
The Law of the Harvest
Practical Principles of Effective Missionary Work
David G. Stewart, Jr., MD
©
2007. All rights reserved.
Cover Photo courtesy of
Reuben Dunn. Used with permission.
Contents
Section I. Trends in LDS Church Growth
Trends in LDS
Member Activity and Convert Retention
Evaluating Growth
and Retention
Section II. Church Growth Solutions
Principles of
Member-Missionary Work
Contextualizing
the Gospel to the Culture
Teaching Points
from the Discussions
Understanding the
Conversion Process
Achieving Full
Convert Retention
Special Cases in
Convert Retention
Understanding
Inactivity and Reactivation
Section III. Principles of Leadership
The responsibility to share the gospel is a defining obligation of
Latter-day Saint (LDS) membership. President Ezra Taft Benson taught, “As
members of the Lord’s Church, we must take missionary work more seriously. The Lord’s
commission to ‘preach the gospel to every creature’ (Mark 16:15) will never
change in our dispensation. We have been greatly blessed with the material
means, the technology, and an inspired message to bring the gospel to all men.
More is expected of us than any previous generation. Where ‘much is given much
is required’ (D&C 82:3).”[1] Elder Bruce R. McConkie stated, “If you will ponder it in your
mind, you will come up, in my judgment, with the conclusion that we could bring
immeasurably more people into the Church than we are now doing. We could
fellowship more than we are now fellowshipping; in practice this could be five
or ten or twenty times as many as we are now baptizing. Perhaps in due course
it should be 24 times or 100 times as many as at present.”[2] The productivity of LDS missionary efforts has declined in recent
years in spite of increasing but underutilized opportunities. The discrepancy
between potential and actual church growth largely reflects the discrepancy
between the Lord’s commandments and our actual performance. Sincere, dedicated
missionaries and members often experience limited success because of a lack of
understanding of essential principles.
My interest in
missionary work is lifelong. During high school, I worked summers at fast-food
restaurants to finance my mission in its entirety. By the time I entered the
Missionary Training Center (MTC), I had read the entire Book of Mormon in
Russian and had largely memorized the missionary discussions without ever
taking a formal language course. My mission in
When I
returned home, I felt that my mission was not complete. I felt an obligation to
continue to utilize these missionary principles personally and to make them
available to others. Over the past decade, I have spent many thousands of hours
of personal time making a diligent study of missionary work. I have traveled to
over twenty countries and have interviewed hundreds of missionaries and members
and numerous mission leaders, taking meticulous notes and recording hundreds of
case studies. I found that growth and retention in most areas barely scratched
the surface of the potential and sought the insight of exceptional missionaries
and leaders. I made a careful study of effective missionaries and
member-missionaries to distill common principles of success, while also
analyzing challenges in less-productive areas. Thousands of quotes relevant to
missionary work from general authorities and scripture were prayerfully
contemplated and used both as a source of insight and as a standard to assess
the validity of the many competing mission philosophies. I read dozens of books
and thousands of articles on missionary work from both LDS and non-LDS sources
for any additional bits of information or insight. Finally, I carefully
investigated the successful programs of other denominations that had achieved
faster growth and higher retention. My understanding of the principles of
missionary work today is dramatically different than when I entered the MTC and
continues to be refined by ongoing experience and research.
The publication of the Preach
My Gospel manual in September 2004 represented a major step forward for the
LDS missionary program. For the first time in the history of the standardized
missionary program, all LDS missionaries were educated about their own
essential role in ensuring convert activity through quality prebaptismal
preparation. The Preach My Gospel
program offers a greater focus on tailoring the gospel message to local culture
and to individual needs. The manual provides an excellent foundation and merits
careful study. However, overall missionary productivity has demonstrated only
modest improvement, and convert retention rates remain very low in much of the
world. In some cases, challenges remain, because the guidelines of Preach My Gospel are not consistently
followed; while in other cases, essential principles of missionary work are
still not being fully conveyed.
This book is written for an LDS audience. The inclusion of some
references from other faiths does not endorse their activities or teachings.
Other denominations lack the full gospel, modern revelation, and the divine
authority that are necessary to build Christ’s Kingdom on Earth. LDS and
non-LDS missionary efforts are not equivalent. Nonetheless, it would be a
mistake to categorically dismiss positive lessons from other groups without
careful investigation and analysis. Selected items are presented in the same
spirit that Joseph Smith proclaimed: “Have the Presbyterians any truth? Yes.
Have the Baptists, Methodists, etc., any truth? Yes. They all have a little
truth mixed with error. We should gather all the good and true principles in
the world and treasure them up, or we shall not come out true ‘Mormons.’”[3] Citations from successful evangelists of other faiths are used to
corroborate many of my longstanding observations in an LDS setting. Statistical
comparisons with other faiths are also employed, as claims of “rapid growth”
are meaningless without contextualizing benchmarks. To make comparisons as
appropriate as possible, high-commitment groups such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and
Seventh-Day Adventists are most frequently used in comparisons rather than
low-commitment Protestant and evangelical groups.
Many members
and missionaries believe that since church growth is the Lord’s work, good
results will be achieved regardless of their own effort or understanding. Poor
growth rates and low convert retention even in areas of great opportunity
demonstrate the fallacy of such beliefs. The Lord’s promises are conditional.
The Savior taught: “By hearkening to observe all the words which I, the Lord
their God, shall speak unto them, they shall never cease to prevail.… But
inasmuch as they keep not my commandments, and hearken not to observe all my
words, the kingdoms of the world shall prevail against them” (D&C 103:7–8).
Fragmentary or incomplete obedience to divine mandates has not and will not
bring forth the Lord’s full blessings.
There are many
factors that we cannot control completely which affect the way that people
respond to the gospel. However, much can be done to increase our effectiveness.
While the application of righteous principles can bring a greater degree of
success, missionaries should not compare their success or attribute success to
their own abilities. The Lord alone shall be glorified at the last day, and we
are all His servants. The Apostle Paul stated, “So then neither is he that
planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase”
(1 Corinthians 3:7).
The purpose of
this book is to help missionaries and members to bring full-time and
member-missionary efforts up to their full potential. The principles presented
here are distilled from scriptures, teachings of modern prophets, extensive
research, application, and experience. The principles described in this book
work. They are not speculations or ideas, but principles of growth that I have
repeatedly seen validated both in their presence and absence in cultural
settings around the world. Jim Rohn stated, “Success is the natural consequence
of consistently applying basic fundamentals.” If these principles are
misunderstood or neglected, missionary efforts become frustrating, inefficient,
and poorly productive, even under circumstances of great opportunity. The
application of these principles consistently results in dramatic and sustained
improvement in finding, teaching, and retaining converts for member-missionaries,
missionary companionships, wards and branches, and entire missions. The
principles in this book can dramatically improve the productivity of any
full-time missionary, member-missionary, or mission leader.
This book
includes many findings and recommendations that can be implemented by
individual members and missionaries and others that can be implemented only by
leaders. The latter findings are included for a general LDS audience, because
there is no definitive line between membership and leadership in a lay church.
Today’s missionaries are tomorrow’s ward mission leaders and mission and area
presidents. A member who teaches primary today may tomorrow find himself as a
counselor in a mission presidency or as an expatriate witness in a nation with
no established congregations. When members do not have a correct understanding
of the principles of missionary work before they receive a leadership calling,
such understanding is rarely achieved thereafter. Many excellent official
instructions on missionary work have been widely ignored by church membership,
demonstrating the need not only to instruct, but also to inform and educate,
and to do so not only from the top down, but also in a grassroots fashion. The
LDS missionary program will approach its potential only when there is
widespread understanding of the correct principles of missionary work at all
level of church membership.
Space does not
allow a comprehensive presentation of the vast number of case studies compiled
in distilling the principles found in this book. When examples are used, I have
usually tried to avoid designation of specific mission names and years which
could allow identification of individual leaders and missionaries. With rare
exceptions, I have felt that their right to anonymity outweighs any need of
mine to provide full documentation of every principle cited. Additional
documentation on specific topics is available upon request. I continue to
collect data from all sources and welcome feedback.
Although some have
disagreed with specific points without attempting to implement them, no one who
has implemented the principles here has ever reported to me results that are
less than excellent. I hope that those who may disagree with my conclusions on
some points will not overlook the abundant material presented that they can
benefit from in other areas. Individuals must assess the relevance and
applicability of the material presented to their own circumstances.
My motivation
is the burning conviction that every soul is precious and deserves the best
missionary effort possible in the interest of their eternal welfare and the
knowledge that our current performance has barely scratched the surface of the
potential. We learn from the story of Gideon (Judges 7) that small numbers of
people who do the right things can accomplish far more than much larger numbers
who do not. Even a small number of missionaries and members who prayerfully
study and implement the principles found in this book can have a major impact
on worldwide church growth. I pray that those who read and study this book will
gain an understanding of what must be done to improve our personal and
collective effectiveness as missionaries and member-missionaries, an
understanding of how to do it, and the desire and commitment to get it done.
The material
in this book is given “not … by way of commandment, but by wisdom” (D&C
28:5). I am solely responsible for the content, and any views expressed are
mine and not those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
David G. Stewart, Jr., MD
Section
I.
The rapid growth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints has been a frequent and recurring theme in the secular media. The claim
that the Church of Jesus Christ is the “world’s fastest growing church” has
been repeated in the Los Angeles Times,[4] Salt
Lake Tribune,[5] Guardian,[6] and
other media outlets,[7] while
sources claiming that the LDS Church is the “fastest growing in the United
States” are too numerous to chronicle. Sociologist Rodney Stark’s 1984
projection has been widely cited: “A 50 percent per decade growth rate, which
is actually lower than the rate each decade since World War II, will result in
over 265 million members of the Church by 2080.”[8] In Mormons in America, Claudia and Richard
Bushman claimed, “Mormonism, one of the world’s fastest-growing Christian
religions, doubles its membership every 15 years.”[9]
Latter-day
Saint media have also lauded rapid church growth. The LDS Church News has
described international LDS growth with a litany of superlatives, including
“astronomic,” “dynamic,” “miraculous,” and “spectacular.” The claim that the
A closer
examination of growth and retention data demonstrates that LDS growth trends
have been widely overstated. Annual LDS growth has progressively declined from
over 5 percent in the late 1980s to less than 3 percent from 2000 to 2005.[11] Since
1990, LDS missionaries have been challenged to double the number of baptisms,
but instead the number of baptisms per missionary has halved. During this same
period, other international missionary-oriented faiths have reported
accelerating growth, including the Seventh-Day Adventists, Southern Baptists,
Assemblies of God, and Evangelical (5.6 percent annual growth)[12] and
Pentecostal churches (7.3 percent annual growth). For 2004, 241,239 LDS convert
baptisms were reported, the lowest number of converts since 1987. The number of
convert baptisms increased to 272,845 in 2006, but both missionary productivity
and the total number of baptisms remained well below the levels of the early
1990s. Even more cause for concern is
the fact that little of the growth that occurs is real: while nearly 80 percent
of LDS convert baptisms occur outside of the
A correct
understanding of actual church growth, member activity, and convert retention
is essential to effective missionary work. Statistics can provide benchmarks
showing where we are now and where we have been. Most importantly, good data
can help to identify areas where improvement is needed. While recognition alone
does not guarantee progress, it is impossible to achieve meaningful improvement
without awareness of present reality. Inflated claims that the
Declining LDS
growth rates and continued low convert retention give us cause to reevaluate
our programs and approaches to learn what has gone wrong with the harvest. Rationalizations
for slow growth belie the fact that church growth has fallen far short of the
potential in an age of unprecedented opportunities and receptivity. While there
are significant external challenges, much of the key to improved church growth lies
in the need for better planning, improved methodologies, wider outreach, more
meaningful prebaptismal preparation, and better research and education.
Those whose
faith is grounded in a true testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ and His restored
Gospel will welcome data and objective analysis related to church growth. We
must be able to distinguish between the perfect teachings of Christ and His
prophets and the actual behaviors exhibited by members who are sometimes not so
perfect. The restored gospel of Jesus Christ is true, and sociologic membership
and growth data are a reflection of our faithfulness in implementing gospel
principles. The doctrines of the gospel are not on trial. We are on trial for
how we respond to the gospel directives given by ancient and modern prophets.
My intent is similar to that of George Barna when he wrote, “You cannot enjoy
things unless you have a benchmark that shows how you’ve succeeded, and you
cannot improve things unless you know how far and in what direction you need to
go. I try to give people an accurate understanding of where things are and what
the opportunities for growth are. I’m not asking people to like what the
research shows, only to understand it and deal with it intelligently.”[13]
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is growing faster
than many large Christian faiths in the
The
International Growth
The
While the
The
Rodney Stark
and Laurence Iannaccone noted: “Except for the years immediately following the
prophetic disappointment of 1975, [Jehovah’s] Witness growth has consistently
outpaced Mormon growth. In 1954, there were 7.7 Mormons per Witness publisher.
By 1994, this had been reduced to 1.9. Given that the Mormons are generally
viewed as the world’s most successful new religion and had about an 80-year
start on the Witnesses, this is an astonishing achievement.”[25] It is even more astonishing when we consider that there are far
more participating Jehovah’s Witnesses than Latter-day Saints, since Jehovah’s
Witness statistical reports consistently cite attendance rates far above
official membership, while only a fraction of nominal LDS members are active.
In 1935, there were 56,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide and 746,384 Latter-day
Saints. Since 1935, the number of active Jehovah’s Witnesses has increased more
than a hundredfold, while LDS membership has increased by a factor of twenty,
with only a fraction of those members remaining active. After more than fifteen
years of proselyting in
While still
growing faster than stagnant mainline churches, the LDS Church is one of the
slowest growing outreach-oriented Christian faiths in most of Eastern Europe,
the former USSR, and India and has one of the lowest rates of membership in
Africa. Latter-day Saints are not competing with other denominations, yet these
figures can provide a glimpse of the possibilities and a context in which to
evaluate our own growth.
Increasing
The average missionary in 1989 brought 8 people into the church,
while the mean number of annual baptisms per missionary averaged between 6.0
and 6.5 between 1985 and 1999. From 2000 to 2004, the average missionary
experienced 4.5 convert baptisms. When one accounts for actual activity and
retention rates, approximately 1.2 of the 4.5 converts baptized annually by the
typical missionary will remain active. LDS annual growth has declined from 5
percent in the late 1980s to less than 3 percent from 2000 to the present, even
though the absolute number of missionaries has considerably increased over this
period. The sharp decline in LDS growth rates occurred even at times with
record numbers of missionaries serving. This declining growth comes in spite of
unprecedented increase in opportunity. From 1990 to 2000, the
Children of Record
Bennion and Young noted, “Although Mormons reject infant baptism,
they count as members any ‘children of record’ blessed and named soon after
birth. Thus unbaptized children of members (until age eight) make up an
important share of the LDS population (about 15 percent among Americans).”[27] Demographic data contradict the popular belief that the
The increase
of children of record is not the same as a birthrate but provides the only
public indicator of LDS growth through births. The annual increase of LDS children
of record between 0.61 and 0.82 per 100 members weigh in between 28 and 37
percent of the average world birthrate of 2.18 per 100,[29] corroborating LDS activity estimates in the low thirtieth
percentiles. Per capita figures for LDS children of record relative to total
membership weigh in at 40 to 52 percent of the annual per capita birthrate in
communist China (1.57 births per 100), 50 to 68 percent of that in a stagnant
industrial nation failing to reproduce itself (France 1.168 births per 100), one-fifth
that of Pakistan (3.43 births per 100), and one-sixth to one-eighth of the
birthrate in the Gaza Strip or Mali (4.5 to 5.0 births per 100).[30] These statistics demonstrate that we are facing a crisis of low
natural LDS growth.
The category
of “baptisms of children of record” (children on membership rolls who go on to
be baptized) was dropped from LDS statistical reports after 1997. A review of
statistics from years when both figures were published demonstrates that the
number of children of record baptized is always significantly less than the
increase of children of record. The unreported discrepancy between the increase
of children of record and those that go on to baptism suggests that the crisis
of low natural LDS growth is even more severe than that suggested by children
of record statistics alone.
The Church
reported 11,315
The Decline of Natural Growth
At least three major factors have contributed to low rates of
natural LDS growth. First, fractional annual proportional increases in LDS
children of record relative to growth rates of healthy populations around the
world correlate closely with low activity rates, suggesting that a large
majority of inactive members rear their children outside of the Church.
Second, many
active international members marry outside the Church, while many others remain
unmarried. The vast majority of children in part-member homes are brought up
outside of the Church. The Encyclopedia
of Mormonism documents: “The percentage of adults in a temple marriage
varies from about 45 percent in
Finally,
birthrates have declined considerably among the core North American LDS
membership. The average active U.S. LDS family has three children, just one
more than the average non-LDS family. A fertility rate of 2.1 children per
couple is required for population replacement. With only 22 percent of Latter-day
Saints born to
U.S.
Latter-day Saints with temple marriages have higher fertility rates than those
with civil marriages, and those who attend the temple more regularly have
larger families than those who attend less regularly.[35] Dr. Heaton documented that the U.S. LDS divorce rate lags only 5
to 10 percent behind the 50 percent national average.[36] Demographic data demonstrate that fewer Latter-day Saints follow
the counsel of LDS prophets that mothers should remain at home with their
children in most cases.
Tim Heaton
reported that rates of contraceptive use between U.S. LDS and non-LDS
populations are exactly the same at 80.5 percent.[38] Dr. Robert Romney observed that at least 80 percent of young
women seen at the
The decrease from 60,850 full-time missionaries in
2001 to 51,067 in 2004 reflects both a decline in LDS natural growth, with
proportionately fewer young men and women arriving at mission age, and higher
standards under the “raising the bar” program. The decrease in children of
record provides us with a glimpse into the future of the missionary force.
While missionary numbers are expected to rebound in future years, the rate of
increase will be much slower than in the past when Latter-day Saints had larger
families. Falling LDS birthrates are therefore a primary cause not only of the
decline in children of record, but also of convert-based LDS growth. Since
approximately 80 percent of all LDS missionaries come from
Increase in Congregations as
an Indicator of Growth
Increase in congregations is one of the best indicators of church growth.
Church planter James Moss wrote: “It has long been accepted that beginning new
churches is a requirement for long-term numerical growth for a regional body.
This is a simple truth that can be born out by study after study.”[40] Protestant church planting guru C. Peter Wagner explained: “New
churches are a key to outreach. I have affirmed time and again that planting
new churches enhances evangelism. Much research has been done to confirm this.…
Lyle Schaller, who is highly regarded as perhaps the most knowledgeable person
in
Trends in LDS Congregational
Growth
Congregational growth trends are particularly important in evaluating
LDS growth, since LDS membership statistics have no obligatory correlation with
member activity, and new congregations require active, participating members to
be sustainable. From 1999 to 2004, the number of LDS wards and branches rose
from 25,793 to 26,670 (+3.4 percent), and the number of LDS stakes increased
from 2,542 to 2,665 (+4.8 percent). This represents an annual increase of 0.68
percent for wards and branches and 0.97 percent for stakes—both figures well
below world population growth rates. This finding of low increases in the
number of church units is not an isolated anomaly, but the continuation of a
pattern of declining unit growth rates over the past decade. Between 1994 and
2004, 4,838 new LDS wards and branches were organized, for an average of just
1.32 new congregations created worldwide each day. Those who insist that the
low number of new LDS units being formed is a result of policy changes
influencing unit size are uninformed: the average number of LDS members per
unit has remained relatively stable over long periods, going from 439 per unit
in 1973 to 432 in 1991 and 437 in 2001.
Growth of LDS Stakes
The 1980 Ensign
projected growth from 4,625,000 members in 1980 to 11,142,000 members in 2000
and from 1,190 stakes in 1980 to 3,600 in 2000.[42] While the number of members in 2000 came close to the projected
value, there were only 2,602 LDS stakes worldwide at the end of 2002. New
stakes of 2,410 were projected, but only 1,412 stakes were formed. Of all of
the officially reported church growth statistics, the number of stakes is the
only indicator with any obligatory relationship to actual member participation
or activity, since stakes cannot be formed without a requisite number of active
Melchizedek Priesthood holders.
The low number of
congregations and stakes being formed reflects fractional retention of
converts. President Gordon B. Hinckley noted in 1997: “Last
year there were 321,385 converts comprised of men, women, and children. This is
a large enough number, and then some, in one single year to constitute 100 new
stakes of
Congregational Growth in
Perspective
At year-end 2004, the
On paper, it would appear that the
While membership statistics imply that the
Although all three denominations experience considerable
variations in congregational size, very similar congregational attendance
averages in spite of widely different membership reporting practices validate
the concept that transdenominational sociologic and organizational principles
govern the congregational dynamics of faiths that rely heavily on lay member
participation.
Through the
application of basic church planting principles, many Protestant and
evangelical denominations have experienced exponential and sustained
international growth. The
Member Activity and Convert Retention Rates Today
The number of Latter-day
Saints who attend church, or even identify themselves as Latter-day Saints, is
a more meaningful indicator of church growth and strength than total membership
figures. While any member who attends church at least once in a quarter is
officially considered “active,” no official reports of LDS activity rates are
published. The Encyclopedia of Mormonism
notes: “Attendance at sacrament meeting varies substantially.
Sociologist Armand Mauss stated that “75 percent of
foreign [LDS] converts are not attending church within a year of conversion. In
the
Studies investigating church
growth through independent parameters document that real LDS growth is modest,
with high attrition. The CUNY American Religious Identification Survey (
Canada
The 2001 Canadian census
reported a 3.9 percent increase in self-identified LDS members from 100,700 in
1991 to 104,750 in 2001, compared to an official membership increase of 25
percent (125,000 to 156,575) from 1990 to 2000.[58]
During this same ten-year period, the number of Seventh-Day Adventists
identified on the census increased by 20.4 percent, and the Evangelical
Missionary Church increased self-identified membership by 48.4 percent. The 3.9
percent LDS increase over an entire decade represents an annual increase of
less than 0.4 percent. This is less than half of the annual Canadian growth
rate of 0.96 percent, meaning that self-identified LDS membership is losing
ground in proportion to the total Canadian population.
Only 67 percent of Canadian members identify
themselves as Latter-day Saints on the census (a significant decline from 80
percent in 1991), but this rate is remarkably high compared to the
international trends noted in other nations. Religious data on the Canadian
census come from random proportional sampling, with only one household in five
being sent the long form that included questions on religious affiliation. This
sampled data is extrapolated to the entire population and is therefore not as precise
as other national censuses that query every individual. In spite of the
limitations, the Canadian census suggests declining rates of self-identified
religious affiliation among nominal Latter-day Saints and growth rates well
below that of the overall population.
Latin America
Mexico, Brazil, and Chile,
the countries with the second, third, and fourth largest LDS populations, all
demonstrate trends of low member activity and poor convert retention. National
censuses have provided reality checks that contrast markedly with official LDS
membership figures. The Arizona Republic
reported on the 2000 Mexican census: “The current Mexican Mormon Church …
claims just under 850,000 members.… However, figures from the 2000 Mexican
census, based on self-reported data, place [self-identified] membership at
205,229.”[59]
The 24 percent LDS self-identification rate derived from a comparison of the
2000 Mexican Census to official membership data is comparable to the 25 percent
activity rate for Latin America cited in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, although religious self-identification
does not necessarily imply church activity.
The 2000 Brazilian census reported that 199,645
individuals identified the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as their
faith of preference, or 26.8 percent of the 743,182 claimed by the Church at
year-end 1999.[60]
These data harmonize with Peggy Fletcher Stack’s report: “According to several
Brazilian leaders, the LDS activity rate here is between 25 percent and 35
percent. That means for every three or four converts, only one stays.”[61]
The 2002 Chilean census reported that 103,735 Chileans
over age fifteen (0.92 percent of the population) identified themselves as
Mormons or Latter-day Saints.[62]
In spite of strong encouragement from the pulpit to LDS members to identify
their religious affiliation on the census, just fewer than 20 percent of the
520,202 individuals claimed on official LDS membership rolls identified
themselves as Latter-day Saints. Individuals under age fifteen (who were not
asked for religious affiliation) represented 25.7 percent of the Chilean
population. However, the Church has a solid base among young people who
represent the nation’s future. As for the population of youth ages fifteen to
twenty-nine, 1.1 percent identify themselves as Latter-day Saints, compared to
only 0.5 percent of the population over age 75. Brigham Young University
professor Ted Lyon, who served as a Chilean mission president and the president
of the Chilean Missionary Training Center, noted that of the nominal 535,000
Latter-day Saints in Chile, only 57,000 attend church on an average week.[63]
More Latter-day Saints attend church each week in Provo, Utah, than in the
entire nation of Chile.
The problem of inactivity reaches crisis levels across
Latin America. Deseret News religion
editor Carrie Moore wrote: “Although the church does not provide statistics on
activity rates, the number of inactive members in some areas eventually
outpaced those who were active by a substantial margin.”[64]
Brigham Young University Latin American Studies professor Mark Grover
acknowledged “a wide gap between the number of people baptized and the number
attending church.” Former Brazilian mission president Brad Shepherd observed:
“Before we arrived (in 1996) there had been a lot of youth baptized without
family support. While some of them have gone on and done great things, many
others had slipped away and retaining current members was a challenge. We spent
a lot of time working on retention and reactivation. In fact, there was time
spent every week by missionaries just devoted to that effort. The result was
kind of a mixed bag with reactivation. There were some great success stories
and others were very challenging.”[65]
Rushed baptism of inadequately prepared investigators
represents a major reason for low retention rates in Latin America. Dr. Lyon
noted that low activity rates arose at least in part because “too many people
were baptized before they had made the commitments to pay tithing or to attend
church.”[66]
John Hawkins, who has studied LDS growth in Guatemala, noted: “There has, in
the past, been this notion (among missionaries) that if they are not willing to
commit to baptism in two weeks, you drop them and keep going.… Members found
that oppressive because conversions were happening so rapidly that once the
missionaries moved on to other areas, the people they baptized were left
without a support system and the local members were overloaded trying to keep
up with all the new converts. Many simply gave up and waited to see ‘who the
good ones were’ that would come to church on their own and make a contribution
without a lot of nurturing from the congregation.”[67]
Growing awareness of low retention has led to some
changes. Deseret News Reporter Tad
Walch wrote: “In April 1999, President Hinckley visited Chile and delivered a
strong message to missionaries on their new area of focus. ‘The days are past,
the days are gone, the days are no longer here when we will baptize hundreds of
thousands of people in Chile and then they will drift away from the church,’
President Hinckley said. ‘When you begin to count those who are not active, you
are almost driven to tears over the terrible losses we have suffered in this
nation.’”[68]
Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland confirmed that combating low activity and convert
retention rates was a major goal of his assignment in Chile, stating: “Every
LDS general authority is aware of the challenges that skyrocketing church
growth has created in Latin America in the past 20 years. The list includes a large
percentage of LDS converts who initially embraced the faith and then fell away
shortly thereafter.… We know we have the baptisms. We want to make sure we have
the church growing proportionately in strength right along with it.” [69]
While overseeing Church efforts in Chile from 2002 to 2004, Elder Holland
“revised policy to insist that converts attend church three weeks in
succession” and taught missionaries to focus on building the Church rather than
simply adding numbers.[70]
He noted that these efforts have led to substantial improvement, with more
converts remaining active and greater numbers of Chileans serving missions.
Europe
European LDS activity rates
appear to have fallen well below the older 35 percent figure cited in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. In “Issues in
Writing European History and in Building the Church in Europe,” Wilfried Decoo
reported: “1996 estimated Church membership in Western Europe [is] … 347,000
members represent[ing] 0.09 percent of the total population … about one out of
four members is active. Our effective membership in Europe [including the UK
is] … about 87,000 or 0.02 percent.”[71]
The 2001 Austrian census reported 2,236 citizens who identify the LDS Church as
their faith of preference,[72]
compared to 3,917 members listed in the 2003 LDS Church Almanac at year-end
2000 (57 percent). Local members report that actual LDS activity in Austria
runs at about 43 percent, one of the highest rates in Europe. Gary Lobb wrote
that activity rates of members in large cities of Western Europe vary from 20
to 30 percent.[73]
These data correlate closely with my research gathered from traveling to twenty
nations. In 1999, LDS activity rates were reported by mission offices, local
members, and full-time missionaries as 25 percent in the Czech Republic, 28
percent in Hungary, 20 percent in Estonia, and 20 percent in Poland.
Africa
Former African mission
president Dale LeBaron noted “during the year 2000 sacrament meeting attendance
in the West Africa Area was 54 percent, second only to the Utah South Area.”[74]
The fact that an activity rate just above 50 percent ranks as the second
highest among the Church’s twenty-nine areas underscores how low activity rates
are in many other areas. How much of this high activity rate in West Africa can
be attributed to affinity for LDS teachings and how much is due to cultural
factors remains to be elucidated. The 1997 University of Michigan study on
rates of weekly church attendance worldwide found that 89 percent of
Nigerians surveyed reported attending organized religious meetings of some kind
at least weekly—the highest rate of reported church attendance in the world.[75]
The West Africa area represents the only convert-based area in the Church
reporting over 50 percent member activity today, yet this feat has been
achieved not by North American MTC-trained missionaries, but by native African
missionaries who had little or no formal missionary training until the
construction of the Ghana MTC in 2002.
LDS member retention has presented major challenges in
other regions of Africa. Reporting on a black branch in South Africa, Peggy
Fletcher Stack wrote: “Of 23 people baptized into Guguletu Branch of The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during 1997, only three were men age 18 or
older. Of these three, only one remains active in the church. The branch has
253 members on the rolls, but an average weekly attendance of about 65. Seldom
are there more than two married couples. Five married men attend regularly,
four have jobs.”[76]
She quoted Guguletu Branch President Nigel Giddey: “I do not think that the
missionaries read much beyond a few key scriptures to the potential converts or
possibly a few pages of the Book of Mormon.”
The Philippines
Brigham Young University Newsnet quoted senior missionary Dave
Brinsfield: “Out of the 49,000 converts who joined the church in 2001 and 2002
[in the Philippines], only 1,000 remain active.”[77]
He continued: “The mission was averaging 120–170 baptisms a month two years
ago, but only do around 80 now. Even if the numbers are lower, the church
members are stronger.” The retention statistic is likely misprinted, since 10
to 20 percent retention rates in the Philippines have been reported with a few
missions dipping below 10 percent, but never to 2 percent. In any case, the
article is a remarkable admission of the magnitude of the retention problem and
the inadequacy of conventional quick-baptize methods. With a focus on ensuring
that prospective converts are regularly attending church and have established
other gospel habits prior to baptism, a few missions in the Philippines have
greatly improved their convert retention rates. Many other missions have
continued accelerated baptism practices, perpetuating catastrophic rates of
convert loss.
Japan
Jiro Numano, an experienced
LDS leader in Japan and editor of a pro-LDS Japanese-language publication,
analyzed the seemingly impressive Japanese LDS membership figures published in
official sources: “Several problems are not apparent from these favorable
numbers. First, the active membership of the church is only a fraction of the
official membership. As recently as 1992, after forty-five years of post-war
missionary effort, only 20,000 members could be counted as active out of a
total membership of more than 87,000, or about 23 percent. Depending on how
strict a definition one uses of ‘active member,’ the figure could range from 15
percent active, with a strict definition, to as much as 30 percent.… I estimate
25 percent active as a realistic figure for the country in general. This means
that three-fourths of church members in Japan are inactive, having nothing to
do with the church. A second problem is the decreasing rates in recent years
both of baptisms themselves and of activity on the parts of new converts. As an
illustration, although 50,000 people were baptized from 1978 through 1990
(including some children of members), the increase in active membership was
only 10,000, with virtually no growth in Melchizedek priesthood holders. Since
1981, furthermore, attendance at sacrament meetings, priesthood meetings, and
Relief Society meetings have all remained fairly level, despite thousands of
new convert baptisms. In general, the growth in nominal membership has
outstripped the growth in activity by either men or women.”[78]
Thailand
In 2003, there were over
13,000 LDS members in Thailand, of whom approximately 2,100 (16 percent) were
active according to estimates from returned missionaries.
Australia
Of the 1991 Australian
census, Marjorie Newton observed: “While the official membership figure was
78,000 in 1991, the Australian census that year showed only 38,372 Latter-day
Saints. A letter from the area presidency urging members to respond to the
voluntary census question on religious affiliation was read in every ward
sacrament meeting before the census, making it unlikely that many active
Latter-day Saints would have refused to answer. When we consider that the
census figure also includes those of the 4,000 RLDS members who responded (the
Australian Bureau of Statistics does not distinguish between the two churches),
the conclusion seems inescapable that well over half the nominal Mormons in
Australia no longer regard themselves as Latter-day Saints.”[79]
The 1996 Australian census (which did distinguish between the LDS and
RLDS churches) showed that 42,158 individuals identified themselves as members
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,[80]
compared to 87,000 official members at year-end 1995. The LDS Church statistics
show 102,773 Australian members at year-end 2001, while 48,775
individuals reported LDS affiliation in the 2001 Australian census (47 percent
of official membership).
New Zealand
From 1991 to 2001, New
Zealand LDS membership statistics demonstrated an 18.6 percent increase from
77,000 (year-end 1991) to 91,373 (year-end 2001). Over this same period, the
number of individuals identifying themselves as Latter-day Saints or Mormons on
the official New Zealand Census fell from 48,009 in 1991 to 41,166 in 1996 and
39,915 in 2001.[81]
Almost all regions of the country showed this decline. Religious groups such as
Pentecostals show census increases during this same period. As the 2001 survey
allowed individuals to specify up to four religious affiliations and those
reporting multiple affiliations were counted in each group, it is unlikely that
any significant number of individuals identifying themselves as Latter-day
Saints were not counted. The significant decline in the percentage of
individuals on LDS membership rolls reporting religious affiliation with the LDS
Church from 62 percent in 1991 to 43.7 percent in 2001 suggests that the Church
accumulated many nominal members, but retained very few, and may even have
experienced a net loss of previously active members to other faith communities.
Address Unknown File
The LDS address unknown file
or “lost address file” consists of church members who cannot be located. In
Utah, the “address unknown file” consists of 180,000 names, or 10 percent of
LDS membership in the state.[82]
Approximately 50,000 individuals in Utah are added to the lost address file
each year. Ninety percent of those are found within the next year, while those
on the list longer than one year (and located less frequently) constitute over
70 percent of lost address file members. Ted Lyon reported that 200,000 of the
535,000 nominal members in Chile—over 37 percent—are in the “lost address”
file.[83]
With over 380,000 lost address file members between Utah and Chile alone, the
total number of LDS lost address file members is unlikely to be much less than
2 million.
Elder Merrill Bateman agreed
that many of the members on the “lost address file” list are less-active,
especially those on the list for more than twelve months.[84]
Individuals in the address unknown file are counted as full members and
included on statistical reports until the age of 110 or until proof of death
can be located. With an average life expectancy of 77.5 years in the United
States and significantly less in many developing nations, the address unknown
file may result in an overcount of LDS membership. Since lost address file
members are not included on unit rolls, activity calculations based on
congregational attendance rates may significantly overestimate LDS activity.
Double Affiliation
The phenomenon of double
affiliation presents researchers with a major difficulty in determining the
true religious makeup of each nation.[85]
Double affiliation is when the same individual is claimed as an adherent by
more than one religious group. This implies that some faiths claim as members
many individuals who express preferences for other denominations. If the raw
membership statistics reported by each faith were taken at face value, the
summed value in many cases would be greater than the nation’s population.
The international LDS population has an especially
high rate of “double affiliation,” because the majority of members claimed by
the Church express other religious preferences, as census data demonstrate.
Nations like Tonga and Western Samoa with the world’s highest rates of LDS
membership (42 percent and 28 percent of population, respectively) have some of
the world’s highest rates of double religious affiliation (21 percent and 24
percent of the population, respectively), due mainly to the large number of LDS
converts who return to their former denominations and beliefs without ever
having experienced meaningful LDS activity.[86]
In the United States, where Latter-day Saints constitute approximately 2
percent of the population, the double affiliation rate is 7 percent, and most
European nations, with LDS populations below 0.1 percent, have double
affiliation rates of 0 to 3 percent.
The problem of double affiliation further demonstrates
the need to focus on participating or self-identified church membership rather
than relying exclusively on denominational membership claims. For denominations
for which membership reports do not reflect actual participation, data from
other sources such as national censuses, sociologic studies, or attendance
reports are necessary to determine the true number of religious adherents.
Are Census Data Valid?
Official LDS growth reports
present nominal membership figures without consideration of member activity or participation.
The large disparities between official and participating membership figures
have often made it difficult for members and leaders to identify, let alone
correct, the root problems. The Church’s use of the euphemism “less active” to
describe those who do not attend church at all understandably arises from the
desire to avoid further alienating often already disgruntled inactives but
makes it difficult for members and even leaders to fully grasp the magnitude of
activity and retention problems.
Some have attempted to discredit census data
demonstrating fractional correlation to official membership figures,
speculating that many active LDS members may have chosen not to identify their
religious preference.[87]
Census reports and other sociologic studies are subject to varying margins of
error and potential methodological problems. Yet there are good reasons to
believe that census data accurately reflect religious preferences. First, the
number of individuals identifying themselves as Latter-day Saints on census
reports is far greater than the number that attend LDS meetings. The comparison
between the 57,000 members attending church in Chile each Sunday[88]
and the 103,735 self-identified Latter-day Saints reported on the 2002 Chilean
census suggests that far from short-changing the strength of the Church, census
religious affiliation data vastly outstrip member participation. Second,
consistent correlations between census data and official membership claims of
high-commitment religious groups provide a control. Census data report
self-identified affiliation of 175 to 206 percent of the number of official
Jehovah’s Witnesses in Latin American nations (reflecting both baptized adults
and unbaptized affiliates), while more individuals identified themselves as
Seventh-Day Adventists on the census than are officially claimed in each
country. Such data contrast with LDS official membership to census correlations
of 20 percent (Chile), 24 percent (Mexico), and 27 percent (Brazil). The
consistently low correlation between LDS membership claims and self-identified
census data across many nations, the high correlation between membership and
census data for other denominations in these same countries, and the close
relationship between census data and other research on member
self-identification and participation all provide strong reasons to believe
that census data are reliable. Third, strong official requests by LDS church
leaders for local members to register the LDS Church as their faith of
preference have been made from the pulpit in virtually every nation where the
census has included religious affiliation data. Fourth, the LDS Church enjoys a
relatively positive reputation in these nations, and so it is unlikely that
Mormons would be less likely than members of marginal groups such as
Seventh-Day Adventists or Jehovah’s Witnesses to express their true religious
preferences. Finally, only a small number of individuals in any country refused
to answer questions about religious affiliation.
While imperfect, census data provide a more meaningful
measure of church growth and strength than official membership numbers.
Fractional rates of self-identification provide compelling evidence that most
individuals on international LDS rolls do not consider themselves to be members,
demonstrating that the challenge of inactivity runs far deeper than economic
hardship or transportation problems.
A Historical Perspective
Those who claim that poor
retention is a natural or inevitable result of rapid growth are uninformed.
Ammon and his brethren baptized thousands but achieved 100 percent convert
retention: “As the Lord liveth, as many of the Lamanites as believed in their
preaching, and were converted unto the Lord, never did fall away” (Alma 23:6).
In modern times, convert retention rates approaching 100 percent were achieved
in the British Isles for more than half a century. Between 1840 and 1890,
89,625 of the 92,465 converts (over 97 percent of the total) in Britain
immigrated to the United States to gather to Zion, leaving only 2,770 behind.[89]
The converts who left their lands, homes, and families to undertake the
perilous transatlantic journey and travel across the plains to join the Saints
were dedicated and committed to the Church. Functioning congregations remained
in the United Kingdom, demonstrating that many of those who stayed behind also
remained active.
During the early twentieth
century, most LDS members lived in Utah and the Mountain West, but
participation rates were low. In 1976, President Spencer W. Kimball compared
church attendance rates to lower figures at the beginning of the twentieth
century: “I can remember when we were getting only about 19 percent attendance
at sacrament meetings. Of course, that included all members of the Church,
children and infants, but it was very low. Today many stakes and missions have
reached nearly 50 and 60 percent of their total membership in attendance at
sacrament meetings, and there are many units that have a much higher attendance
record.”[90]
There were many semiactive Latter-day Saints who participated
irregularly. However, most of these semiactives and even inactives had strong
ties to the LDS community. Most were descendents of pioneers and other early
church members and lived in communities with a strong or dominant LDS influence.
Most identified themselves as Latter-day Saints. Most members lived in rural
areas in the early twentieth century, and transportation to church was often
time-consuming and expensive. The shift of LDS membership toward urban areas by
the mid-twentieth century, as well as the convenience of modern personal
transportation, resulted in a significant increase in church participation
among believing but previously semiactive members in Utah and the Mountain
West. Some changes in church programs led to the return of many part-active
members to full activity. The first seminary buildings for youth were
constructed in 1912, and the institute program was organized in the 1920s. Both
programs expanded greatly during the twentieth century to involve more youth. Young
single adult wards and social programs for single adults were organized only in
the 1970s, and the more convenient consolidated meeting schedule was introduced
in 1980. Contemporary research has shown that all of these programs play a
vital role in strengthening and retaining youth.
Modern Trends in Convert Retention
While it is commonly claimed
that over thirteen million members believe in the Book of Mormon and the
prophetic mission of Joseph Smith, data suggest that only a fraction of those
nominally on LDS membership rolls share the core beliefs, values, and practices
commonly associated with Latter-day Saints. Most international LDS members are
not believing semiactives who are simply undersocialized, but completely
disassociated, inactive, or hostile individuals with no ongoing connection or
commitment to the Church. National censuses and other studies suggest that only
a small fraction of international members consider themselves to be “Mormons”
in any way. Few attended church for even two months after baptism, and some
attended far less.
It is a matter of grave concern that the areas with
the most rapid numerical membership increase today, Latin America and the
Philippines, are also areas with extremely low convert retention. Many other
groups, including the Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, have
consistently achieved excellent convert retention rates in the same cultures
and societies where LDS missions have experienced only fractional retention,
and so LDS retention problems cannot be attributed to deficiencies of local
cultures. Some committed believers cannot attend church regularly because of
extenuating health problems or extreme hardships, although data suggest that
this group represents only a small percentage of infrequent attendees.
Today’s catastrophic losses of never-active and
inactive converts almost immediately following baptism compare unfavorably with
historical convert retention in the era before accelerated baptism programs and
appear to be unprecedented in church history. Since most modern inactives lack
even nominal belief or identification with the LDS Church, the Church social
programs and changes that led to the dramatic increase in member participation
in the early twentieth century Utah Church are having only a minor impact on
international activity rates today. While over 97 percent of nineteenth century
British converts mustered the commitment to cross the Atlantic and travel to
Utah after joining the Church, today many of our missionaries fail to teach and
prepare converts adequately to even attend church two or three times before or
after baptism. The long-term dedication of the Church to its members
underscores the need for full preparation of prospective converts and
discerning prebaptismal interviews, since the baptism of uncommitted or
insincere individuals who do not remain active presents a lifetime liability to
the Church.
What Is Growth?
Study after study
demonstrates a vast discrepancy between official LDS membership claims and
participating or self-identified membership. I am not aware of a single large
population-based, self-identified affiliation study or national census that has
come anywhere close to demonstrating parity with church membership claims.
Nominal membership increases that far outstrip gains in active membership beg
the question: what is growth? When individuals are baptized but do not attend
church, do not identify themselves as members of the Church, and do not believe
or live the teachings of the Church, has the Church grown? In nations where
total membership figures have increased but the number of individuals attending
church is stagnant or even in decline, has the Church grown? When so few
converts become participating members that durable new church units cannot be
organized and some existing units are collapsed because of the loss of
previously active members, has the Church grown?
Most media sources convey the impression that all of
these scenarios constitute growth, since LDS growth is measured and reported
almost exclusively in terms of raw membership numbers, while activity rates are
never officially disclosed. The reader of LDS periodicals comes away with the
impression that the Church is growing and flourishing as never before and that
the missionary effort throughout the world has been a story of unmitigated
success, dynamic growth, and constantly inspired programs and policies.
An understanding of what membership numbers represent is
a prerequisite for drawing conclusions about growth or strength. For Jehovah’s
Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists, every number represents an active,
participating member. LDS membership figures are based on a one-time baptismal
event and do not imply that a “member” attends or participates in church at
all, considers the LDS Church one’s faith of preference, believes or accepts
LDS doctrines, or lives in harmony with LDS teachings. In the case of children
of record, membership status does not necessarily imply that one has been
baptized or has made a conscious decision to be affiliated with the Church.
Faiths with high convert retention rates are candid
and realistic in their measurement of growth. Jan Paulsen, president of the
rapidly growing Seventh-Day Adventist church, observed: “A growing church is
not primarily identified by the increase in numbers. Growth must also be in
depth of understanding … it must also be in depth of commitment both to the
Lord, to the truth, and to the church; as well as in increased capacity to
unite and bond as a family of believers. Lack of attention to this will produce
Adventist mutations, which would be an unacceptable development. [Evangelism] …
is effective because the new members have been taught and nurtured over many
months, they know who they are and what they believe, and they have a network
of friends in the church. When this does not happen, ‘growth’ is just a play on
numbers and does not reflect the reality we want to see. The very word ‘growth’
means to become bigger, stronger, healthier, and more capable of functioning
effectively.”[91]
President Paulsen criticized quick-baptize evangelists: “When I hear that
80,000 names have to be deleted from the records of our church in one country simply
because they came in en masse, they cannot be traced, they do not come to
church, they may not even exist, that troubles me greatly … something is wrong.
Evangelism in these circumstances becomes a carnival. This is not growth.”
These comments were carried widely in the Adventist press. Yet the Adventist
church retains as long-term, participating members not approximately
one-quarter of its new converts, like the LDS church, but 75 to 80 percent of
them. The 80,000 nonparticipating or “lost members” Paulsen refers to in a
country where local evangelists had been engaged in singularly questionable
practices compares favorably to any of at least ten countries in Latin America
alone with between 80,000 and 800,000 inactive or lost LDS members. If we examine
the actual growth rates of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (2.5 to 3 times LDS
rates) and the convert retention rates (also 2.5 to 3 times LDS rates), we find
that the real growth rate of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church is six to nine
times that of the LDS Church. Their no-nonsense focus on “real growth,” rapid
intervention in problem areas, and refusal to pad their numbers with even
modest numbers of inactives are key factors in maintaining a vibrant faith
community where member statistics closely reflect reality.
Rodney Stark and Laurence Iannaccone noted of
Jehovah’s Witnesses: “Are Witness statistics reliable? There are three
excellent and independent reasons to trust them. First … they often report ‘bad
news’—declines as well as increases in membership. A second reason is that even
very critical ex-members … accept and publish these statistics. Finally, these
statistics stand up very solidly when compared with the Canadian Census and the
American National Survey of Religious Identification”[92]
and with national censuses and sociologic research from many nations. Not one
of these points holds for LDS membership statistics. Because of the combination
of accelerated-baptism programs that rush converts to baptism with only minimal
commitment and official policies that keep inactive members on the rolls
indefinitely, LDS membership figures have continued to report annual increases
even in areas where attendance has actually declined.
It has often been stated
euphemistically “growth is our biggest problem.” Yet it is not real growth
based in deep-rooted conversion to the gospel that is unhealthy and
problematic, but that so little LDS “growth” is real. Many speak of great
future harvests, when the all too frequent reality is that the majority of
those currently being baptized are leaving out the back door of the Church
almost as quickly as they are being brought in the front. Elder M. Russell
Ballard noted: “We cannot establish the Church unless we have real growth—not
simply numbers on paper.”[93] The
Church cannot be built up by revolving-door practices that rapidly accumulate
inactives but do not result in a corresponding increase in participating
membership.
We must measure, report, and discuss
Church growth in terms of active, faithful, and participating members and focus
on building strong, vibrant units, rather than lauding paper membership
increases that do not reflect true strength or commitment. There is a
scriptural duty to look after those who have become part of the flock. However,
it is also difficult to make real progress without objective acknowledgment of
the present situation. Occasional stories of a longtime disaffected individual
returning to the fold are repeatedly cited as evidence of success, yet the far
greater trend is that of losing those for whom intervention could make a
difference—new converts and receptive semiactives—because member time and
resources are spread so thin trying to reactivate everyone instead of focusing
on the receptive.
Do Activity Rates Inevitably Increase with Time?
Some have claimed that the
current low activity rates are an inevitable result of the process of
establishing the Church and that these activity rates will rise as the Church
becomes more established, citing higher activity rates in Utah and the Mountain
West than in surrounding areas. This is an “apples and oranges” comparison
which is not supported by data. It is true that activity rates are higher in
areas where active members have many children and where there are few convert
baptisms, but this observation provides no insight into the problem of
catastrophic convert losses that have continued to occur in international
areas. The Church entered Mexico, Chile, and Japan well over a century ago, but
activity rates in all three countries hover between 20 and 25 percent, and the
passing of decades has done little to rectify the crisis. In contrast, some
newly opened areas, such as West Africa and Eastern Europe, have activity rates
that are somewhat higher. Rampant inactivity cannot simply be waited out. Missions
that have applied appropriate scriptural teaching standards have almost
immediately achieved very high convert retention rates, while missions that
have not have continued to lose the overwhelming majority of their converts
even as unit rolls have swelled. The causes and solutions to retention problems
are discussed in later chapters.
Is Slow Growth Inevitable?
Some have suggested that a
slowdown in growth is inevitable as the Church faith becomes more established
and claim that rapid growth is a characteristic of small but not of large
organizations. This claim fails to explain why LDS growth in the fifty-nine new
nations opened for missionary work in the 1990s has been slow in spite of high
receptivity and exceptional opportunity and provides no explanation for the
accelerating growth of larger faiths with high membership requirements like the
Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Some claim that the time of great harvests is
over and that now is a time of gleaning. Those who give credence to such claims
are not literate in the scriptures or do not believe them. The Lord’s statement
that “the field is white already to harvest” is repeated at least eight times
in scripture, and the Lord promises those of great faith “it shall be given
unto such to bring thousands of souls to repentance” (Alma 26:22). The Lord’s
assertion that the harvest field is ripe has been reiterated by modern-day
prophets. Ezra Taft Benson declared: “It is a time of harvest and not a time of
gleaning,”[94]
and Bruce R. McConkie taught: “We live in that day, the day when the harvest is
ripe. We have deluded ourselves long enough that this is a day of gleaning
only. This is not a day of gleaning but of harvest.”[95]
President James E. Faust stated that “there are greater opportunities to build the
kingdom of God than ever before.”[96]
The time of the “great harvests” is only just beginning for those who are
willing to heed God’s words.
Section II.
Understanding
the true causes of low LDS growth and poor convert retention is a prerequisite
to finding solutions. Many false and unhelpful rationalizations for poor
performance have achieved wide circulation. Donald McGavran noted: “Commonly
alleged reasons for lack of church growth are … erroneous or invalid.…
Sometimes, of course, ‘a resistant field’ is indeed the true reason; but often
it is not, as is abundantly proved by the growth in that very field of other
[churches]. Nongrowth also frequently means that growth is not being sought, or
is being sought in resistant rather than responsive segments of the population.”[97] We
must recognize the fallacies of widely circulated explanations for poor growth
and low retention to avoid directing our efforts in ways that do not produce
the desired results.
Church growth and retention ultimately derive from
God’s grace through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit works in harmony with natural
and spiritual principles. For those who do not understand these principles,
church growth is a mysterious and frustrating “black box,” while those who
understand and apply correct principles find that high growth and excellent
retention are predictably achievable in virtually any cultural setting. Success
results from the consistent application of correct principles. The specific
principles are discussed in detail in subsequent chapters on member-missionary
work, planning, finding, teaching, convert retention, and similar topics. For
most topics, the divine mandate in scripture and from the words of modern
prophets is first defined. Then actual performance (typically well below the
divine mandate) is documented. Finally, principles achieving dramatically
improved results are expounded.
Once specific obstacles and opportunities have been identified,
we must distinguish between those that we cannot significantly alter and those
that we can. Undue focus on uncontrollable external factors often exaggerates
their importance and distracts attention from our own opportunities for
improvement. We may not be able to eliminate political or cultural barriers,
yet we can optimize our outreach efforts in each land according to the freedoms
and opportunities available. We cannot readily improve the receptivity of
society at large, but we are far more likely to find the honest in heart if we
share the gospel with many people rather than with few. We may not be able to
prevent every member from being lost to inactivity due to lifestyle choices,
but we can ensure that prospective converts are properly taught and prepared so
that attrition does not occur due to lack of commitment or understanding. When
focused effort is made wholeheartedly to improve that which lies within our own
power, the results are astounding, and individuals find that results depend far
more on their own effort than they had realized. Shakespeare penned, “Our
remedies oft in ourselves do lie which we ascribe to heaven.” Only as we make
the effort to cleanse the inner vessel and bring our own efforts into full
harmony with the Lord’s mandates can we expect the fulfillment of the Lord’s
promises.
Member-missionary work is one of the most frequently mentioned but
least understood gospel topics. Member-missionary work occupies a central role
in church doctrine and is vital to church growth. Members are repeatedly
exhorted from the pulpit and in the classroom to share the gospel, yet few
active members ever participate in member-missionary work at all.[98],[99] Missionaries spend more time
than ever soliciting referrals, but the relative and absolute number of
referrals has declined. Numerous programs, initiatives, and gimmicks—from “set
a date” to missionary dinner programs—have occupied large amounts of missionary
and member time while generating scant results. The Church has overhauled
member-missionary programs more sweepingly and frequently than any other major
church program, dissolving local seventies quorums, disbanding stake missions,
and commissioning local bishops as the head of local member-missionary efforts
in recent years. Yet such repeated and drastic reforms have not changed the
underlying dynamics of stagnant member-missionary programs in which few members
ever make the effort to share the gospel.
While LDS
growth rates have declined in spite of unprecedented opportunity, other faiths
that have more successfully involved members in proselytism have experienced
spectacular growth. The Seventh-Day Adventist Church baptizes between 700,000
and one million new converts each year, due largely to high member-missionary
participation. The Jehovah’s Witness faith, established only in 1890, now has
far more active and participating members than the LDS Church worldwide because
of the direct involvement of the average members in proselyting for sixteen
hours each month.
A successful
member-missionary program requires an understanding of basic outreach
principles, vision and leadership, and consistency. I have found that a simple
program of scripture-based member-missionary principles can multiply
effectiveness in any congregation. The impact of these principles is
remarkable. I have often been told by lifelong church members that
member-missionary work was an incomprehensible “black box” for them until
hearing my presentation, but that afterward missionary work started to make
sense for the first time. I have consistently seen member-missionary efforts
and successes multiply when these principles are applied. Some have noted that
the application of these principles generated seemingly miraculous results. Yet
in contrast to so many member-missionary initiatives, this program is simple
and scripture-based, with nothing contrived and no gimmicks. The program makes
no demands of members except to follow basic scriptural teachings. Many
individuals have noted that once these self-evident principles were explained,
they wondered how they could ever have viewed member-missionary work any other
way.
Member-Missionary Leadership
This program requires the leadership of a motivated ward mission
leader and supportive bishop. Without good organization and leadership,
member-missionary programs never amount to more than the sporadic and isolated
efforts of a few participating members. Leadership with vision, purpose,
understanding, and consistency is essential to raise member-missionary
participation from the level of a few isolated members to a cooperative effort
of the entire ward.
Member-Missionary Program
Overview
This member-missionary program involves several key elements. The first
is an initial meeting, typically conducted as a fifth Sunday joint
Priesthood/Relief Society lesson. The purpose of the initial meeting is to
break down barriers to sharing the gospel and to educate members regarding
member-missionary work. The content of this lesson differs in many ways from
traditional less effective talks and lessons on missionary work. Second,
practical three-minute messages on missionary work are given each Sunday in the
opening exercises of Priesthood, Relief Society, Young Women’s, and Primary.
Third, a well-stocked table of missionary resources is maintained in the chapel
foyer. These steps may seem bland and uninspiring. Yet when correctly
implemented, they consistently multiply long-term member-missionary
participation. In this chapter, I will explain why each step is crucial, how
each point differs from less effective models, and how to implement each most
effectively.
Vision and Goals
The purpose of this program is not to generate a short burst of
member-missionary activity leading to a few more referrals or baptisms, only to
quickly taper off to the prior stagnant baseline. Rather, the goal is to change
basic member behaviors in a way that will increase referrals and baptisms for
years to come by making sharing the Good News a regular part of their life and
by providing weekly training to help members refine their member-missionary
skills.
Righteous
habits are the essence of gospel living. We are commanded to feast daily upon
the scriptures, to attend church weekly, and to keep the Sabbath Day holy.
Similarly, the central goal of an effective member-missionary program is to
encourage members to initiate at least one gospel discussion each week with a
nonmember. This goal is far short of the scriptural admonition to open our
mouths about the gospel and stand as witnesses of Christ in all places and at
all times, yet it is a good starting point that any member can achieve and
represents an exponential improvement over current performance. Some members
may be able to share the gospel much more frequently than this. Goals centered
on numbers of referrals or baptisms are counterproductive to the establishment
of the gospel habit of “opening one’s mouth.” When members are sharing the
gospel regularly, referrals and baptisms naturally follow without gimmicks or
imposed quotas, and without this habit, scant member-missionary results are
ever achieved.
The Startup Lesson
Most members acknowledge the importance of sharing the gospel and
have repeatedly been instructed to do so, yet have never been educated or
mentored in basic practical elements of the process. Many face barriers of fear
or a lack of understanding. Jim Rohn stated, “Education must precede
motivation.… If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation
to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.” Many
member-missionary programs fail because they start with motivation rather than
training, attempting to inspire members to share the gospel with their
acquaintances when most do not know how or are not comfortable with doing so.
Apprehension must be changed to enthusiasm, ignorance to understanding, and
avoidance to implementation.
While this
process takes time, a startup lesson to break down barriers and educate members
can dramatically increase member-missionary participation immediately. Members
are not instructed to follow a protocol or to implement a narrow program but
are taught scriptural principles that can help them to utilize everyday
opportunities to share the gospel. I prefer to give this lesson as a concise
Power Point presentation which requires approximately twenty minutes, but it
can be presented in different ways depending on local needs and resources. The
next chapter covers the “Witnesses of Christ” lesson material, which can be
modified depending on the audience.
Harness the Potential of Your
Member-Missionary Program
Most member-missionary programs run at only a fraction of their
potential. The Church Handbook of
Instructions and the Stake Missionary
Manual state that the missionary program is to be integrated into all
programs of the Church. Yet in most wards, efforts of the ward mission leader
and ward missionaries are almost exclusively confined to priesthood meetings,
with Relief Society and youth meetings being almost entirely neglected. A
member-missionary program that functions in this manner is like a car running
on only one cylinder. Some data suggest that sisters may be more likely than
brethren to share the gospel and to provide member-missionary referrals. Elder
M. Russell Ballard stated: “Bishops, engage the whole ward in proclaiming the
gospel. You will see that the Lord will bless you and your members with many
more converts and many more who will return to full activity. Missionary work
should not only be on the ward council agendas but also on Elders Quorum,
Relief Society, and other quorum, group, and auxiliary agenda.”[100] A major role of stake and ward missionaries is to make sharing
the gospel a natural outgrowth of church membership for all members. Making
assignments which are accepted by only one or two members, such as passing out
a copy of the Book of Mormon each week for a volunteer to place, is less
effective and generates only sporadic involvement of a minority of members. The
goal of an effective member-missionary program is for all members to share the
gospel all of the time and not for a few members to share the gospel some of
the time.
Even after a
well-received initial presentation, member-missionary involvement will taper
off without regular follow-up and ongoing teaching. Ongoing involvement and
continued improvement are best done with a three-minute practical missionary
message shared each Sunday in Priesthood meeting, Relief Society, and Young
Women’s opening exercises.
Three-Minute
Member-Missionary Education
Superior results are achieved when a missionary message focused on
practical implementation is given in Priesthood, Relief Society, Young Women’s,
and Primary opening exercises each week. Weekly three-minute messages should be
coordinated in advance by the ward mission leader and can be presented
simultaneously by the ward mission leader, ward missionaries, and full-time
missionaries in the various opening exercises. A brief missionary tip should be
conveyed that helps members to better understand and implement personal
member-missionary activities. These messages should be informational, concise,
well-organized, practical, and strategic. Each message should end with a
specific call to action. Messages can periodically include an interactive
segment that includes follow-up from the previous week, finding out and
addressing concerns, discussing problems and challenges, and sharing
experiences, although the time must be carefully watched. To respect the time
of the teacher, full-time and ward missionaries must keep each weekly
missionary message within the three-minute time limit. If messages go too long,
teachers or quorum presidencies will object and the opportunity to present the
messages at all may be retracted.
These messages
should be given every week, since infrequent or inconsistent member-missionary
lessons fail to promote sustained member-missionary improvement because of
inconsistent reinforcement and sketchy follow-up. Member-missionary performance
improves when individuals recognize that missionary work will be a weekly topic
of discussion for which they will be accountable. Individuals are free to share
the gospel in whatever manner they prefer, but every member is expected to
share the gospel regularly.
The precise
topics depend upon local needs, challenges, and member feedback. A few weekly
message topics I have successfully used include:
1. Conversational openers for gospel discussions, including the
“golden questions” and other approaches.
2. Ways to handle common concerns or objections, such as responses
that individuals believe in nothing beyond the Bible or that they believe in
God but do not see a need to attend church.
3. Helping members to understand their responsibility to share the
gospel spontaneously without waiting for special experiences and avoiding
prejudging of others.
4. Considering individual needs and situations and responding to
feedback and verbal and nonverbal cues in sharing the gospel.
5. Dealing with rejection gracefully and leaving the door open for
future discussions.
6. Times of special receptivity: major life change, birth or death
in the family, marriage, change of job, or a move.
7. Educating members about different resources for sharing the
gospel and the circumstances under which each can be used most effectively.
Resources
A well-stocked supply of missionary resources should be maintained
in the foyer. Every additional step required to obtain a missionary
resource—asking stake or ward mission leaders, calling full-time missionaries,
and so forth dramatically reduces the number of individuals who will use that
resource. A prominently displayed table of resources can help keep various
tools for sharing the gospel in member consciousness and provides a no-stress environment
in which members can examine and select resources that they feel may be most
helpful for their acquaintances. These varying resources—Joseph Smith
pamphlets, 23 Questions Answered by the Book of Mormon, “Tell Me About Your
Family” cards, copies of the Book of Mormon, temple brochures, family
resources, family cards, church videos, and so forth—are constantly available
for members and nonmembers alike. Missionary resources should be made as widely
and easily available as possible to promote maximum utilization. Many people
will spontaneously use missionary resources if they are made easily accessible
and awareness of these resources is constantly emphasized.
The Divine Mandate
The baptismal covenant includes the promise “to stand as witnesses
of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in,
even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of
the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life” (Mosiah 18:9). Joseph
Smith declared, “After all that has been said, the greatest and most important
duty is to preach the Gospel.”[101]
Sharing the
gospel is one of the primary missions of the Church. It is also the area where
we have the opportunity to make the greatest difference. The Lord has
repeatedly declared that sharing the gospel is the activity of the most worth
to our personal salvation: “For many times you have desired of me to know that
which would be of the most worth unto you. I say unto you, that the thing which
will be of the most worth unto you will be to declare repentance unto this
people, that you may bring souls unto me, that you may rest with them in the
kingdom of my Father” (D&C 15:4,6; D&C 16:4,6).
Why did the Lord
declare that sharing the gospel is the most important work of the Church? While
important, the completion of genealogy and vicarious ordinances is inevitable.
Vicarious temple work does not change outcomes—it only affects timing. The
individuals for whom vicarious work is done have already lived their lives and
are in the “night of darkness wherein there
can be no labor performed” (Alma 34:33). They may
have accepted or rejected the missionaries and are already approaching the
judgment stage. In contrast, missionary work alters outcomes. It offers the
possibility to change the eternal destiny of souls. The Lord’s brother James
wrote: “He which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a
soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins” (James 5:20).
LDS prophets
have repeatedly emphasized that member-missionary work is one of the central
obligations of church membership with slogans such as “every member a
missionary.” Brigham Young taught, “There is neither man nor woman in this Church
who is not on a mission. That mission will last as long as they live, and it is
to do good, to promote righteousness, to teach the principles of truth, and to
prevail upon themselves and everybody around them to live those principles that
they may obtain eternal life.”[102] He further observed:
I wish to make this request: that the Elders who return from
missions consider themselves just as much on a mission here as in England or in
any other part of the world.… We frequently call the brethren to go on missions
to preach the gospel, and they will go and labor as faithfully as men can do,
fervent in spirit, in prayer, in laying on hands, in preaching to and teaching
the people how to be saved. In a few years they come home, and throwing off
their coats and hats will say, Religion, stand aside, I am going to work now to
get something for myself and my family. This is folly in the extreme. When a
man returns from a mission where he has been preaching the Gospel he ought to
be just as ready to come to this pulpit to preach as if he were in England,
France, Germany, or on the islands of the sea. And when he has been at home a
week, a month, a year, or ten years, the spirit of preaching and the spirit of
the gospel ought to be within him like a river flowing forth to the people in
good words, teachings, precepts, and examples. If this is not the case he does
not fill his mission.[103]
Ezekiel recorded the word of the Lord:
Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto
them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man
of their coasts, and set him for their watchman: If when he seeth the sword
come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people; Then whosoever
heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come,
and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of
the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that
taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come,
and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and
take any person from among them, he
is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s
hand. So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of
Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me
(Ezekiel 33:2–7).
Our
responsibility as witnesses does not depend on others’ receptivity (Mormon
9:6). We are commanded to share the gospel, not simply to provide referrals for
the missionaries or to build the church, although these aims are also
important. Sharing the gospel is essential for our own salvation and brings us
great spiritual benefits, even when others do not accept our invitations. The
extent and regularity with which we share the gospel is one of the most
sensitive indicators of our spiritual health. Christ taught regarding members
of His church: “Inasmuch as they are not the saviors of men, they are as salt
that has lost its savor, and is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out
and trodden under foot of men” (D&C 103:10).
Gordon B.
Hinckley noted: “I wish I could awaken in the heart of every man, woman, boy,
and girl here this morning the great consuming desire to share the gospel with
others. If you do that you live better, you try to make your lives more
exemplary because you know that those you teach will not believe unless you
back up what you say by the goodness of your lives.”[104] He further declared: “I think every member of the Church has the
capacity to teach the gospel to nonmembers. I was told the other day of a
crippled woman, homebound, who spends her days in a wheelchair, who has been
the means of bringing thirty-seven people into the Church.… We need an
awareness, an everyday awareness of the great power that we have to do this
thing. Second, a desire.… I am as satisfied as I am of anything that with that
kind of prayerful, conscientious, directed effort, there isn’t a man in this
Church who could not convert another.… Third, the faith to try. It is so
simple.”[105]
Actual Performance versus the
Divine Mandate
The mandate of consistent lifetime involvement in missionary work
as taught by almost every LDS prophet has been internalized and practiced by very
few LDS members. Elder M. Russell Ballard cited Church Missionary Department
research that only 3 to 5 percent of active Latter-day Saints in North America
regularly participate in missionary work.[106] In 1987, member referrals accounted for 42 percent of a
cross-section of the population of investigators in North America being taught
by missionaries. In 1997, that figure had fallen to 20 percent, and members
account for only one in ten referrals. The absolute number of referrals has
also dropped, in spite of a significant increase in total membership. Elder
Dallin H. Oaks reported in 2003 that the average ward or branch in the United
States and Canada provided an average of only two member referrals per month.[107] These trends are of particular concern in light of Missionary
Department research findings cited by Elder L. Tom Perry in 1991 that 86
percent of new converts who remain active have close personal ties to other LDS
members.[108]
Most
Latter-day Saints believe strongly that the Church is growing rapidly, but have
made no attempt to share the gospel with a non-member within the last year.
Christian researcher George Barna found that only 26 percent of Latter-day
Saints reported making any attempt to share their faith within the past year,
compared to 61 percent of Pentecostals, 61 percent of Assemblies of God
members, and 57 percent of nondenominational Christians.[109] The 26 percent figure for Latter-day Saints is not significantly
different from the 24 percent of all adults nationwide who report making some
attempt to share faith, but it is significantly lower than that of many
outreach-oriented faiths. These other groups all report annual worldwide growth
rates two to three times higher (6 to 10 percent) than LDS growth rates (2.6 to
3.0 percent), paralleling their higher rates of member-missionary mobilization.
George Barna found that 30 to 35 percent of all the U.S. adult Christian
population share Christian beliefs with others and that most of these do so at
least monthly.[110] Barna’s studies do not include the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who
average sixteen to eighteen hours of member-missionary work each month.
It is stunning
that the average LDS member in North America spends over one hour per day
watching television, but only one-quarter make any attempt at all to share
faith over the entire year. It seems odd that the average Latter-day Saint
seems so much less inclined to share the vitally important gospel message than
Christians of many faiths with far less to offer. LDS member-missionary malaise
can be explained only by lack of effort, since these studies asked only whether
individuals made some attempt to share their faith and not how successful those
attempts may have been.
Reasons for Low
Member-Missionary Participation
A survey of 166 LDS members I conducted in 1999 found that 73
percent of members reported reasons related to fear as the main barrier to
sharing the gospel more frequently with nonmembers. Thirty-one percent of
respondents noted that they were afraid of saying the wrong thing, while 23 percent
were afraid that they would not know the answers to questions, and 19 percent
cited a general fear of rejection. Ten percent responded that they were not
aware of opportunities around them, while 16 percent stated that they had no
difficulty sharing the gospel.
I also
surveyed eight-six nonmembers about what was the most important to them when
individuals of other faiths shared their beliefs. Thirty-eight percent replied
that they most valued the sharer’s example of righteous living, while 27
percent cited mutual respect for the belief of others. Twenty-six percent cited
the sharer’s expressions of how his or her faith has helped him or her in life,
and 7 percent noted that service was the key factor. Only 2 percent cited the
sharer’s ability to clearly explain beliefs as being the most important to
them.
While these
surveys were not scientifically rigorous, the findings are corroborated by
other data. Elder M. Russell Ballard cited Missionary Department research that
members are generally much more uptight in gospel discussions than nonmembers.[111] The main barriers to sharing the gospel as perceived by members,
including fear of not saying the “right thing” or not knowing the answer to
complex doctrinal questions, were of little or no importance to the overwhelming
majority of nonmembers.
Some members
believe that they cannot share the gospel because of personal circumstances
which are less than ideal. They think
that because of difficulties in their own family situation, personal
weaknesses, lack of knowledge of complex doctrinal topics, or other real or
perceived shortfalls, they cannot be witnesses of Christ. We must not allow our own imperfections or
inadequacies to become excuses for failure to share the gospel message. There is only one perfect example, Jesus
Christ. He has called us to be His servants, notwithstanding our weakness. We
all are in situations that are less than ideal. We are all in need of the
atonement of Christ. King Benjamin
taught: “For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we
not all depend upon the same Being, even God... who has created you, on whom
you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are” (Mosiah
4:19,21). The Indian Christian evangelist D.T. Niles
stated: “Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find
bread.” The bread of life of the gospel we share is eternal. Great member-missionaries are not perfect
people in ideal situations. Rather, they are imperfect people like you and I
who do the best they can with the circumstances they have to work with. God has promised that He will give us grace
sufficient to meet the challenges of our day if we will put Him first in our
lives (D&C 17:8).
Core Commandments: The
Foundation of Member-Missionary Success
A wise sister missionary stated, “To share the gospel, you have to
be receiving blessings from it.” People receive blessings from the gospel and
want to share it when they are living it. President Kimball taught that the
progress made by wards and branches is a reflection of the degree to which each
member is living the gospel: “The basic decisions needed for us to move
forward, as a people, must be made by the individual members of the Church. The
major strides which must be made by the Church will follow upon the major
strides to be made by us as individuals.”[112]
One ward
mission leader highlighted the importance of gospel living in member-missionary
efforts:
Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi [of the Seventy] told me that he has seen
many programs come and go, but there has only been one consistent common
denominator for missionary success in a ward: that is the personal
righteousness of the ward members.… Because until we are reading and praying
consistently—every day—we will not have the presence of the Spirit, and
therefore, no true desire to share the gospel beyond mere lip service.… We have
a specific plan that we are using to help the members gain the regular
companionship of the Holy Ghost.
All effective
member-missionary programs focus on helping members to develop and maintain the
gospel habits that bring the Holy Spirit, including daily Book of Mormon study,
daily family prayer, keeping the Sabbath Day holy, and paying tithing. Without
these behaviors in place in the lives of individual members, no
member-missionary program will ever reach its potential. Over months and years,
the great value of these habits for member-missionary work is unmistakable.
The Wrong Questions
Several years ago, an acquaintance told me that she had recently
sat next to a man on a plane and felt that he was “ripe for the gospel.” She
had acquired his name and address and wanted to submit a missionary referral. I
asked if she had discussed the gospel with him. Her answer floored me: “I
didn’t feel prompted to share the gospel.”
I wondered:
“Did you feel prompted not to?”
Scriptures are replete with admonitions to share the gospel at all times and in
all places. Do we need an angel to appear to us and offer compelling personal
revelation each time before we attend church, read scriptures, or pay our
tithing? Then why do many wait for spiritual promptings to share the gospel as
the Lord has repeatedly commanded?
Unfortunately,
my acquaintance’s behavior is not atypical. Well-intended but less effective
programs such as “set a date” have fostered a false belief in many members’
minds that they cannot approach anyone about the gospel without first receiving
personal revelation. Members have heard so frequently from the pulpit that they
should “listen to the spirit” about who to approach that many believe that they
can only share the gospel when they feel powerful spiritual promptings. Many
are so afraid of saying the wrong thing that they say nothing at all.
Too many
members and missionaries ask the wrong questions: “Which of my neighbors is
ready to receive the gospel?” “Which door should I knock on?” As a young
missionary, I learned the fallacy of such practices. When I prayed to know what
street to tract on or what doors to knock on, I only felt a stupor of thought.
I quickly learned that all people have a right to hear the gospel message—not
just a select few whom we feel specifically impressed to approach. I learned
the truth of the Lord’s words: “Go ye and preach my gospel, whether to the
north or to the south, to the east or to the west, it mattereth not, for ye
cannot go amiss” (D&C 80:3). The Doctrine and Covenants alone contains
numerous admonitions to open our mouths about the gospel at all times (D&C
19:29, 24:10, 28:16, 30:11, 33:8–11, 80:3).
There is no
scriptural basis for the assumption that members should be able to tell in
advance which of their neighbors will be receptive to the gospel message.
Attempts to preselect others before even presenting them with an opportunity to
hear the gospel message are inappropriate. Christ found more success among the
“publicans and sinners” than the outwardly “righteous” Pharisees. I have found
that the Spirit often comes only after we demonstrate the faith to sow gospel
seeds, and those who wait for divine manifestations before making the effort to
share the gospel usually wait in vain.
Why Most Member-Missionary
Programs Fail
Most lifelong members have heard hundreds of talks and lessons
about member-missionary work, but few act upon them. Talks and lessons focus
primarily on motivating and admonishing members to share the gospel, yet they
offer little practical “how-to” information. The few “how-tos” often take the
form of contrived programs rather than scriptural principles.
Many
member-missionary programs fail because they focus on the wrong goals, emphasizing
referrals and baptisms, while neglecting the reality that few members ever
initiate a gospel conversation with a nonmember at all. With baptism or
referral-based goals, faithful prophets who achieved little success such as
Noah and Moroni would be deemed failures. It is appropriate to set goals for
our personal effort in sharing the gospel with nonmembers. It is inappropriate
to set goals that depend upon the response of others. We cannot control how
other people respond to the gospel, and it is manipulative to set goals based
on the response of others rather than our own effort.
Ineffective
initiatives such as missionary dinners in member homes take missionaries off
the street during prime proselyting time when families are home and present the
illusion of aiding the missionary effort, while neither the missionaries nor
the members are sharing the gospel with nonmembers.
Traditional member-missionary initiatives have focused on planting
a very few seeds in carefully selected plots of soil, in conflict with
scriptural mandates to offer all people an opportunity to hear the gospel
message. How successful would a farmer be who set goals for a large crop yield,
but failed to pay any attention to the amount of seed sown? Successful farmers
recognize that sowing abundantly is the key to an abundant harvest. Paul
declared: “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which
soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6).
Habits versus Events
Most Latter-day Saints view sharing the gospel as an infrequent
event rather than as a consistent behavior, in much the same way that Christmas
and Easter Catholics view church attendance. Yet scriptures teach that sharing
the gospel must be a consistent habit and not an occasional event. Sharing the
gospel is as essential to our own salvation as attending church, praying,
studying scriptures, and paying tithing. We all recognize the importance of
doing these other things regularly, and would not be satisfied with having read
our scriptures last month or having attended church last year. Our
responsibility to share the gospel regularly is lifelong and is not limited to
full-time missionary service or missionary-related callings.
The desire to
share the gospel is a natural outgrowth of faithful membership. It is a joyful
activity that must be a regular part of every member’s life. Setting a goal to
initiate a gospel discussion with at least one nonmember each week provides a
good starting point for any member. We must focus on our personal effort and
not on our acceptance or rejection by others. Moroni declared: “I fear not what
man can do; for perfect love casteth out all fear” (Moroni 8:16).
Members who
make a habit of speaking with at least one person about the gospel each day can
bring many people into the Church over the course of a lifetime. If a member
only speaks with someone about the gospel once or twice per year, it is
unlikely that he or she will ever bring another person into the church.
Member-Missionary Attributes
Effective member-missionaries share the message frequently with
many people in different settings and are undeterred by rejection. Elder Henry
B. Eyring observed that effective member-missionaries “are like the sons of
Mosiah, ‘desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they
could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts
that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and
tremble.’ Those who speak easily and often of the restored gospel, prize what
it has meant to them. They think of that great blessing often. It is the memory
of the gift they have received which makes them eager for others to receive it.
They have felt the love of the Savior. For them these words are their daily,
hourly reality: ‘There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear:
because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.’”[113]
What Should I Say?
Many wonder, “What should I say when I open my mouth?” I do not
have a preferred approach, since I find that making the effort to share the
gospel consistently is far more important than the approach. There are many
ways to share the gospel, but effective approaches incorporate several
principles. Keep the message simple, stress its importance to you, and give
specific examples of how your faith has helped you. No one can argue with your
experience. Elder Ballard observed: “Some members say, ‘I’m afraid to share the
gospel because I might offend someone.’ Experience has shown that people are
not offended when the sharing is motivated by the spirit of love and concern.
How could anyone be offended when we say something like this: ‘I love the way
my church helps me,’ and then add whatever the Spirit directs. It’s when we
appear only to be fulfilling an assignment and we fail to express real interest
and love that we offend others.”[114] The sharer should look for verbal and nonverbal cues and strive
to create a two-way discussion, rather than engaging in a monologue.
As we share
the gospel, we should focus on the Savior. Nephi wrote: “We talk of Christ, we
rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write
according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may
look for a remission of their sins” (2 Nephi 25:26). We should also focus on
Latter-day Saint revelation. What would happen to an honorable person in Noah’s
day who accepted Adam and Enoch as past prophets but did not heed the counsel
of Noah to board the ark? Sharing specific blessings that living the Gospel has
brought into your life is the essence of testimony. A living testimony must be
radiated in our conduct. It is impossible to testify effectively about a
principle which one is not living.
Invite the
hearer to take some action, whether to read in the Book of Mormon, to pray to
God, to attend a family home evening or church service, or simply to discuss
matters of faith another time. Individuals should be invited but never
pressured.
Leave the Door Open
Many lifelong members testify that it took them years to gain a
testimony. So why do so many members expect their acquaintances to jump at
their first invitation to hear the gospel and label them as unreceptive if they
do not accept? Sharers must learn to accept “no” gracefully. If the listener is
not ready to take further steps, the sharer should never attempt to guilt or
interrogate him or her about his or her reasons. This will only make the
listener uncomfortable discussing gospel topics in the future. Rather, one
should keep the door open for future discussion. Missionary Department research
suggests that the average U.S. convert has had between six and twenty contacts
with the Church before deciding to join. Very few individuals are ready to
accept the gospel the first time. Effective sharers let even uninterested
hearers know that they are always available and help them to feel comfortable
in bringing up or responding to gospel topics in the future. We should never
view the response of others we extend opportunities to as a final judgment upon
them.
The Book of Mormon Loan
Program
Ezra Taft Benson taught that the Book of Mormon is a great sieve
and that the members of the Church are under condemnation for taking it
lightly. He taught that the Book of Mormon is the standard we are to use in our
missionary efforts. Nephi declared: “And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will
believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given
them unto me; and they teach all men that they should do good” (2 Nephi 33:10).
Most Book of
Mormon gift programs fall short as distributed books are rarely read or
followed up on. Fortunately, there is a superior way to utilize the Book of
Mormon which avoids the free sample mentality, ensures time-sensitive accountability,
promotes follow-up discussion, and utilizes resources efficiently.
The Book of
Mormon loan program involves offering contacts or acquaintances a copy of the
Book of Mormon as a loan. The sharer asks for the listener’s opinion about the
book and emphasizes that he or she does not need to read the entire book, but
just enough to begin to form an opinion. Copies of 23 Questions Answered by the
Book of Mormon or specific passages addressing issues of interest can stimulate
reading. The sharer follows up by telephone or in person at an agreed-upon time
a few days later. If the individual is not interested, he or she returns the
book. If the individual is interested, he or she can continue to read and
discuss, with church invitation or eventual missionary referral as appropriate
with the individual’s permission.
Most people
feel an obligation to return other people’s property, and so loaning the book
is more effective than giving it away. The loaned status of the book also
promotes time-sensitive follow-up that is often lost when the book is given
away due to the free sample mentality. The Book of Mormon loan program is
nonthreatening to the listener, and most members are surprised at how easy it
is to implement.
Other Resources for Sharing
the Gospel
Other resources available for sharing the gospel include Joseph
Smith testimony pamphlets, pass-along cards, Gospel Principles books, church videos, the mormon.org Web site,
and other outreach literature. Members should be aware of tools but not limited
by them. Remember that your personal witness is still your strongest tool!
Share the Good News
Members should make sharing the Good News a regular part of their
life and focus on the goal of initiating at least one gospel discussion each week
in harmony with scriptural mandates. Our efforts to share the gospel are
vitally important to our own salvation and to the salvation of others. Nephi
declared: “How great the importance to make these things known unto the
inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can
dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and
grace of the Holy Messiah” (2 Nephi 2:8). Elder Henry B. Eyring taught: “I can
make two promises to those who offer the gospel to others. The first is that
even those who reject it will someday thank us.… My second promise is that as
you offer the gospel to others it will go down more deeply into your heart. It
becomes the well of water springing up into eternal life for us as we offer it
to others.”[115]
At the
judgment we will be asked not whether the gospel is true, but whether we were
true to the gospel! There are more receptive people in the world than there are
Latter-day Saints willing to witness to them. Opportunities are everywhere.
Rick Warren stated: “While we wait for God to work for us, God is waiting to
work through us!”[116]
Maximize Implementation
Elder M. Russell Ballard taught:
“Do you know what stake mission leaders and stake missionaries spend more time
doing than anything else? Our research shows it is attending meetings,
planning, and coordinating. These are good things, but sometimes we spend too
much time reporting what we have done or planning what we will do. In contrast,
stake mission leaders and stake missionaries invest considerably less time in
what makes the most difference: personally interacting with their nonmember and
less-active member friends and converts.”[117]
President Charles Creel of the Russia St. Petersburg
Mission used the analogy: “Who will catch more fish—the fisherman who spends
ten hours a day preparing his bait and two hours with his line in the water, or
the fisherman who gets his bait together in fifteen minutes and spends ten and
a half or eleven hours each day fishing?” While good planning is necessary to
establish appropriate and effective courses of action, meetings convert no one
and the real difference is made finding and teaching investigators firsthand.
Eighty to ninety percent of missionary and member-missionary time should be
spent on the actual implementation of missionary efforts. When meeting and
planning consumes more than 20 percent of time, that time is being used
inefficiently and should be reallocated to personal interactions with
nonmembers. The world is not “fished out”: we simply aren’t doing much fishing.
Church Meetings: The Golden Hours
Church meetings and
activities represent the “golden hours” for stake, ward, district, and
full-time missionaries as well as member-missionaries. From the moment they
arrive at church comfortably before the meetings begin to the moment they
leave, effective missionaries and member-missionaries are meeting new people
and talking to other members about sharing the gospel all of the time that they
are not sitting in sacrament or listening to lessons. They ask other members
how their efforts to share the gospel are going, learn their experiences,
solicit feedback, offer new resources, and follow up on old ones. Be a
Friendshipping and Fellowshipping
George Barna wrote: “Research
among Christians has found that we have an added difficulty in our lives. We
tend to associate with other Christians and thus have few significant
relationships with nonbelievers. We struggle with evangelism because we are
isolated from the very people God has called us to influence. For most
Christians, developing meaningful, authentic relationships with non-Christians
will be an act of intent, not an act of chance. We probably will have to look
for or creatively make opportunities to encounter and interact with
nonbelievers.”[118]
Members should look both for opportunities to foster
relationships with nonmembers and to fellowship investigators. No one wants to
be “assigned a friend” or have only “Sunday friends.” Do not just shake hands;
get to know the visitors and become involved in their lives. The following
helpful fellowshipping suggestions are intuitive and arise naturally from an
earnest desire to fellowship others and help them come into the fold of God.
1. One successful mission
president told us that his rule is that he does not sit down at Church until he
has met all individuals whom he does not know. This is good advice for members
and missionaries. More than one individual has told us that they kept coming to
Church because they knew that we cared.
2. Create an environment where
the person is comfortable by building on common ground. It is helpful to ask
about the person’s family, background, and so forth to break the ice and to
tailor the approach to their needs.
3. Compliment the person for
the efforts he or she is making to come to Church, meet with the missionaries,
read the scriptures, and do what is right. These steps take courage and deserve
praise.
4. Find out what exposure the
person has had to the Church: how many missionary discussions (or their
topics), what they are reading in the Book of Mormon, and so forth.
5. Identify any questions or
concerns the person has about the Church. Often they will be raised
spontaneously after the first three steps.
6. Be a good listener and
show genuine interest.
7. Share brief thoughts or
testimony about the blessings living the Gospel has brought into your life.
This should be more than an abstract assertion that the gospel is true: tell
what it has done for you as you have tried to live it. You do not need to be a
scriptorian; you just need to be sincere.
8. Tell the individual that
you would like to visit with him or her at greater length. Ask if the person
would like to visit your house for dinner or home evening or if you can attend
one of the missionary or new member discussions.
9. Exchange phone numbers or
addresses with the person. Do not simply tell him that you are available; agree
on specific plans for follow-up. Set a date and time.
10. Carry through and follow
up promptly.
Member-Missionary Mentoring
LDS members typically lack
hands-on mentoring in outreach. Involvement of members in missionary splits,
teaching and fellowshipping visits with investigators, and role playing are
essential elements of member-missionary training. Jehovah’s Witnesses are
mentored early in proselyting by experienced members, often even before they
are formally baptized. The practical, applied focus of the Jehovah’s Witnesses
has proven far more effective at inspiring member-missionary participation than
abstract, theoretical LDS member-missionary exhortations that rarely reach
beyond the pulpit or the classroom. For many Jehovah’s Witnesses, sharing their
beliefs with others is a favorite activity that many perform with a degree of
joy that contrasts with the reticence and apprehension of most Latter-day
Saints. Latter-day Saints do not need vague admonitions from the pulpit to “do
missionary work”: they need effective examples that provide practical hands-on
mentoring.
Quality and Predictability of Talks and Lessons
Rick Warren, pastor of the
fastest-growing Baptist church in U.S. history, stated: “Most churches rarely
attract unbelievers to their services because members are uncomfortable
bringing them to church. It doesn’t matter how much the pastor encourages
members to bring friends or how many visitation programs are launched, the
results are the same: Most members never bring any lost friends to church. Why
is this? There are three important reasons. First, the target of the messages
is unpredictable. Members don’t know from week to week if the pastor will be
preaching an evangelistic message or an edification message. Second, the
services are not designed for unbelievers, so much of what goes on in them
would not be understandable to an unchurched friend. Third, members may be
embarrassed by the quality of the service.… What is the most natural way to
increase the number of visitors to your church?… The answer is quite simple:
Create a service that is intentionally designed for your members to bring their
friends to. And make the service so attractive, relevant, and appealing to the
unchurched that your members are eager to share it with the lost people they
care about.”[119]
The quality of worship services correlates strongly
with congregational growth. The Hartsem study, a large-scale study of thousands
of congregations (including LDS) throughout the United States, reported that 56
percent of U.S. congregations with “highly inspirational” services are growing,
compared to only 27 percent with low-quality worship services.[120]
While active members can gain personal benefit even from poorly prepared talks
through an attitude of worship, a negative impression is made upon visitors,
dampening enthusiasm for return attendance. Speakers must use terms that are
understandable for non-LDS visitors. Talks and lessons must consistently be
inspirational, edifying, and relevant for nonmembers and members alike so that
Latter-day Saints are excited to invite their nonmember friends to “come and
see” and visitors are excited to return.
Submitting Referrals
Members should to ask the
permission of nonmembers before sending a referral to the local missionaries.
If one does not have the contact’s permission, the relationship of trust may be
disrupted. If the individual is not interested in learning about the Church
when speaking with an acquaintance, it is unlikely that they will react
positively to missionaries whom they do not know. It is rarely if ever
appropriate to submit a referral without the consent of the person being
referred. Some exceptions apply for programs such as missionary “singing
Christmas cards,” which typically do not include a full teaching invitation but
require follow-up by the referring member.
Lessons from "Cell Churches"
Cell or house churches or faith
groups that meet in member homes have experienced explosive growth over the
past two decades and represent the fastest-growing segment of Christian worship
today. LDS membership is growing at just over 2 percent per year, while the
Southern Baptists have been growing at 100 percent or more per year for almost
a decade in nations such as Cambodia and some areas of India where they have
employed cell churches as their main growth strategy. Without paid clergy or
dedicated meetinghouses, the overhead of cell churches is minimal, facilitating
rapid expansion with limited resources. The fellowshipping and integration
problems which represent major issues for groups meeting in large freestanding
churches are almost automatically solved by the dynamics of cottage groups.
Many cell churches experience almost 100 percent member-missionary
participation and fellowshipping due to their focus on three or four core
issues instead of dividing member energies among dozens of programs and
activities.
Although some elements of cell church programs are not
transferable to an LDS setting, important principles can be learned from groups
that have reduced worship to essentials. While members of large congregations
with choir, mutual, and other activities may be inclined to look with contempt
upon no-frills “cell churches” of some other denominations, it is humbling to
remember that these groups have far better rates of member-missionary
participation than Latter-day Saints do. Peripheral church activities are not
always beneficial, since they can distract member attention away from more
important activities. Organized weekly congregational worship plays an
essential scriptural role in our faith, yet lessons of the “cell church” can be
successfully distilled in the context of LDS cottage meetings.
Cottage Meetings
A cottage meeting is an
informal gospel-based meeting held in a member’s home with nonmembers present.
Cottage meetings are not a substitute for investigators attending church, but
they represent a valuable supplement that facilitates the consistent
achievement of vital teaching and fellowshipping tasks that are at times
difficult to accomplish by more traditional methods. I find that investigators
and new members have consistently given excellent reviews to cottage meetings
held in member homes. More significantly, I have found a much higher return
rate for investigators who attended both church and cottage meetings than those
who attended church meetings alone. Cottage meetings have also played an
essential role in laying the foundation for the church in some new areas and
nations, including the Russian Far East area, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Georgia.
In conjunction with regular church attendance, cottage
meetings are typically able to foster a higher degree of enthusiasm for the
gospel in investigators than attendance at church meetings alone. This is
because the problems with many conventional church meetings—the
unpredictability of talks, lessons not specifically tailored to investigators,
and inconsistent fellowshipping—are almost entirely eliminated in the setting
of cottage meetings. Investigators enjoy cottage meetings because they are
attractive, relevant, and appealing. Cottage meetings are held weekly on a
specific night (other than Monday) in a member’s home with predictable teachers
and consistent interaction. Quality fellowshipping in cottage meetings is
almost inevitable, and the relationships that develop are much stronger than
those developed in Sunday meetings by a greeting or a handshake in the hall.
All this is achieved while simultaneously reaching multiple people within a
limited time.
Following are some specific principles and practices
that I have found to be helpful in conducting cottage meetings. Others may have
found different approaches to be effective in their area. Individuals are
encouraged to try different approaches and discover what works best for them.
1. Audience. In addition to
the members who will lead the discussion, new members, investigators being
currently taught by the missionaries, and a pair of missionaries are invited
each week.
2. Topic. The goal of cottage
meetings is to help the attendees become better people and establish essential
gospel habits. Some of the things we focus on include daily personal or family
Book of Mormon reading, weekly church attendance, full Sabbath day observance,
consistent personal and family prayer, the Word of Wisdom, and family history
work. We also address some fundamental doctrinal topics including prophets, the
Holy Ghost, the apostasy and restoration, divine authority, and families. If
the investigators understand doctrinal issues but are not reading scriptures
and attending church, our teaching has failed. Lessons are scripture-based, and
questions are answered from the scriptures when possible.
3. Timing. Respecting the
time and other obligations of investigators is vital, and the lesson should
always end before the spirit leaves. We keep our meetings relatively brief so
that they can be relevant and powerful. In this way, the investigators are
eager to come back for more instead of regretting that their whole evening was
soaked up. We aim for sixty minutes and never allow cottage meetings to go past
ninety minutes, including time for refreshments and socializing. The purpose of
cottage meetings is not to provide detailed doctrinal discourses, but to
furnish a simple lesson, provide fellowshipping, address questions and
concerns, and demonstrate the gospel in action in the home.
4. Relevance. Lessons involve
frequent feedback and interaction with participants and are never lectures. The
lesson plan must be flexible and meet investigator needs. If the investigators
have multiple questions on topics that are more important to them than the
lesson, address those questions and topics instead. One must always keep in
mind the goal of giving investigators practical teachings that will make their
lives better. I will briefly answer questions on tangential or deep doctrinal
issues (but to the listener’s satisfaction) before leading the discussion back
on topic. If you find yourself facing a question you do not know the answer to,
tell the questioner that you will have an answer the next week.
5. Consistency. Cottage
meetings are most effective when held in the same place at the same time every
week. The missionaries know that they are welcome to bring anyone they are
currently teaching. The new members and investigators who have attended once
know that we will be looking for them the next week. Tuesdays or Thursdays have
worked the best for us because Monday is family home evening, Wednesday is our
ward activity night with scouts and mutual, and Friday and Saturday are
inconvenient for most people for social reasons. When cottage meetings are not
held consistently or are held in unpredictable locations, it is difficult to
achieve a regular turnout.
6. Relaxed atmosphere.
Everyone should be involved. Ask open-ended questions, and avoid manipulative
or leading queries.
7. Refreshments at the end.
We find this to be a productive time when investigators will open up even more
and share things that they might not share even in the small group setting.
Finding through Family History Work
Family history can present
one of the best inroads for member-missionary work. The Ensign article “Family History as a Missionary Tool” shares
valuable insights about how family history can succeed as a member-missionary
tool where less effective missionary dinner programs and other initiatives have
failed.[121]
LDS General Authorities have encouraged the effective use of family history as
a missionary tool. Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Presidency of the
Seventy noted: “Family history is obviously a crucial tool in redeeming the
dead, but it can also play an important role in proclaiming the gospel and
strengthening members of the Church. With even minimal coordination between
priesthood leaders, family history workers, and missionaries, it will not be
difficult to use family history as a tool for conversion and retention of new
members and activation of less-active members.”[122]
While the program’s main goal is to make genuine friends and help individuals
to understand the LDS emphasis on the family, some individuals become
interested in the Church. Stake missionary Charles Wright noted: “Religion is
personal to people and many times is closely held. On the other hand, nearly
anybody will sit down and talk to you about your ancestors. You can ask people
questions about where they’re from, and they enjoy letting you know about their
heritage.”
Members receive “Tell Me About Your Family” cards
which help nonmembers to start recording names, places, and dates. The members
then invite the interested contact to a family home evening about family
history or a family history open house. Open houses are held up to once per
month. Stake Mission President Dean Dexter of the Huntsville Alabama Stake
stated, “The most successful open houses included several elements: one, a
brief, spiritual presentation on why Latter-day Saints do family history work;
two, a demonstration of FamilySearch software, with the computer screen
projected for everyone to see, if possible; three, an opportunity for each
visitor to sit down at a table and be assisted in filling out the ‘Where Do I
Start?’ pamphlet and other forms.”[123]
He noted that displays of family history work done by other members can be
helpful and that having full-time missionaries participate “is the most
critical and important part of what we are doing at these open houses.” Stake
High Councilor Robert Swenson stated: “The key is to have the full-time
missionaries sit at tables and work with people one-on-one and establish a
rapport. Otherwise it’s just another family history seminar. People naturally
ask questions that lead to opportunities to share the gospel.” Charles Drake, a
member who has invited up to seven individuals to an open house, stated: “We
try to get the same people to come back by having something new for them each
time. We want to get well-acquainted with them so we can invite them to another
Church activity and move them toward investigating.” President Dexter noted
that lessons are brief: “We want visitors to leave hungry for more, not
overstuffed.”
The Case against Missionary Dinner Programs
There is perhaps no
member-missionary program as widespread or as ineffective as missionary dinner
programs. In many wards, the monthly missionary dinner calendar is circulated
with the expectation of a dinner appointment in a member’s home almost every
night. Some wards even have a special calling for a missionary dinner
appointment coordinator. The concept, as described by its proponents, sounds
attractive: missionaries can economize time by doing two things at
once—building relationships with members and soliciting member referrals while
having a nutritious dinner. Economic justifications have also been cited, since
members in some areas are instructed that the missionaries’ monthly support
funds take into account that they will not be buying their own dinner.
The missionary dinner program neutralizes missionaries
by taking them off the street during prime finding and teaching time when
families are home. Even when dinner visits are brief, missionary travel time
ensures that member dinners consume considerable proselyting time each evening.
There is no evidence that wards with missionary dinner programs generate more
referrals than those without them, and many wards have experienced a
revitalization of member-missionary work when dinner programs were terminated.
Members of many other faiths are far more likely than Latter-day Saints to
share their beliefs with others, yet rarely if ever have denominational
missionaries in their homes.
Like many nonscriptural traditions of the ancient Jews
that overrode the weightier matters of the law, the ubiquitous missionary
dinner program is not mentioned at all in the official Preach My Gospel manual. The manual instructs that missionaries
should finish with dinner no later than 6 pm
and makes no exclusions for dinner in member homes. This rule is ignored in
most areas, with the large majority of missionary dinner appointments not even
being scheduled to start until 6 pm
or later. It is difficult to justify a program that consumes vast missionary
time while failing to reliably improve member-missionary participation. The
missionary dinner program is perpetuated not because it is effective, but
because it is comfortable. It provides members with a false sense of
contributing to the missionary effort without requiring the courage or effort
to approach nonmember acquaintances about the gospel. It provides missionaries
with the comforts of home while avoiding the frequent rejection involved in
contacting nonmembers. It spins the wheels and generates motion without
progress while missionaries and members talk about missionary work instead of
doing it. These points inevitably evoke objections from members who have become
attached to the missionary dinner program while doing little missionary work
themselves. They cite enjoying the spirit that the missionaries bring into
their home. Yet missionaries are not called to be surrogate home teachers for
active members. We must not be selfish and deny numerous nonmembers the chance
to be contacted by the missionaries in the time consumed by every missionary
dinner appointment. While occasional well-planned member visits to address
specific needs can be valuable, regular dinner visits to member homes when
investigators are not present are rarely as productive as alternative finding
and teaching activities.
Preparing to Serve
President Spencer W. Kimball
declared:
When I ask for more
missionaries, I am not asking for more testimony-barren or unworthy
missionaries, I am asking that we start earlier and train our missionaries
better in every branch and ward in the world. That is another challenge—that
the young people will understand that it is a great privilege to go on a
mission and that they must be physically well, mentally well, spiritually well,
and that the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. I am
asking for missionaries who have been carefully indoctrinated and trained
through the family and the organizations of the Church, and who come to the
mission with a great desire. I am asking for better interviews, more searching
interviews, more sympathetic and understanding interviews, but especially that
we train prospective missionaries much better, much earlier, much longer, so
that each anticipates his mission with great joy.[124]
Protestant mission mobilizer Donald McGavran noted: “The first
requirement for church growth on the mission field is for the Church at home to
produce and send forth the right kind of seed abroad.… The missionary, as the
first seed of the Church, will reproduce his own type of faith and spiritual
vigor in the life of his converts.… Vigorous Christians produce vigorous
converts.… The first step in church growth is to have missionaries who are
vital Christians, who will inspire in converts a true spirit of sacrifice for
the Gospel and a burning passion for souls.”[125]
Alma taught “every seed bringeth forth unto its own likeness” (Alma
32:21). One must be fully converted before one can convert others, and one
cannot instill a greater degree of conversion in others than one has personally
experienced.
Being an effective missionary requires an integrated
balance of gospel attributes, including obedience to God, selflessness, love of
the people, ability to understand and relate, and an inexhaustible drive to
contact, teach, truly convert, and reap an abundant harvest. The Lord proclaimed:
“No one can assist in this work except he shall be humble and full of love,
having faith, hope, and charity, being temperate in all things, whatsoever
shall be entrusted to his care” (D&C 12:8). While it is possible to
complete a full-time mission or serve actively in the Church without these
attributes, in their absence we “cannot assist in this work”: the fruits will
not endure and our efforts will be for naught. As fractional retention and
activity statistics from many areas of the world demonstrate, until we develop
the required scriptural attributes and “an eye single to the glory of God,” we
are only deceiving ourselves and playing games at the expense of others. The
most important commandment for us is the one with which we have the most trouble.
Similarly, the attributes that are the hardest for us deserve the most
attention since they are usually the ones that are limiting our progress.
A Love for the Lost
It has often been said that
90 percent of a mission president’s job is motivating missionaries. I may not
be in strict agreement with that, but the importance of motivation is
undeniable. A wise bishop stated: “Any mission president will tell you candidly
that 20% of the missionaries do 80% of the work. Those are the 20% of the missionaries
who go to preach the gospel. For the other 80%, the mission is the main
experience—gaining a testimony.”[126]
Some missionaries have a strong, nearly inexhaustible inner drive for faithful
and fruitful service, while some others who have attended the same church
meetings and seminary meetings and sometimes have even been reared in the same
family go through the motions while demonstrating little energy or initiative.
The first group carries their motivation and resolve within themselves, while
even the most inspiring talks and impassioned pleas from mission leaders
produce little more than a short burst of energy in the second. I have often
observed missionaries from fine families who give moving talks and doctrinally
solid lessons and appear in social situations to be ideal “Mormons” in every
way, yet squander time in the mission field and never fully overcome their fear
of approaching strangers about the gospel. Truly many are called, but few are
chosen.
LDS Missionary Department studies document that missionary
work ethic and productivity in the mission field correlate highly with having a
mother who does not work and with mission expenses that are paid largely or in
full by the missionary himself. As many young men approach mission age, the
question is frequently whether to serve at all. If one is preoccupied with the
question of whether or not to serve, instead of the question of how to serve
effectively from youth, the delay undermines both spiritual and financial
preparation for missionary service. Those who have made major personal
financial sacrifices by working to fund their missions throughout their
adolescence, generally retain greater vision and motivation in the mission
field than those who serve missions as the result of a last-minute decision
with little planning or sacrifice. While most converts and youth in developing
nations cannot fully fund their own missions, there are few reasons for
lifetime members in developed nations to arrive at mission age without being
able to pay most or all of their personal missionary expenses.
What makes the difference between the missionaries and
members who experience a fading burst of energy after inspirational pep talks
and those who hold within themselves a deep and constant drive to share the
gospel? The secret of motivation is charity. Those who have it in sufficient
degree do not require external motivation; those who lack it respond only
transiently to external motivators. Charity banishes the fear of man that
impedes missionary outreach. John taught: “There is no fear in love; but
perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is
not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18). Charity is love based on Christ rather
than on human relationships. It instills perspective and does not allow our
caring to be monopolized by a few investigators making little progress while
many other individuals have never been approached with the gospel message.
Moroni taught that “charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth
forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well
with him” (Moroni 7:47).
Each Latter-day Saint must develop charity, which
leads us to share the gospel. The number of unreached individuals in the world
is virtually unlimited, while each of us has finite time and energy. Jim Rohn
stated, “Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.” As any
procrastination on our part will result in the loss of opportunities to our
fellow men, the work of sharing the gospel cannot be compartmentalized into brief
periods of life when we are serving as full-time missionaries or are assigned
to missionary-related callings. Love is the foundation from which all other
missionary attributes arise. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart stated: “Neither a lofty
degree of intelligence nor imagination, nor both together, go to the making of
a genius. Love, love, love: that is the soul of genius.” A love of the Lord, a
love of missionary work, and a love of people are prerequisites for both the
understanding and effective implementation of missionary efforts. George
Washington Carver observed: “There is nothing that will not reveal its secrets
if you love it enough.”
Few individuals who have grown up in active families
in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can fully appreciate the
depth of spiritual need of the unreached. For many, the gospel and the support
system of faithful families, scripture, and church have been a constant rock in
life providing meaning, counsel, and direction. Those who converted to the
Church at considerable personal sacrifice, as well as those who have
experienced the loss of a loved one or serious personal setbacks, may
appreciate at least to a small degree the breadth of anguish and depth of need
caused by the absence of the gospel message. The love which is central to
missionary work requires a change of heart which is contrary to the natural
man, “for all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s”
(Philippians 2:21).
The burning desire to reach the unreached can be
developed only through obedience and great personal sacrifice. The practices of
studying the scriptures daily and keeping a journal can keep charity alive in
our hearts by helping us to remember our own nothingness and eternal debt to
God. The welfare of our fellow men should be a constant object of thought and
prayer. Nephi, Enos, Alma, Mormon, and others prayed fervently for the welfare
of their brethren (2 Nephi 33:3, Alma 38:14, Enos 1:11, Words of Mormon 1:8,
Mormon 8:24). Some of the greatest missionaries of scripture, including Alma,
the sons of Mosiah, and the Apostle Paul, developed a love for the lost through
personal suffering. Alma wrote: “There could be nothing so exquisite and so
bitter as were my pains … on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and
sweet as was my joy” (Alma 36:21). A proper understanding of the gospel,
combined with charity, generates a compelling desire to share the gospel with
others. The Book of Mormon records that the sons of Mosiah “were desirous that
salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that
any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should
endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble” (Mosiah 28:3).
Similarly, many of the great missionaries of the modern era describe the
burning desire to reach the lost keeping them awake at night. Each of us must
vicariously feel the suffering of those who have not had an opportunity to
receive the full gospel.
We are commanded to “pray unto the Father with all the
energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed
upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ” (Moroni 7:48). Christ
taught that we develop His love by sustained obedience to God: “If ye keep my
commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s
commandments, and abide in his love” (John 15:10). The reverse is also true:
“If you keep not my commandments, the love of the Father shall not continue
with you, therefore you shall walk in darkness” (D&C 95:15). When we stray
from God’s commandments, even in seemingly small things, our love of God—and of
our neighbor—inevitably wane and our vision becomes clouded, although the
change at the time may be imperceptible to us.
The love of God is closely tied to love of our
neighbor. LDS leaders have taught that our love for others is measured by the
sacrifice we make for them. Christ taught that love is a yardstick of
discipleship: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have
love one to another” (John 13:35). There is perhaps no greater missionary than
John the Beloved, who modern revelation teaches has remained on the earth to
bring souls to Christ (D&C 7:1–8). He taught: “If we love one another, God
dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.… If a man says, I love God,
and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom
he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment
have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:12,
20–21). John taught that the love of the world and the love of God are
ultimately mutually exclusive: “If a man love the world, the love of the father
is not in him” (1 John 2:15). In this sense, we might better understand the
Parable of the Rich Young Man who asked the Savior what he must do to inherit
eternal life. The Savior replied: “Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” Matthew
records that the young man “went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions”
(Matthew 19:16–22). The young man had many virtues, but he lacked the most
important one of all: charity, the abiding and unfailing love of Christ. Paul
taught: “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of
these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13). The Savior taught: “Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it,
thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all
the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37–40).
Charity can flourish only when barriers cutting us off
from the Holy Spirit are removed by surrendering to God the piece of our heart
that we have been holding back. A deep love of the unreached, combined with
sacrifice, prayer, and hard work, can open the doors for the Spirit to work.
Alma taught: “He that repenteth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good
works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given to know
the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which
never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring
thousands of souls to repentance, even as it has been given unto us to bring
these our brethren to repentance” (Alma 26:22).
Doing the Right Things
When I started my surgical
residency, a friend gave the advice: “Always do the right thing for your
patient, no matter how tired you are.” A memorable faculty surgeon taught the
motto “TTLYM”—treat them like your mother. These counsels are just as
applicable to the mission field as to medicine. Problematic scenarios that
generally lead to predictably poor results, such as a poorly prepared
investigator being rushed to baptism to meet an artificial baptismal date, a
monthly goal, or a missionary transfer date or the baptism of itinerants
shortly before they leave an area, all sacrifice the investigator’s ultimate
spiritual welfare for personal considerations. In each of these examples, the
missionaries demonstrate a lack of charity. When we have charity, we are driven
by a desire to always do the right thing for our investigators. Our
investigators’ best interests are never sacrificed for programs, goals, quotas,
or secondary gain. We treat each individual in the manner that we would like
our mother, our best friend, or ourselves to be treated under similar
circumstances.
Become a Missionary
The true test of a missionary
is not simply in accepting the mission call, but in the dedication with which
he or she serves daily. The decision to serve diligently should be made once
and adhered to, rather than having to be decided each day. Elder David A.
Bednar noted that “our rather routine emphasis on going misses the mark.… The issue is not going on a mission;
rather, the issue is becoming a missionary and serving throughout our entire
life with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength. It is possible for a
young man to go on a mission and not become a missionary, and this is not
what the Lord requires or what the Church needs. My earnest hope for each of
you young men is that you will not simply go on a mission—but that you will
become missionaries long before you submit your mission papers.”[127]
The Better Part
When many missionaries think
of mission preparation, one of the first questions is what to bring. This
question is primarily self-centered with the focus on personal comfort. The
physical aspects can dominate and crowd out the “weightier matters of the law.”
Christ taught: “Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we
drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the
Gentiles seek).… But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:31–33). Many
well-meaning parents, friends, and family members, like Martha in the New
Testament, worry more about serving physical needs or wants than the better
part: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Few things are less significant to missionary
work than personal belongings. Instead, we must “treasure up in [our] minds
continually the words of life” (D&C 84:85). The Lord warns us of the
consequences of focusing on the temporal: “Behold, there are many called, but
few are chosen. And why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are set so
much upon the things of this world” (D&C 121:34–45). The question that
newly called missionaries should be asking instead of “what should I bring” is “how
can I be most effective in bringing souls to Christ?” For the devoted
missionary, no bed is too hard and no culture is too challenging. All energies
are directed toward the task of reaching souls.
Determination and Mindset
By one’s mindset and determination,
much of the foundation for missionary success or failure is laid before one
arrives in the mission field. Those determined to reap an abundant harvest can
typically do so, while those who lend credence to the myths that “it doesn’t
really matter how many conversions there are” or that “the Lord is in control,
so it isn’t so important how I work” are easily neutralized. It matters a great
deal how effective we are in proclaiming the gospel when the lives of our
brothers and sisters are changed through repentance and conversion. If our own
souls are precious, surely the souls of our fellow men and women are as
precious as our own, not as statistics, but as unique individuals precious in
the sight of our Heavenly Father. How successful would Ammon have been if he
had decided that he already had too many member visits and discussions on his
schedule to go out and do more contacting? Elder Bruce R. McConkie stated: “We
are not getting the results we ought to get. We are not getting the numbers of
baptisms that in my judgment the Lord expects us to get. To a degree, at least,
we are grinding our wheels without going forward.… Perhaps what is wrong is
that we have not desired faith with all our hearts to bring souls into the
kingdom. Perhaps we have not made up our minds that we can and will bring
people into the Church. Now, very frankly, whether we gain many converts or few
depends in large measure upon our frame of mind.”[128]
President Ezra Taft Benson declared: “New missionaries
need to know exactly the purpose for being in the mission field which is to
save souls, to baptize converts, and to bring families into the church.”[129]
Similarly, President Gordon B. Hinckley taught missionaries: “Behold how great
is your calling (D&C 112:33)… You are not sent here to take pictures. You
are not sent here to play. You are sent here to find and teach. That’s our
opportunity, our challenge, and our responsibility. You’ll never rise higher in
all your lives than you will do while you are in the mission field. That may
sound like a strange thing. I said that once in Argentina many years ago, and
about ten years later I received a letter from a young man who said, ‘When I
was on a mission in Argentina, you came there and you put a hex on me. I haven’t
been able to lift it. I have been no good ever since. I failed in school, I
failed in my work, I failed in my marriage.’ I didn’t put a hex on him. I
simply told him that he would never stand taller, never rise higher, than while
in the service of the Lord, and his subsequent life demonstrated that.”[130]
Words, Thoughts, and Desires
Words and thoughts reflect
true priorities and desires. A dedicated missionary consistently centers his
desires and thoughts on the Lord’s work and always seeks to be more effective.
An astute missionary companion noted that “you can tell a lot about
missionaries by the things they talk about when they get together.” Effective
missionaries share experiences, information, and ideas about missionary work,
while others talk about entertainment, meals at nice restaurants, or
postmission plans. Self-improvement comes naturally when the Lord’s work is put
above one’s own. Our willingness to sacrifice personal desires and think the
Lord’s thoughts rather than our own is a strong indicator of personal
conversion.
Scripture Study
The time to learn the
scriptures is long before the mission call. Missionaries who seriously study
the doctrines of the restoration, master the scriptures, and memorize hundreds
of verses before their missions as President Benson instructed are able to hit
the ground running. Missionaries who have not consistently studied the
scriptures prior to their missions lose much valuable time in the field in
search of basic understanding. Righteous habits and correct understanding of
the gospel are not acquired overnight. Many individuals accept and promulgate a
philosophy that spiritual needs can be met by reading only one or two verses of
scripture per day. The intent may be to encourage those who are not reading scriptures
regularly to read some small amount, but the usual effect is to generate
complacency with little or no real effort at scripture study. Full nourishment
is necessary for us to endure the heat of the day of mortal challenges and
temptations. We cannot abide the conditions of salvation or teach them to
others without understanding them ourselves.
It is not enough simply to read the scriptures. They
must be written on our hearts and guide our conduct and actions. Missionaries
must become fluent with the scriptures in the local language. A missionary’s
knowledge of scriptures is of little benefit to others if he cannot freely
share passages with investigators and members.
Follow the Spirit
The Spirit speaks both to
mind and heart (D&C 8:2) and can no more speak to the mind in an
environment of illogic than it can speak to the heart in an environment of
contention and dispute. Exclusive focus on reason at the expense of spiritual
feeling is equally ineffective. True spirituality demands both mind and heart,
reason and feeling, logic and love. Truth, reason, and enlightenment come from
the same divine spirit as the burning within the heart. The Lord can fully
answer our prayers only when we have made an earnest attempt to study, contemplate,
and understand. The Spirit can enlighten us to its full potential only when we
have done our part to investigate, study, and ponder and when we sacrifice our
personal desires to God’s will.
Obedience: The Key to Testimony
Developing a testimony takes
time, and testimonies exist in varying degrees and strengths. Elder Heber J.
Grant stated: “I may know that the Gospel is true, and my wife may know it; but
I do not imagine for one moment that my children will be born with this
knowledge. We receive a testimony of the Gospel by obeying the laws and
ordinances thereof; and our children will receive that knowledge exactly the
same way; and if we do not teach them, and they do not walk in the straight and
narrow path that leads to eternal life, they will never receive this
knowledge.”[131]
The real measure of testimony is the extent to which obedience to the gospel is
reflected in our daily lives. The Savior taught that a testimony is acquired
through obedience: “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17). The best and
only way to come to understand the truth of any gospel principle is to live it.
Alma describes how our faith can grow from belief into a perfect knowledge by
nurturing the word through obedience to the gospel (Alma 32). There is a
greater difference between the missionary who is 100 percent obedient and a 95
percent missionary than between a 95 percent missionary and a 50 percent
missionary. The Lord can trust missionaries who are consistently faithful to
work miracles like Paul, Nephi, and Ammon, while those whose obedience is
inconsistent never reach their full potential in bringing souls to Christ.
True Faith, Expectations, and Reality: Emotional Preparation for
Serving Effectively
Emotional preparation for
frequent rejection is one of the most important preparations for missionary
service. The scriptures are replete with directives to share the gospel without
regard for the fear of man, and all those who heed the ridicule of those in the
“great and spacious building” stray from the straight and narrow path (1 Nephi
8:33–34). Many missionaries are discouraged that more people do not accept
their message. Frequently, the problem lies not in their techniques, but in unrealistic
expectations and in not meeting enough people. Most missionaries expect to
baptize a relatively high percentage of those whom they meet and teach. Many
state that they have “faith” that all of their investigators will desire to be
baptized, that all of those who commit to baptism will carry through, and that
all those who are baptized will remain active and strong members of the church
throughout life almost regardless of the quality of teaching or demonstrated
level of commitment. “Faith” that does not allow for the moral agency of others
is deficient. Inspirational stories of miraculous success with seemingly little
effort can fuel unrealistic expectations.
Missionaries can become discouraged when results do
not measure up to their expectations, and many slacken their efforts to
minimize further rejection. When missionaries have excessive expectations for
early acceptance and are poorly prepared to cope with rejection, they often
waste valuable time by repeatedly visiting investigators who are not keeping
commitments, while failing to put forth adequate ongoing contacting efforts.
Beyond a certain point, additional effort with the same individuals generates
diminishing returns. Missionaries who are content with contacting a handful of
people each day never rise above mediocrity.
While much can be done to improve finding and teaching
effectiveness, frequent rejection is a fact of life for even the best
missionaries in almost every mission. Traditionally, only a fraction of
investigators at each major decision point typically progress. Only a small
fraction of those who promise to attend church actually show up, and most
missionaries find that 40 to 70 percent of first and second discussions fall
through. In the early 1990s, the Church Missionary Department reported that
only about one-fifth of first discussions lead to second discussions, only a
fraction of investigators commit to baptism, and only one-fifth of baptismal
commitments are carried through. Other research demonstrates that only one-quarter
of international converts remain active for any meaningful period. Much can be
done to improve progression at the later points. I have consistently found that
over 80 percent of baptismal commitments are accepted, a similar percentage
materialize, and 80 to 90 percent of baptized converts remain active with
application of the principles described in this book, leading to exponentially
greater long-term success. Yet virtually all missionaries experience a high
degree of rejection in the early stages as part of the scriptural “sifting” of
those who hear the gospel message.
All effective missionaries are undeterred from sharing
the gospel and maintain consistent high effort in the face of frequent
rejection. They expect to contact thousands and teach many in order to bring a
single contact into the church. The Savior taught that we will experience
rejection just as He did: “If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute
you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also” (John 15:20).
Mission President Charles Creel instructed missionaries: “If you aren’t being
rejected many times each day, you aren’t doing much missionary work.” The
gospel polarizes people, and those who accept or reject the gospel are passing
judgment on themselves and not on the messengers. We must be sensitive to local
customs and individual needs and feelings so that the rejections that
inevitably come will be for the gospel’s sake rather than because of our own
lack of preparation or sensitivity.
Elder Neal A. Maxwell noted: “Too many of us seem to
expect that life will flow ever smoothly, featuring an unbroken chain of green
lights with empty parking places just in front of our destinations!”[132]
President Howard W. Hunter taught: “This faith and hope of which I speak is not
a Pollyanna-like approach to significant personal and public problems. I don’t
believe we can wake up in the morning and simply by drawing a big ‘happy face’
on the chalkboard believe that is going to take care of the world’s
difficulties. But if our faith and hope are anchored in Christ, in his
teachings, commandments, and promises, then we are able to count on something
truly remarkable, genuinely miraculous, which can part the Red Sea and lead
modern Israel to a place ‘where none shall come to hurt or make afraid.’”[133]
The real faith is in persistently putting forth our
best effort, come what may, to teach others to love and live the gospel. With
consistent effort over time, such effort is inevitably rewarded. In facilitating
the miracle of conversion, the most important lessons are those that prepare
our hearts and minds to put our hands to the plough and to serve with all our
might. Jim Rohn stated: “Don’t wish it was easier; wish you were better. Don’t
wish for less problems; wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge;
wish for more wisdom.”
Wise goals can promote increased productivity, skill development,
and gospel service. President Spencer W. Kimball taught: “We do believe in
setting goals … we must have goals to make progress, encouraged by keeping
records.… Laboring with a distant aim sets the mind in a higher key and puts us
at our best.… Goals should always be made to a point that will make us reach
and strain.”[134] Without goals, confusion of purpose ensues. Thomas Carlyle wrote:
“A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder.” Goals can expand vision
and provide greater awareness of opportunities. Jim Rohn observed: “The
ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it
takes to achieve them.” Goals can help us to overcome past limitations. Elder
Neal A. Maxwell stated: “Our goals should stretch us bit by bit. So often when
we think we have encountered a ceiling, it is really a psychological or experimental
barrier that we have built ourselves. We built it and we can remove it. Just as
correct principles, when applied, carry their own witness that they are true,
so do correct personal improvement programs. But we must not expect personal
improvement without pain or some ‘remodeling.’ We can’t expect to have the
thrills of revealed religion without the theology. We cannot expect to have the
soul stretching without Christian service.”[135]
Some goals are
more helpful than others, and improper goals can be as detrimental as good
goals are helpful. Ezra Taft Benson noted: “We cannot do everything at once,
but we can do a great deal if we choose our goals well and work diligently to
attain them.”[136] To harness the full power of goals, we must choose goals that are
both appropriate and suitable to our situation. Before we can formulate helpful
goals, we must understand the principles of goal-setting.
Goals versus Quotas
Quotas, or numerical goals established for individuals other than
oneself, are inappropriate. Spencer W. Kimball taught: “Now somebody also got
mixed up and they thought goal was spelled, ‘q-u-o-t-a,’ and it isn’t; that’s
another word. Now there’s a tremendous difference between a goal and a quota.”[137] Elder James E. Faust stated: “Missionaries should have goals but
they should not be imposed by the mission president, his assistants or the zone
leaders. I am persuaded that the missionaries will be more dedicated to their
work, will be more committed, if they have set their own goals, and happier in
their labors than if goals are imposed upon them. The best motivation is
self-motivation.”[138] In spite of this counsel, some missions continue to impose
monthly and weekly mission quotas for baptisms, discussions, inactive visits,
member visits, and other items. Effective leadership does not impose quotas.
Returned missionary Kevin Buell explained the leadership model of the late
President Viacheslav Efimov of the Russia Yekaterinburg Mission, who set new
records as the highest-baptizing mission president in Russia at the time of his
service: “He didn’t have a lot of goals for us. Districts and zones set their
own goals. He just encouraged and continued the work atmosphere.” Baptismal
quotas lack credibility, since the leaders who impose such goals have rarely if
ever consistently achieved these same goals themselves for any sustained
period. More helpful goals such as members speaking with at least one nonmember
about the gospel each week or missionaries contacting a minimum number of
people each day allow leaders to lead by example and to expand their own
understanding and insight into the challenges experienced by others and their
solutions. Good leadership is not fostered by imposing vicarious quotas on
others but by mentoring others in effectively finding, teaching, and retaining
converts.
Goals and Agency
Time management guru Jeffrey Meyer noted: “set goals for
activities, not for results, and the results will take care of themselves,” as
long as the chosen activities are appropriate. Goals contingent on the
responses of others are inherently manipulative and often lead to false
feelings of guilt, unworthiness, and discouragement when hard-working
missionaries and members fail to achieve them. Missionaries are sometimes
taught that reaching their monthly baptismal goals is an indicator of personal
obedience. This is contrary to the scriptural principle of moral agency, since
missionaries can control only their own conduct and not how investigators react
to the gospel message. Noah preached for 120 years, yet no conversions are
recorded in scripture. Mormon and Moroni describe their own vigorous preaching
efforts that seemingly produced few visible results. Mormon wrote: “And now, my
beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor diligently” (Moroni 9:6).
Yet monthly baptismal goal initiatives would have branded these prophets as
failures.
Monthly
baptismal goals introduce subversive incentives and lead to tragic results by
eclipsing the investigator’s personal needs and shortchanging the repentance and
conversion processes in the rush to baptize. The collapse of hundreds of LDS
congregations throughout Latin America between 2001 and 2004 due to rampant
inactivity and fractional convert retention demonstrate the catastrophe
incurred by runaway baptismal goals uncoupled from the conversion process.
Thousands of missionaries met monthly goals while neglecting the eternal ones,
resulting in impressive statistical reports while leaving behind the emotional
and spiritual wreckage of lost souls. What consolation can we derive from
statistical reports of numerous baptisms that do not result in convert
retention or activity? The wheel was spinning, but the gerbil was dead.
On my mission,
the official policy requiring missionaries to establish arbitrary monthly baptismal
goals produced considerable frustration, since many monthly goals went unmet in
spite of our best efforts. We therefore abandoned the process of setting
arbitrary baptismal goals and focused on things we could control, such as the
number of individuals contacted with the gospel each day and the quality of
prebaptismal teaching and preparation of investigators. Our happiness level,
confidence, and spirituality rose dramatically, and our success increased to
levels that had never been achieved with baptismal goals.
Goals to teach
a certain number of discussions often lead to missionaries forging ahead with
discussions that the investigators are not prepared to hear. Teaching an
investigator the next discussion is not in the investigator’s best interest
when significant concerns remain unresolved or commitments from past lessons
remain unfulfilled.
Goals for
members to bring one individual into the Church each year or to set a date to
find someone ready to be taught by the missionaries put the cart before the
horse. These programs are demoralizing for members, who in spite of their best
efforts to regularly share the gospel are counted the same as members who make
no attempt to share the gospel at all, if they are not able to produce
referrals or baptisms. A focus on secondary outcome measures such as referrals
or baptisms rarely, if ever, results in sustained improvement without members
first establishing regular habits of sharing the gospel with nonmembers.
We must choose
goals that facilitate our true purpose, rather than false endpoints that do not
reflect our eternal aims. We must understand what our goals actually measure
and be aware of any potential for abuse. Real growth is subverted when the
considerations of quality teaching, repentance, and conversion become secondary
to numerical baptism or discussion goals.
Helpful Goals
Helpful goals focus on putting forth a strong effort on a
consistent basis and do not depend on the response of others. These goals can
be achieved consistently by anyone with application of adequate effort.
President Gordon B. Hinckley noted: “If you will work hard, the matter of
converts will take care of itself. I am satisfied of that. Give it your very
best.”[139] Good goals are based firmly in gospel principles, while unhelpful
goals are arbitrary. Helpful goals are not manipulative and never sacrifice the
needs of souls. Helpful goals start small and help us to progress from our
current state. By focusing on work ethic rather than results, good goals
ultimately generate much greater benefits to the real growth of the church than
unrighteous or improper goals, while simultaneously helping us to become better
people. They lift our character and enrich the lives of others.
The best goals
are gospel-oriented habits or simple daily acts that can be performed
consistently. In the small, quiet, daily acts unseen by most of the world, the
real battles are won or lost. Once a challenging but consistently achievable
level of performance is reached, it is not necessary to continue raising the
goal indefinitely. Good goals are stable and sustainable and focus on
improvement through consistent performance. Good habits generate regular
progress that, over time, facilitates the conversion of others. My preferred
goal for member-missionary work is to approach at least one nonmember per week
about the gospel and for missionaries to contact at least fifty to one hundred
nonmembers each day. These goals involve the direct fulfillment of scriptural
mandates rather than participation in contrived programs and are directly
within the power of each person to accomplish.
Jim Rohn advised: “Never
begin the day until it is finished on paper.… At the end of each day, you
should play back the tapes of your performance. The results should either
applaud you or prod you.” Every evening following the missionaries’ return to
the apartment, the schedule for the following day is reviewed and calls are
made to confirm existing appointments, establish new ones, and follow up with
contacts, investigators, and members. The current day is also reviewed to
recognize both successes and opportunities for improvement. The schedule for
the coming week should be planned at a set time each week and then reviewed and
updated daily. It is often easiest to do this after finishing proselyting at
9:30 pm on Sundays, with the
knowledge of which investigators have attended church and who is available to
be taught. The existing appointments are reviewed along with the needs of each
investigator. Gaps in the schedule are considered, and telephone calls are made
first to investigators and second to new members to set additional
appointments. To minimize travel time, appointments close to each other should
be scheduled consecutively when possible. In areas of high receptivity,
consideration should be given to improving time efficiency to allow more people
to be taught. Investigators can be taught in small or medium-sized groups
rather than as individuals, or investigators can be scheduled in a location
convenient for the missionaries, such as a chapel or designated member home, in
sequential time slots. Consideration must be made to the alternative activities
available at various time slots. An effective missionary will harvest the power
of prayer in planning. Ezra Taft Benson noted, “In the work of the Lord there
should be no serious mistakes. The most important point of your planning should
be on your knees.”[140]
Evening and weekend time when families are home
usually constitutes prime time for missionary work. Because standard business
and school hours are often more difficult to fill with productive teaching and
finding activities than evenings or weekends, appointments should
preferentially be scheduled during the day when possible. Evening and weekend
appointments should ideally be scheduled only for individuals who are
unavailable during daytime hours.
Several common planning mistakes can impair
productivity. One common mistake of inefficient planners is to schedule few
widely spaced appointments and view those time slots as inflexible. For most
missionaries, only 30 to 60 percent of scheduled discussions with contacts and
investigators actually materialize due to investigator no-shows, initially
receptive contacts who become disinterested, and invalid or wrong addresses.
The prudent missionary overschedules every day, recognizing that many
appointments will inevitably fall through, creating gaps. If most or all visits
turn out, the missionary must be flexible in delivering powerful but concise
teaching to allow the schedule to be kept.
A second mistake is to lack a suitable backup plan.
Some missionaries are repeatedly caught unprepared when appointments fall through
and return to their apartments or engage in other fruitless activities stating
that there is “nothing to do.” The prudent missionary anticipates that many
appointments do not materialize, especially with new contacts and investigators
who have had less than three discussions. Tracting, street contacting, and
brief drop-in visits to members or other contacts in the area often make
excellent short-notice backup plans. Backup activities are planned in advance:
tracting or street contacting in the area, brief stop-ins to other contacts or
members in the area, and so forth. By anticipating trends and being prepared
with a backup plan, the disappointment and frustration of broken appointments
can be turned into fruitful opportunities. Over the course of a mission,
missionaries who lack backup plans will lose hundreds of hours of productive
work and tens of thousands of gospel contacts compared to missionaries who plan
for contingencies.
A final mistake is to fail to schedule daily
contacting time. Maintaining daily exposure to many new contacts and keeping an
active turnover of investigators are essential to developing a strong,
high-quality teaching pool. Contacting is the foundation of missionary
productivity and brings greater vitality to all other endeavors. Schedules
should include daily time for tracting, street contacting, or other methods of
finding through the missionaries’ own efforts. Incidental time spent contacting
while in transit to appointments is typically not nearly as productive as dedicated
contacting activities and so should be done in addition to and not as a
substitute for dedicated contacting time. Two hours of tracting every evening
or street contacting during the day represent a far more fruitful use of time
than return visits to investigators who are not progressing or dinners with
members. If pursued as a resolute goal, 50 to 200 individuals can be approached
about the gospel every day in most areas in addition to keeping a nearly full
teaching schedule.
Special Priorities
Following up on contacts and
referrals is one of the most productive missionary activities relative to the
time spent and should be viewed as an urgent priority by all missionaries. On
several occasions, I have contacted missionaries to pass on referrals and was
told that they did not have time to teach new people, even though they had not
had a baptism in months. In other cases, I have followed up a week or later on
contacts I referred only to find out that the missionaries in their area had
never contacted them. Referrals should be followed up on within forty-eight
hours when at all possible, since most are time-sensitive. Mission-level
follow-up can be helpful to ensure that referrals have been contacted by the
assigned missionaries.
Sunday church meeting hours are the most important
time of a missionary’s week. It is crucial to meet all new contacts and
investigators, record addresses and telephone numbers, and establish
appointments when possible. I have been surprised at how frequently some
missionaries fail to ask first-time visitors for contact information or to
schedule follow-up appointments with them. There is little value in diligent
contacting during the week when individuals that show up to church slip through
the cracks through poor prioritization or neglect.
The Secret of Missionary Work
President Ezra Taft Benson
stated that the secret of missionary work is work. Besides obedience, work is
the most important factor in gaining and keeping the companionship of the Holy
Spirit. Remarkable spiritual experiences come the way of those who tirelessly
serve and not to those who sit back waiting for experiences to come to them.
The Lord needs hands that do His work more than lips that pray. While visiting
missionaries in Japan, President Heber J. Grant stated that missionaries should
work at least as hard as those who earn salaries, implying that this was often
not happening. I felt the most powerful manifestations of the Spirit as a
missionary when my companion and I had worked very hard putting in twelve and
thirteen hour days bringing the word face to face.
In most missions, there are seventy-five hours set
aside for proselyting in a missionary week (9:30 am to 9:30 pm
six days per week and 6:30 pm to
9:30 pm on preparation day).
Almost any missionary who observes basic mission rules, used efficiently,
maintains a vigorous work ethic, economizes travel time, keeps lunch to only
one hour or less, and uses preparation day for preparation can consistently
reach over sixty hours of proselyting each week. Optimally, at least fifty
hours per week or 80 percent of total working time should be spent in actual
proselyting activities, contacting and teaching nonmembers firsthand.
Proselyting Hours
Webster’s dictionary defines proselytizing
as: 1. to induce someone to convert to one’s faith; 2. to recruit someone to
join one’s party, institution, or cause. Many missions include time spent
visiting active members, writing talks or lessons for members, attending
meetings, and travel time in reported proselyting hours, although none of these
activities meet the definition of proselyting. Some of these activities can
represent legitimate uses of missionary time, at least on an occasional basis,
but working with contacts and investigators face-to-face are the primary
activities that build the kingdom of God. When all nonproselyting activities
are excluded, it is often surprising how little time is being spent contacting
and teaching the gospel firsthand. A large amount of time spent in
nonproselyting activities is a sign of inefficient time utilization. It is
often difficult for missionaries and mission leaders to recognize and
troubleshoot such inefficiencies without a specific breakdown of what reported
proselyting hours represent. To avoid numbers inflated by nonproselyting
activities, it is valuable to separately report and track the number of hours
spent making fresh contacts and teaching investigators.
Preparation Day
Preparation day is the
“missionary Sabbath,” since it must be spent properly for the rest of the week
to run in good order. Sightseeing and other diversions should be enjoyed only
after preparation is done. When preparation day time is not utilized
appropriately, shopping, personal errands, and other nonproselyting activities
spill over into the rest of the week to the detriment of finding and teaching
opportunities.
Teach Those Who Are Ready Now
In areas of high receptivity,
missionary productivity is frequently limited by the ability of local
missionaries to effectively manage their time. Ammon and his brethren could not
have experienced high success without good time management skills, regardless
of the receptivity of those around them. Many missionaries today continue to
visit investigators as long as they will accept visits, even if they are not
keeping commitments or making progress. Such visits are typically based
primarily on personality and other interests rather than the gospel message.
While investigators should never be pressured to be baptized, it is imperative
that investigators put forth regular effort toward the development of gospel
habits including Book of Mormon reading and church attendance to justify
repeated missionary visits. Missionaries should not schedule time with
individuals who are consistently unwilling or unable to keep basic commitments.
Missionaries must find those who are prepared to observe gospel commitments
now, while leaving the door open for those who may be ready later. An active
turnover of investigators is essential to keeping the finding and teaching
pools vibrant.
Language learning has only a
modest relationship to intelligence, but a strong relationship to consistency
of effort. Continued daily language study is necessary to move from rudimentary
communication to speaking correctly and mastering a full range of expression.
Some find the challenge of studying a new language overwhelming, while others
slacken their study after reaching a basic comfort zone. Brigham Young
University professor Dilworth B. Parkinson stated: “One of the clearest results
of language teaching research is that when a student becomes satisfied with
what he knows, when he feels he ‘knows the language,’ he almost immediately
ceases to make progress. We call this the ‘returned-missionary syndrome.’”[141]
This syndrome is not restricted to returned missionaries: many missionaries
overestimate their own language proficiency and fail to progress after only a
few months into the mission. Dr. Parkinson continued: “[Those] who manage to
keep in mind how little they know and how much they have still to learn end up
being the ones who make the most ultimate progress and find the most joy in the
journey. Being reminded of the huge gulf between one’s own language abilities,
no matter how advanced, and those of a native speaker appears to be a
prerequisite for further progress.”
When one first arrives in a foreign country, one may
feel that he or she knows little and may not understand the people well. For some,
there is a temptation to stay in the apartment and study during proselyting
hours. It is important to study the language diligently during scheduled study
hours. It is also essential to get out of the apartment and work diligently to
make new contacts during proselyting hours. There is always time in the “cracks
in the day” to enhance study. I would read a pocket dictionary on the bus and
listen to language cassettes when preparing meals, showering, or cleaning up.
Opportunities for study can be found any time, while opportunities to proselyte
and share the gospel are limited to daylight and evening hours. One can learn
much about a language by interacting with people that cannot be learned from
books, cassettes, or CDs. Missionaries who lose proselyting time to other
activities, no matter how well-intentioned, lose the spirit and feel that
something is missing in their work. The best feeling in missionary work is to
come home after putting in a long day of well-used time, regardless of whether
people have rejected you or invited you back, knowing that you did your best.
Small children learn languages by listening. They
learn intonation and pronunciation first, then vocabulary, and grammar last of
all, achieving relative fluency before they can even read or write. Most North
American schools teach languages by focusing first on grammar, then vocabulary.
Pronunciation is learned later, and intonation is learned last if at all. This
style of teaching typically leads to a strong accent and limited conversational
ability. This style reflects academic needs rather than practical utility. It
is easier for instructors who may not have full mastery of the language
themselves to assess spelling and grammar than evaluate pronunciation or
conversational ability.
Time is much better spent learning vocabulary,
phrases, and dialogues from cassettes or CDs recorded by native speakers than
from written lists. Learning a word on paper does not give one the ability to
pronounce or use it correctly. Hearing the words and repeating them is less
mentally taxing than reading from paper and is retained better. One should
repeat the words or phrases and compare one’s own pronunciation and intonation
to that of a native speaker. At first, it may be difficult to hear important differences
in pronunciation or intonation. Learning to listen accurately is vital to
achieving language mastery. Large numbers of adult speakers of other languages
with severe accents demonstrate that it is often difficult to unlearn bad
habits of pronunciation or intonation once they become established, and it is
much more efficient to learn a language correctly from the beginning with a
focus on acquiring proper pronunciation and intonation. Diligent study of the
written language is vital, yet this study should occur on top of a foundation
of good pronunciation and intonation from listening.
Many missions employ a Speak Your Language (SYL)
policy, requiring missionaries to speak the local language among each other
when out of the apartment. While such programs can have some positive benefit
when appropriately employed, the foreign language discussions by two
missionaries who both speak the language badly can reinforce habits of poor
pronunciation, improper intonation, and erroneous phrasing that can be difficult
to overcome. Jim Rohn stated: “You cannot speak that which you do not know.…
You cannot translate that which you do not have. And you cannot give that which
you do not possess. To give it and to share it, and for it to be effective, you
first need to have it. Good communication starts with good preparation.” For
languages that are not as simple for English speakers to learn as are Spanish
or Portuguese, few missionaries are adequately proficient to effectively mentor
each other in language skills. I have often found that college students who
live in an immersive environment abroad typically master the local language
faster and better than most missionaries. Missionary language learning is best
facilitated by a constant focus on listening in an immersive environment, with
language cassettes and CDs in the apartment and consistent attention to careful
listening and analysis in conversations with natives. While Book of Mormon
recordings are available in few languages, the New Testament is available on
cassette or on audio CD in hundreds of languages from firms such as Hosannah:
Faith Comes by Hearing[142]
and Audio Scriptures International. These audio resources allow missionaries to
achieve exceptional scriptural fluency in the mission language.
On-demand multilingual news broadcasts are available
online from sources including BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, and Voice of
America. Words used most frequently become a part of the user’s active
vocabulary, while words used less frequently become a part of one’s passive
vocabulary. News broadcasts generally employ practical, commonly used words
that are much more useful than the specialized vocabulary of great literature.
Audio news broadcasts present invaluable language learning tools for those who
do not have the opportunity to constantly be around native speakers.
Additionally, many broadcasts are focused on local events that shed insight
into cultural issues. General audience newspapers are similarly useful. For
languages such as Russian and Ukrainian with variable syllable stress and
stress changes with declension, an orthographic dictionary is an essential
companion to a standard dictionary to ensure that one can correctly pronounce
the words one reads.
One should keep a dictionary handy and write down all
unfamiliar words to look up later. Some missionaries feel that they can
understand the “essence” of a conversation without understanding certain words.
On closer questioning, I have found that those who make this claim usually did
not understand or misunderstood the speaker’s meaning. There is no place for
bluffing one’s way through a conversation. Looking up unfamiliar words goes a
long way toward ensuring accurate comprehension and communication.
After the mission, it is much easier to keep up on a
language than to re-learn it in later years. “It is always easier to keep up
than to catch up.” More young elders and sisters are needed who are already
fluent in a foreign language, and older couple missionaries who are fluent and
have kept up on another language can usually accomplish much more than those
who do not speak the language of the country in which they serve.
Culture requires special
study by foreigners to avoid misunderstandings and to present the gospel in the
most relevant and appropriate ways. In his essay “On Liberty,” John Stuart Mill
remarked on the widely different values and assumptions of different cultures:
“No two ages, and scarcely any two countries, have decided it alike; and the
decision of one age or country is a wonder to another. Yet the people of any
given age and country no more suspect any difficulty in it, than if it were a
subject on which mankind had always been agreed. The rules which they obtain
among themselves appear to them self-evident and self-justifying.” The Apostle
Paul recognized that different groups of people had different needs and
concerns: “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom” (1
Corinthians 1:22). He integrated an understanding of local culture and
contemporary needs into his preaching and demonstrated similarities between the
gospel teachings and cultural ideals in his discourse to the Athenians on Mars
Hill by citing the work of Greek poets: “For in him we live, and move, and have
our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his
offspring” (Acts 17:28). He wrote: “For though I be free from all men, yet have
I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I
became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as
under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are
without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law
to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I
as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I
might by all means save some” (1 Corinthians 9:19–22).
Paul could not have tailored his message to different
cultures without careful study of cultural values, priorities, and real and
perceived needs. Similarly, the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were
all directed to different audiences—Jews, Romans, Greeks, and “all the world,”
respectively—with each version presenting Christ’s teachings and ministry in a
manner most convincing and relevant to the target culture. Would the early
church have experienced the same initial growth if the authors had presented
the gospel message to everyone in the same fashion without regard to cultural
considerations, local conditions, or personal needs? Yet Jews, Romans, and
Greeks were all united under the single government of the Roman Empire. If each
of these groups required a different approach to maximize receptivity, how
great a need do we have today to contextualize the gospel message to the tens
of thousands of people groups and cultures in over 250 nations around the
world?
Find Out About the People in your Country and Area
Evangelist Rick Warren wrote:
“Targeting for evangelism begins with finding out all you can about your
community. Your church needs to define its target in four specific ways:
geographically, demographically, culturally, and spiritually.… I must pay as
much attention to the geography, customs, culture, and religious background of
my community as I do to those who lived in Bible times if I am to faithfully
communicate God’s Word.”[143]
A missionary should consider: What are cultural beliefs that share common
ground with the gospel? What approaches are considered to be appropriate or
inappropriate within this culture? What do people consider to be their greatest
needs? What cultural beliefs might present obstacles for potential
investigators, and how can they effectively be addressed? When missionaries are
fully aware of local needs, beliefs, and opportunities, they are able to direct
their time and energies much more effectively.
Cultural Issues Today
Brigham Young University
sociologist Lawrence Young noted: “Mormonism attempts to take the form of a
community that was developed in a specific place—where the Mormon Church is one
of the most powerful social actors—and to transport that community to other
host societies that are not well matched.”[144]
Sociologist Tim Heaton reported that by the late 1980s, 80 percent of church
growth occurred outside of the United States, and Utah accounted for only 3
percent of membership growth—overwhelmingly from baptisms of children of record
rather than convert baptisms.[145]
In 1987, Elder Boyd K. Packer reminded a group of Church leaders that “we can’t
move [into various countries] with a 1947 Utah Church! Could it be that we are
not prepared to take the gospel because we are not prepared to take (and they
are not prepared to receive) all of the things we have wrapped up with it as
extra baggage?”[146]
The universality of the gospel message does not
eliminate the need to present this message in a culturally relevant and
understandable fashion. Neither a 1947 Utah Church nor a 2007 Utah Church can
be readily transplanted to other cultural settings without differentiating
between the principles of the everlasting gospel and American cultural baggage.
This mismatch is often perpetuated by missionary research that continues to be
conducted primarily in English-speaking areas under the assumption that U.S.
outreach findings will be applicable to the rest of the world because “there is
one gospel is for all people.” The large discrepancy between LDS convert
retention in the United States (approximately 40 percent) and international
areas (20 to 25 percent) suggests that LDS programs developed in North America
unwittingly draw too much from the cultural setting of the American church and,
at least in part, fail to tailor approaches in a fashion appropriate for other
cultures and conditions.
In many nations, slow church growth has been related
in part to a failure to present the gospel in a culturally relevant manner,
rather than to hard-heartedness of local people. German LDS member Peter
Wollauer pointed out the problems of exporting Utah-based missionary paradigms
to other cultures: “German missionary work was slow for a long time because
mission presidents from the United States used American methods of contacting
and teaching potential converts. With more German mission presidents, stake and
ward leaders ‘emancipated’ from U.S. leaders, the conversion rate has picked
up. That does not mean that we ignore the counsel and suggestions of General
Authorities, but it does mean that we feel free to find our own German and
Austrian way to put these suggestions into practice.”[147]
He noted that all Church instruction manuals and videos are produced in the
United States and are often less relevant or understandable for those of other
cultures: “The videos intellectually bring the message, but emotionally there
is a lack of identification—high school, problems with dating, a teaching
moment in the desert. The young people are not able to feel the situation,
because the school system is very different, the tradition of dating is very
different, and there is no desert in Germany.” Former German missionary Helmut
Lotz wrote: “When I served a mission in Germany in 1985, I was called to a committee
that had to review the missionary discussions for cultural adaptation...To
date, the church has not even corrected the grammatical mistakes. Nor has
anybody made an effort to use illustrations that would be compatible with
German culture...There is no gospel reason why every Mormon needs to become
half an American. Evangelicals and Pentecostals seem to adapt to non-American
cultures more effectively.”[148]
Similar difficulties have been noted by members from many other cultures. In an age where increasing numbers of LDS members live outside of
the United States, this transfer of Utah culture along with the gospel message
may help one to understand why the LDS Church is still commonly regarded as an
“American Church” by most of its own international members, even in
English-speaking nations.[149]
If Utah-based materials and methodologies are less
relevant in Germany, which shares Western heritage and close ties with the
United States, the challenges of transplanting them into non-Western cultures
are even greater. For example, the Missionary
Guide (1986–2004) carried role-playing dialogues suggesting that approaching
nonmembers with tangential small talk and then leading into a gospel
conversation was universally more effective than a direct approach. Yet as a
missionary in Russia, I found that an indirect approach by strangers was often
perceived as being evasive or even dishonest, while a direct approach was more
effective.
The
new Preach My Gospel manual offers no
specific insights into different cultures, but it removes many of the U.S. culture-based
tactics found in past editions that were unsuitable in other cultural settings
and encourages missionaries to develop and use their own cultural insights
rather than following a formula. Better research, careful study, and
involvement of local members will be required to develop effective ways of
presenting LDS beliefs in non-Western cultures and among Muslims, Hindus,
Buddhists, and other non-Christians.
The Importance of Finding
It has been said that almost anyone can teach a truly “golden investigator” but that finding such investigators in the first place is much more challenging. Missionary Department studies estimate that finding represents at least two-thirds of missionary work. Elder Dallin H. Oaks stated that the average LDS missionary in North America spends only nine hours per week teaching investigators.