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I am ecstatic that my daughter will be able to use Facebook, since she has hundreds of non-member friends who would love to communicate with her while she is on her mission and are very interested in what she is doing. There literally is NO better way for them to be exposed to the LDS Church and missions than for my daughter to be able to communicate with them while she serves. Old-Timer wrote:I am ecstatic that my daughter will be able to use Facebook, since she has hundreds of non-member friends who would love to communicate with her while she is on her mission and are very interested in what she is doing. There literally is NO better way for them to be exposed to the LDS Church and missions than for my daughter to be able to communicate with them while she serves.
I should try that thinking on and see what happens.
I like the Facebook idea. I would probably be active again if I could belong to an entirely cyber ward…and I’m not joking. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
Ann wrote:
I already admitted in the posts above that I will probably go to my grave having never invited anyone to hear the missionaries. I hope I will have lived a life of love and service. But I guess that’s not really enough?
Matthew 25 suggests you’re a ‘sheep’ not a ‘goat.’ These are they that The Lord calls the “righteous” that are promised eternal life.
So here’s my train of thought… Missionaries are now effectively ‘tracting online’ with the members taking a bigger role in teaching those found or reactivated.
Fast forward a few years, the church wants to save a few costs, and so why send these missionaries all over the world when they can ‘tele-commute’ and do the tracting from their own home computer, leaving the members in the ‘target location’ to do any face to face stuff. There are huge savings right there on transport, housing and admin costs. Or even just have ‘missionaries’ concentrated in a small number of global ‘call centres’ maybe one per major territory.
Part of me thinks this is one of the early moves in a long term, cost consolidation programme, as the church knows its numbers are falling and so it’s trying to manage this early doors so the strategy isn’t too obvious to members and so spook them.
cwald wrote:I would probably be active again if I could belong to an entirely cyber ward…and I’m not joking.
In a way, we are members of a cyber ward. I’m more active in THIS ward that I am in my home ward.i talked with my DW about the broadcast, since i am on travel…we agreed: ’twas a nonevent. i am disappointed. I will post some notes when I get a chance. There really were some gems, and some of them will be popular here. mackay11 wrote:Ann wrote:
I already admitted in the posts above that I will probably go to my grave having never invited anyone to hear the missionaries. I hope I will have lived a life of love and service. But I guess that’s not really enough?
Matthew 25 suggests you’re a ‘sheep’ not a ‘goat.’ These are they that The Lord calls the “righteous” that are promised eternal life.
I don’t know sheep/goats-wise, but I just had an occasion this week to think about missionary work and made a conscious decision to NOT do it, at least as it’s often defined. I’ve met a woman who is here from Thailand under very difficult circumstances. Her English is poor, but she was very receptive to my offer to get together, and we both really enjoyed it. She is very vulnerable. She’s lonely in a strange place. I thought about all my LDS friends I could introduce her to. I even had a church video-worthy scenario play out in my mind of her feeling such love and acceptance from the LDS acquaintances that she becomes interested in the church, etc., etc. But then I thought about what I would want. I’m looking now for other Thai people in the area because if I were in her shoes, struggling all day with a strange culture, I would want a person with whom I could relax and communicate easily, who could help me with government red tape, decisions about my kids’ schooling, etc. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that energetic “friendshipping” is always, or even often, a bad thing, but it didn’t feel right to me here. Down the road if she thinks about me in connection with the church, I hope she will know that my first concern was that she feel comfortable, strong and capable. Having someone for the elders to teach is secondary. Sometimes I don’t think the church likes that ordering.
mackay11 wrote:Ann wrote:I already admitted in the posts above that I will probably go to my grave having never invited anyone to hear the missionaries. I hope I will have lived a life of love and service. But
I guess that’s not really enough?Matthew 25 suggests
you’re a ‘sheep’ not a ‘goat.’ These are they that The Lord calls the “righteous”that are promised eternal life. This idea of a final judgment is all the more reason to not feel compelled to interpret scriptures literally in my opinion. The threat of everlasting fire sounds a little hokey for my taste to the point that it just doesn’t scare me at all. But, to be fair, the Bible makes it sound like it is not up to the sheep to judge and try to separate themselves and other sheep from the goats in their everyday lives but that it was more like the shepherd that actually knows what he is doing and why would sort all this out at some point down the road. More importantly, the specific criteria given for the distinction between the two was basically how we treat people, not how zealous we are about strictly obeying a long list of rules and routines and worrying about whether others around us are doing the same or not.
Like Jesus said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40). So I don’t see why we should go from that to the current missionary approach of telling other Christians that could already be applying this general idea just as well if not better than many average practicing Mormons that what they already believe is not good enough because they need to repent of things like coffee and beer and their baptisms supposedly don’t count over some arbitrary formalities. Is that really a very nice way to treat people? Not remotely in my book. In many cases, rather than helping people out the current gospel according to the LDS Church will only make many members lives more difficult and complicated the more attention and effort they put into it. That’s what many Church leaders don’t seem to understand very well, sometimes less is more.
I feel like it is rude and arrogant to assume you know so much as to tell people what the right way to live is. I would never suggest somebody change their lifestyle or religion just because I have. I disagree with the entire missionary program and feel we should have a “we are here if you decide you are interested” approach. More like a customer service vs telemarketing or website vs spam email type distinction. Yup, I think that’s part of the reason I’ve become so stressed when missionary work comes up historically. Probably also the reason I had a pretty low baptism rate on my mission too. I’m not one to superimpose my beliefs on people. Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
Brown, I have said on more than one occasion that if we (the church membership) truly established Zion (one heart and mind and no poor among us), we wouldn’t have to do traditional missionary work and could leave it to the full-time missionaries who could do nothing but teach, and I really believe that – but, interestingly, we still would get intense criticism, since many people would say we would be getting new members strictly for the socio-economic benefits. Also, historically, it’s hard to be a Christian denomination and not take seriously the final words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels regarding preaching the Gospel to all.
I’m not a fan at all of missionary work programs and challenges for regular members. However, I also am not a fan at all of being a good example and never mentioning religion. There are lots of people who are blessed tremendously by traditional belief and membership and by being members of the LDS Church, and I am not about to take that away from them just because that view doesn’t work for me. I believe in “sharing the Gospel” (which, for me, is centered on the “social Gospel” and “the establishment of Zion”) over “doing missionary work” – but I also believe there is an important place for “doing missionary work”.
I actually like that the focus in the meeting wasn’t on members “preaching” but rather on loving and serving. That’s the correct foundation, imo.
I thought this was an interesting quote from “Have You Been Saved?” – (Ensign, May, 1998): Quote:Church leaders are often asked why use their limited missionary force to preach to those who already accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. Responding to a leader of the Orthodox church in a former Eastern bloc country who asked that question, Elders Nelson and Oaks replied, “We preach to believers as well as unbelievers because our message, the restored gospel, makes an important addition to the knowledge, happiness and peace of all mankind. As a matter of practicality, we preach to believers as well as unbelievers because we cannot tell the difference.”
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