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Hello, everyone! Right now I’m going through some tough times. I’m a sophomore at BYU. I’m planning on doing one more semester before I leave for my mission. The problem is that I’ve realized that if I’m nowhere near ready to going. One problem is that I’ve gotten to a place in my beliefs where I’m more heterodox than everyone I know personally (though probably more orthodox than a lot of you). I’m pretty sure that my beliefs won’t be a problem in getting into the mission, but I’m worried about feeling like I fit in even less than I do now and that it will cause problems with zealous companions or mission presidents. My biggest problem, though, is that I feel like I’m spiritually dead right now. I’ve had some wonderful spiritual experiences in the past and I’m not doubting the testimony that I’ve got, but for a long time I’ve engaged Mormonism mainly in an intellectual way (I’m a history major and love philosophy, so I’ve thought a lot about church history and theology). I’ve come to realize that this isn’t satisfying me and that I need to engage with my religion in a more emotional and spiritual way than I have in the past. Anyways, my fear is that if I don’t figure things out I’ll feel like a hypocrite on my mission and that I may eventually just lose my enthusiasm for the gospel and become inactive. So, I’d appreciate any advice on how to fit into the church and mission as someone who is unorthodox and how to find spiritual meaning in the church. Thanks!
Mapman, thank you for the Intro. Even though we teach & baptise investigators into the church, we first convert them to Jesus Christ. For me, he is the focus of missionary work. Everything else is secondary.
If I were in your place, I would find: what brings me close to JC? Then do that. In the process, you should be able to find the answers you’re
look for. Realize that you will have to present the orthodox position in every lesson you give.
Keep us informed of your progress. I wish you the best.
Mike from Milton.
Welcome. I hope we can help in some way – and I hope we can learn from you in some way. 1) If you can answer “properly” (just Yes or No, essentially) to the temple recommend questions, you can serve a mission without worrying about being deceptive or dishonest in any way. Heterodoxy shouldn’t disqualify anyone from serving a mission, as long as you can teach what’s in Preach My Gospel and be comfortable doing it.
2) There is a HUGE difference between teaching and testifying. You can teach what’s in Preach My Gospel and testify only of those things about which you feel comfortable testifying. You can say, “I know” or “I believe” or even “I have faith in / hope” – whichever you feel best reflects your own feelings.
3) You need to decide whether or not to serve, but you don’t need to choose not to serve over anything I read in your post. There’s nothing in it that would lead me to tell you not to serve, if that is what you want to do.
I served my mission as a firmly heterodox member in many ways. It was brutally hard, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. I grew SO much while I was serving, in SO many ways. I just had to be comfortable doing the best I could to be the best “I am” I could be. I couldn’t change who I was or how I saw / understood things – but I could use words that my companions and investigators could understand, even if I wouldn’t phrase things exactly the same way here in this group. I was fine teaching “the basics” – and teaching the literal version of them as the default. I taught the figurative version when I felt inspired to do so, with specific investigators – but I taught “by the book” as a rule.
This is your decision, but please don’t choose not to go just because you feel you aren’t like everyone else. Somebody probably needs to be taught by YOU because of your own peculiarity. At least, that was my own experience on my mission. I connected personally and uniquely with at least three investigators – and that was enough for me to accept my own assignment as inspired.
mapman wrote:Hello, everyone! Right now I’m going through some tough times. I’m a sophomore at BYU. I’m planning on doing one more semester before I leave for my mission. The problem is that I’ve realized that if I’m nowhere near ready to going. One problem is that I’ve gotten to a place in my beliefs where I’m more heterodox than everyone I know personally (though probably more orthodox than a lot of you). I’m pretty sure that my beliefs won’t be a problem in getting into the mission, but I’m worried about feeling like I fit in even less than I do now and that it will cause problems with zealous companions or mission presidents. My biggest problem, though, is that I feel like I’m spiritually dead right now. I’ve had some wonderful spiritual experiences in the past and I’m not doubting the testimony that I’ve got, but for a long time I’ve engaged Mormonism mainly in an intellectual way (I’m a history major and love philosophy, so I’ve thought a lot about church history and theology). I’ve come to realize that this isn’t satisfying me and that I need to engage with my religion in a more emotional and spiritual way than I have in the past. Anyways, my fear is that if I don’t figure things out I’ll feel like a hypocrite on my mission and that I may eventually just lose my enthusiasm for the gospel and become inactive.
So, I’d appreciate any advice on how to fit into the church and mission as someone who is unorthodox and how to find spiritual meaning in the church. Thanks!
Mapman,I really respect & admire your concern about this. That says a lot about you & your integrity & the love & responsibility you feel!
The church isn’t perfect… & if you take the logical (philosophical) approach only, then the imperfections might seem to overweigh the positives.
Life is illusion… & what makes life meaningful is “functional illusions” (as another poster wrote).
Philosopher Paul Tillich explained that if we’re really honest, our god is that which we worship, what we feel most passionate about – our ultimate concern.
IMO, very few people seem to truly have God (who is love) as their ultimate concern.
Many try to put the church as if it’s God… & worship the church over God… but the church is made up of imperfect people.
And as it says in Moroni… all things will fail, except charity, which is the pure love of Christ (God is love).
Love is hoping & striving for what’s best, through trial & error (active faith). It’s courage to act when needed & serenity when it’s beyond your power.
If you can live this higher love on your mission through word & especially action… you will be an awesome missionary!
It really doesn’t matter so much what church is “true.”
They’re all true to an extent… as much as it “functionally” works in healthy ways for someone.
Yet, IMO, the LDS church (despite it’s flaws) is probably the best, in helping many (not all) people in meaningful ways.
I hope & pray that more members & missionaries will embrace this idea of higher love (even above prophets & laws – Matt 22:40).
I really don’t have anything to add here. I’ll just echo what featherina said with enthusiasm. Hey mapman, you the same mapman from MDDB? Welcome to staylds. I think you will find these folks very much understanding.
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If you’re looking for unorthodox, accepting, philosophical, intellectual people who feel they are outliers on the cartesian coordinate system of Mormonism then you’ve come to the right place. You sound a bit like you worry a bit — based on your last sentence of what you are afraid of…remember what one person said:
“Who says there is no value in worrying? The things I worry about never happen!!!”.
A double-edged comment, but the message is that the majority of things we worry about don’t happen at all. It wouldn’t surprise me if your concerns fall into that category, simply based on the probabilities and my life experience.
If all you are after is more spiritual emotion, then I think steeping yourself in the LDS experience and your mission zone/district meetings will likely be more than enough….they are good at that.
SD
I was still pretty orthodox when I went on my mission, but I definitely did not fit into the mission culture. I never liked pushing truth claims, I hated the teaching format of “teach, testify, and commit” and generally ignored it. They train you to testify after each point you teach, but that felt so phony and cheesy to me that I just skipped it. I took a much more intellectual approach to teaching. Despite being different, I had very few problems with any other missionaries. I think you’ll find that being slightly heterodox may be to your advantage. You may be able to connect with a lot of investigators in a way that the cookie-cutter missionaries couldn’t. Especially the ones with harder questions who are sick of hearing the cop out phrase, “I don’t know the answer to that, but I know the church is true”. leavingthecave25 wrote:… I think you’ll find that being slightly heterodox may be to your advantage. You may be able to connect with a lot of investigators in a way that the cookie-cutter missionaries couldn’t. Especially the ones with harder questions who are sick of hearing the cop out phrase, “I don’t know the answer to that, but I know the church is true”.
Great point!
leavingthecave25 wrote:
Quote:… I think you’ll find that being slightly heterodox may be to your advantage. You may be able to connect with a lot of investigators in a way that the cookie-cutter missionaries couldn’t. Especially the ones with harder questions who are sick of hearing the cop out phrase, “I don’t know the answer to that, but I know the church is true”.
I want to echo that point to in my own unofficial missionary experince.
I knew over a dozen people from work and friendships that had questions about the church, when they had more then a few I just told them to call the church and set up a missionary appointment because I was seeking the truth in other churches at the time I should have gone on my mission, I wasn’t formally trained.
They saw the missionaries but wouldn’t go past a couple discousions because they felt they were talking to trained PR sales people. That’s just how they felt and they didn’t connect with them, they felt they were fake.
In the end they turned to me again to answer questions because we had a history of trust and I always brought evidence in what ever our discussions were to show they weren’t baseless.
In the end some of them did and some of them didn’t join. But they all told me it I felt unrehearsed and more real and honest to them.
So in my experience people really love genuine unrehearsed people no bs people when talking about matters of importance.
Connecting in ways that are meaningful to them does wonders.
mapman wrote:…My biggest problem, though, is that I feel like I’m spiritually dead right now. I’ve had some wonderful spiritual experiences in the past and I’m not doubting the testimony that I’ve got, but for a long time I’ve engaged Mormonism mainly in an intellectual way (I’m a history major and love philosophy, so I’ve thought a lot about church history and theology). I’ve come to realize that this isn’t satisfying me and that I need to engage with my religion in a more emotional and spiritual way than I have in the past.
How were you approaching Mormonism in the past when you had wonderful spiritual experiences? If different from how you approach it now, can you do more of what you did previously so get that spiritual connection again? Since you are preparing to go on a mission, would it help to focus more on the basics like scripture study and prayer?mapman wrote:Anyways, my fear is that if I don’t figure things out I’ll feel like a hypocrite on my mission and that I may eventually just lose my enthusiasm for the gospel and become inactive.
Whether it is on a mission, or a member of the ward…my guess is you’ll need to work through those thoughts eventually.I actually believe some liberal thinking missionaries have a special place in finding and relating to some people who are seeking Christ but wonder if they could ever fit into Mormonism.
A missionary who is obedient, cheerful, and has a realistic view of the world can be very productive in the mission field, IMO.
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