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Ray likes to use the analogy of church changing as Water Down the Rows. It’s a good one. Today I witnessed a bit of it first hand. I serve as the ward community service rep. For me service is a “Do not your alms before Men” deal, however in the church that is a tricky position. I’ve had ward members announce that community service is a missionary opportunity. I have offended more than a few members when I have suggested it’s not. Over time I have learned to let it go on that topic. For me it’s A, for someone else it’s B. In the end lets just get the service done. Our RS Pres is a B person, missionary work is the reason for everything. My tongue bleeds when we talk in those terms. Today she and I were out doing some stuff for a service project we did. It was a cool one, but that’s all I will say right now. As we were delivering the items, she kept saying “Relief Society ladies from the Church of Jesus Christ….” I’ve become pretty chill on our differences, but I did add – “and their friends and neighbors” – because we did have a lot of non-members help.
As we left our second visit, she said, “It’s a fine line. We were just told in General Conference not to do things to be seen of men.” I instantly said, “Elder Uchtdorf, right?” She nodded. “I have to figure this one out, how do we explain who we are or people were and don’t do it to be seen.” I nearly swallowed my gum. She was the last person I would have expected to say that.
I wanted to run home and call Ray to tell him the Water is trickling over here.
:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: Thank you for sharing that. It makes my heart happy.
Yesterday our ward put on an Emergency Preparedness Fair. It was great with lots of community involvement. This was the second annual event and our three area wards take turns spearheading it.
In a coversation with the YMP before the event while we were setting up, I was told that the Bishops were going to meet after this year’s event to see if it is something that they want to keep doing.
He said that it is essentially a mission activity. I participate in several other churches with “mission activities” such as feeding the homeless, providing gently used furniture to battered women and others that are having to start over, beautifying a neighboorhood etc. I was really excited about the term “mission” being used by an LDS member in this context but alas my excitement was short lived. In the very next sentence, the YMP said that the problem was that LDS church members do a large part of the work and then the church gets lumped in with all the other sponsors for recognition. Mission activity = missionary opportunity in LDS lingo.
It is hard because I get the logic. If we have the eternal truth that everyone else needs for their salvation then every activity that we do should be geared towards helping them accept that eternal truth. What would it prosper a man to gain all the emergency preparedness skills in the world and yet lose his soul?
😈 OTOH, it seems rather presumptious, arrogant, and manipulative trying to convert everyone all the time.
Someone figured out how to make the church involvement more visible. They passed out “Mormon Helping Hands” yellow vests to all the church volunteers. From the people serving the hot dogs to the ladies doing the face painting – if they were members of the church and volunteering they were wearing a vest.
In a previous conversation I had been told that the other area churches had been invited to participate but that they had declined because “You Mormons are not Christian.” I expressed my disbelief in the story at the time because I have a hard time believing that any of the pastors that I know would be so blatantly rude. Now that I have been through the event I wonder how welcoming it might be to volunteers of other faiths. Suppose that they sponsored a booth to tell about some of the resources their church offered and staffed it with a few volunteers. I imagine that they might feel intimidated and marginalized by a sea of “Mormon Helping Hands” yellow vests.
Sometimes we are our own biggest impediment in garnering interfaith support. The ironic thing is that we seem to be largely blind to how our efforts could be percieved by others.
We Mormons are generally pretty good at not boasting of our own strength – but it is kinda open season to boast in the strength of our church.
It will take more time for the water to reach the end of this particular row.
Quote:Mission activity = missionary opportunity in LDS lingo.
That’s the problem, Roy. Most of the membership doesn’t seem to understand that there’s more to charity and compassion than converting people. Everything has to be a missionary activity. It’s so sad, really – it is, IMO, what is holding the church back from really making strides. That’s the real reason other churches in many places won’t participate with our church – they perceive our only aim as being to convert others, no matter what the activity.
Fwiw, that particular water is starting to get tot the end of many rows. I am seeing it more and more, and the Just Serve program is helping.
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