roulette, obviously.
For instance, I didn’t serve at 19. I just wasn’t ready and had no desire to go. It wasn’t until I was going through a spiritual conversion that I decided to go when I was 20. Anyway, I talked to two adult friends that liked a lot about whether to go or not. I asked one of my adult friends who had a son a year or two younger than me if I had to go or not. He, being a convert from his 20s, was more stern with the missions and told me I had to go because I couldn’t live in the celestial kingdom if I didn’t. However, he wasn’t able to serve because he got married to his wife in his 20s. Now, with my other friend. My other adult friend was a little younger than him, but served a faithful mission. He was more lenient with serving. I asked him about that decision and told him what my other had told me. He said that I still had the choice to serve or not and that missions can help prepare you for the celestial kingdom.
I’m grateful that I did serve my mission and was able to, even with OCD, an anxiety disorder, and being Autistic (now they call that Autistic Spectrum Disorder), but some people with those conditions aren’t able to serve. But then many people can’t serve for a lot of reasons.
I’ve seen young men from my ward and I have a friend who hasn’t served, and, as far as can see, they aren’t dealing with guilt at this moment in time and my ward and my friend’s ward seem to respect his decision.
That’s my understanding of serving full-time missions. And, of course, when leadership in the church changes again, we’ll probably see some leaders that won’t emphasize it so much or push young men into serving so much.
SilentDawning wrote:
Where there any limits placed on who should serve a mission in the 5th Sunday lesson you added @nibbler ?
There was no talk about circumstances that would excuse young men from serving a mission. I could and should have safely made a comment along those lines but I was not in the right frame of mind to even think of that as an option. I was far too caught up in just how dangerous I felt Nelson’s general conference comments were.
You have to go all the way back to January 2008 before finding a member of the first presidency of the church that served a mission as a youth (GBH). Something to consider when leaders are creating a culture that’s putting the squeeze on our youth.
In my ward there were a few people who it seemed tried to move the discussion in a healthier direction, but kind of got shut down. One woman I guess is a therapist who has worked with youth, and was concerned about them feeling like they have to check certain boxes. Another mentioned that mental health should be part of preparation to serve a mission. Someone mentioned about still loving children who do not want to serve a mission, but then other people starting throwing in the whole “love them but don’t accept their decision” angle and how you’re in the wrong if you don’t keep pushing them to serve. There was a LOT of talk about “priesthood duty” and how no young man is exempt from serving, especially with the option of service missions.
This lesson was weird. I’m used to lessons like this trying to inspire people to serve missions or go to the temple, but today’s lesson felt a lot more like coercion. Like “serve a mission or else”.
I led the discussion in our ward. I was asked last night. We played the videos, one at a time, and talked about each one after it played. I had not seen the videos, so it was impromptu.
I stressed Pres. Nelson’s statement that those who CAN serve should serve, that there are service missions of many kinds available, that we should serve if we want to do so, that I have seen too many people serve who didn’t want to be there and have seen the damage it caused, and that I don’t believe in a God who will punish people for not doing what they can’t do.
I talked about how hard my missions was (with specific examples), about my brother who went and came home early (and the impact on him due to being judged for it), and my input as a mental health counselor. I mentioned my family being too poor to pay for my mission and the ward members contributing so I could go.
After each video and my initial comments, I asked for any input from the other members. We had some very good comments about alternative options, how difficult missions can be, and how each person should decide how they serve.
I wrapped things up by talking about the difference between “doing missionary work” and “sharing the Gospel” (the final video about “love, share, invite”) – especially how it is more important to create “Zion” (a loving place, non-judgmental place where people want to be regardless of if they ever join the Church) than to focus on “converting people”.
I think it went well – and there was a member of the Stake Presidency visiting.
The best part of the meeting for me, and my wife, was a brother who said he hadn’t wanted to go on a mission when he turned 19 and waited until he chose on his own to go. He said if he had gone out of a sense of duty when he didn’t want to go, his difficult experiences (in multiple ways, with various people, including other missionaries and mission leaders) would have broken him and driven him out of the Church. He said, essentially, “Don’t go because you feel you have to go. Go when you feel you want to go – and realize it might be the hardest experience in your entire life.”
nibbler wrote:
All wards were instructed to use the second hour of church this 5th Sunday to discuss missionary work (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/share/fifthSundayDiscussion I wonder if they put any thought whatsoever into the negative ramifications of their decision?
I’m guessing they think very carefully about this and have determined that this approach produces the best result, and everything else is an acceptable loss.
This is one of my faith crisis epiphanies. Acceptable losses are for wars and a few other arenas. The gospel is supposed to be about “the one.” And to see the church seemingly unconcerned with the one is hard. Minimizing the one so the church can grow. There needs to be a clearer statement about each young man’s responsibility/opportunity to take everything into consideration and make a decision about a mission.
I get where it comes from. It’s safe to say that more men in the church will call their missions a positive in their lives than those who don’t. But there needs to be no shame in not going.
I just wrote all that, but can imagine a lot of men saying, Wow, if I had felt I had any real choice , I wouldn’t have gone. But it was expected of me…and now I’m glad I went.
Everything is so different in the internet age. It has empowered each “one.” Return missionaries who had horrible experiences can talk about it. For better or worse, the sense of distance and isolation on a mission is changing.
Once I figured out the acceptable losses aren’t really God’s way — in spite of how we talk about the kingdom rolling forth – things became more clear to me. When the kingdom is crushing a certain number of people to accomplish its goals, it’s just an organization maintaining power, and not Christ’s church.
I don’t think leaders are rubbing their hands with glee, completely unsympathetic to individuals. But it’s not the old days. [Coming back immediately to edit!] I think they just operate on the assumption that the best way for the bulk of men to have a good mission is to require it of all men.
This is a really sore spot for me. The sorest actually. If there is one thing, more than any other, that makes it hard for me to stay LDS, it is exactly this. Much like Arrakeen, I found out that I am not over my traumatic mission experiences as much as I thought I was. Hearing the messages (the exact same message was in the single sacrament meeting talk as well) made my blood boil hotter than it has in a long time. Many times in both meetings, I bit my tongue to keep from retorting out loud. Growing up in the church, I heard the same message of “go on a mission” my entire life. The church being the community I grew up in and it being such a huge part of my identity, I never even conceived the thought that there was an option to not go. Now, I never had any desire to go. But of course that didn’t matter. It was expected of me and so off I went. I’ll spare the messy details, suffice it to say my mental health took a horrific beating and I was one step shy of suicidal.
The immense social pressure that caused me to wade into what was the most spiritually and emotionally damaging experience of my life thus far, is exactly what we were just told to do to the next generation of young men today. If someone genuinely wants to serve a mission, wonderful. More power to them and I support them all the way. But it is despicable to try and press every single young man, regardless of whether they want to or not, into service.
When I did end up coming home early for mental health reasons, my MP advised me to simply tell people that I had served my mission and to not mention my early departure. Because unfortunately, the social ramifications of choosing to not go, or leaving early, are real in this church. Those who do not go are viewed by many as lesser members.
My brother-in-law, for example, had his girlfriend at the time break up with him when he decided not to serve. Only an RM would be good enough for her. Since then, he’s found someone else. Though his fiance’s parents do not approve of him for the same reason. Thankfully, he found a girl who loves him for being him and doesn’t care that he wasn’t a religious salesman for two years.
I could rant on much longer, but I’ll leave it for now by saying that a very sensitive nerve was touched, and I am also still angry about it.
I joined the church my senior year of college. When I graduated, I was in debt & couldn’t consider going on a mission. Later on, my DW & I served as Stake Missionaries. I also served as a stake seventy. Both positions in the church were
very rewarding. We met a lot of nice, interesting people (some joined the church, others did not) & we could serve together.
The thing that has come to mind is, I always felt that our service was “less than” from serving full time missions.
It looks like things haven’t changed much. In a number of ways, we were more successful than if we had served FT missions.
I did not attend, but I was aware this was on the agenda. Even if I were attending I likely would have skipped this because the whole idea rubs me the wrong way on several levels. A couple of mentioned in this thread that they’ve recognized they are not yet over the trauma of their missions. It’s been almost 40 years for me and I am also not over that trauma yet. Trauma can be like that.
I received a text message from our ministering brother that is also in the bishopric. Quote:The stake YM presidency sent the following message for Aaronic priesthood holders. Could you please have your son come prepared for this tomorrow?
“If you could please take some time this Sunday to have the young men think of questions they might have for current missionaries and/or missionaries who just got home. Have them think of questions they might have in regards to their own preparation for a mission as well as hurdles they might be encountering.”
We did not end up attending because we were invited to a BBQ by some friends. DS has ASD (autism spectrum disorder) and DW and I would have serious reservations about him serving a traditional proselyting mission. I do think that we could explore a service mission.
PazamaManX wrote:
When I did end up coming home early for mental health reasons, my MP advised me to simply tell people that I had served my mission and to not mention my early departure. Because unfortunately, the social ramifications of choosing to not go, or leaving early, are real in this church. Those who do not go are viewed by many as lesser members.
This is not unusual advice. I remember seeing a clip from an apostle (Holland?) encouraging those that return home early to just withhold that information. When the topic turns to missionary service, just say that you served in X location. I felt that this was interesting because it is recommending a form of dishonesty by giving people a false impression by not disclosing.
PazamaManX wrote:
My brother-in-law, for example, had his girlfriend at the time break up with him when he decided not to serve. Only an RM would be good enough for her.
Yes! The church has encouraged women to apply this sort of pressure on the men for a long time. Perhaps the biggest “chip” that the church has in pressuring men to serve missions is that the men will not be considered full marriage material without serving.
What I found more interesting was when Elder Holland heard that some men were saying that they only wanted to date and marry female RM’s and he came out forcefully against that trend. This struck me as odd. If some men wanted a partner with the growth and life experience and proof of dedication to the gospel and the church that missionary service is supposed to provide then why should that matter to Elder Holland?
From the YSA FAce to Face event in 2016
Quote:“I was in the missionary executive counsel with President Russell Nelson when we wrestled through this issue to lower the age to 18 for young men and 19 for young women. And indelibly imprinted on my soul forever was President Thomas Spencer Monson thumping the table, pointing a finger, declaring what we would and would not do on this. He was very supportive. You remember that announcement; I mean that electric moment when he announced that in general conference, but more privately he had said, and of course he said it publicly too, but this was in the formative period of the policy. He was adamant that we were not going to create a second class citizenship for young women who did not serve a mission.
“
We lean on the young men to go as much as we can; we’re pretty straight forward about that. We do an arm twist and a knee pull and go for the jugular on the men. But even there, let me be serious, if a young man doesn’t go, that does not preclude him from our association and admiration and his priesthood service and his loyalty and love of the Lord in the future in the Church. That ought to be true for young men as well as young women, but adamantly for young women. “President Monson never intended for all the young women in the Church to go on missions by dropping that age. We’re very grateful for those that go. It’s changed the face of the Church. It’s going to continue to change the face of the Church. We went from something like 8 or 10 or 12 percent to 30 or 35 percent of the missionary force of the Church being young women and everybody knows that a sister is twice as effective as three elders. But we do not want anyone feeling inadequate or left out or undignified or tarnished because she did not choose to serve a mission. We’re a little irritated with young men who say, ‘I’m not going to date you because you didn’t serve a mission…. … We do not want that type of climate over dating or marriages or who is really faithful in the Church or isn’t. Those are decisions we all make.”
Bolding mine. In an effort at full disclosure, Elder Holland’s comment that follows the bolded section “let me be serious” indicates that he was speaking somewhat humorously and poking a little fun at the pressure that the church puts on YM to be missionaries. I share it only to demonstrate the top leadership is very much aware of the pressure tactics that they use on the YM and that they are sensitive to the idea that some of this same pressure might be directed towards the YW.I assume getting kids to serve missions will be a focus for a while. If they have a lesson similar to this in the future, what’s a constructive thing you could raise your hand and say to help the kids that are on the receiving end of this Satan’s plan approach to mission work? For instance, being a missionary may be a priesthood “obligation” but there are many more ways to do missionary work other than serving a fulltime mission.
I think we also make the mistake in assuming that being a missionary means selling people on the church. Mission work could and should be selling Christ’s teachings. In that respect, an obligation to do missionary work may be as simple as doing a small act of service for someone.
Neither of these is what church leaders mean by an obligation, otherwise they wouldn’t exempt women, but it could be a soft start to a conversation.
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