Author Archives: JM

Preaching to the choir

Posted on by
19

I served as a full time missionary for the LDS church in the Nevada Las Vegas Mission (there was only one mission in Nevada at the time).  Lots of fond memories there.  Blistering heat that would leave your footprints in the asphalt, desert rainstorms / flash floods, really interesting people from all over the world.  There was also the “work”.

I remember the first time I was a trainer.  We were instructed by our mission president to take our new missionary tracting as soon as we got them back to the apartment.  Didn’t even give them time to unpack.  I think I handled the first dozen or so door approaches before my “greenie” got the courage to try one.  On his very first try, a man came to the door wearing nothing but boxer shorts with a handgun tucked in the front.  The man suggested we leave.   We did.  What a great way to start a mission.

I experienced two mission presidents while there.  Both of them had different approaches to proselyting, but one thing remained the same.  We were to spend as little time as possible with existing members of the church.  We were even told that if there wasn’t an investigator at church, that we were to be sure to attend one of our wards and take the sacrament, but then we should leave and be out in the community proselyting, even attending other churches.  We did this quite a bit.  While in Nevada, I attended Catholic Mass, Jehovah’s Witness meetings, and a variety of other Christian denomination meetings.  While not  always resulting in formal teaching opportunities, attending these other churches generated a lot of gospel discussions.

When we were with members, we would tract or take them street contacting.  We never visited with the less active unless it was a part-member family situation that had a potential convert.  Our dinner appointments with members were to be wrapped up in under an hour unless a non-member was present.  The total focus was on bringing souls to Christ through the ordinances of baptism and confirmation.  And you can’t do that when you spend all your time with the “already baptized”.

Fast forward to today.

The mission in the area where I live has been given a mandate that every companionship needs to teach 20 missionary discussions a week.  I guess that’s a good thing.  I remember similar goals when I was a full time missionary.  However, here, where I live, the focus seems to be on teaching these discussions to member families, not non-members.  The missionaries in our ward pass around two calendars.  One is the dinner calendar, and the other is a calendar for you to have them over to teach you a discussion.

To me, that’s just bizarre.  I just don’t understand the logic in “Preaching to the choir”.  I mean, pretty much all active, attending LDS families are probably already converted.  There is almost zero chance that anyone they are teaching is a candidate for baptism and confirmation.

I’ve heard the argument that this will help inspire members to invite non-members over to take part in these discussions.  Frankly, I don’t buy it.  In the last couple years that they’ve been trying this, we have had ZERO convert baptisms in our ward as a result.

Is this the future of missionary work in the church?  To spend all that money, time, effort, and resources to become an over-glorified home teaching program?

Sacrament Meeting iPod/iPhone apps

Posted on by
2

When my kids use to get bored in sacrament meeting, they would play tic-tac-toe, hangman, doodle, or that game where you need to connect the dots and make little squares, even resort to reading scriptures!

Now all these things are available as apps on iPods / iPhones.  So they have a little “Sunday” page on their device that has all of the things we will let them do during sacrament metting if they are bored.  Our rule is, if you use to do it on paper, you can do it on your iPod.

I’m sure we’re not the only ones who do this.  Any suggestions for good sacrament meeting apps?

Sports on Sunday

Posted on by
25

In my experience, there are different levels of acceptance regarding sports on Sunday in the LDS church. 

Growing up in my family, we weren’t allowed in the back yard to play on the swings or jump on the trampoline if it was Sunday.  No play dates with friends either.  BYU teams do not play or practice on Sunday.  Using examples like those, it would seem to be pretty clear that honoring the sabbath day means no sports or anything like unto it.

That is, unless you get paid millions of dollars for playing a sport, or coaching a professional sport, or perhaps you are competing at the olympic level.  In that case, you may get talked about in General Conference.  The Ensign and New Era will do articles on you.  You will be asked by Stake Presidents and bishops around the world to give firesides on your experiences. 

Thing is, you don’t get to compete at that level unless you spend some serious time practicing and playing your sport.  And most of the time that means practicing or playing on Sunday.  On the official church web site, the newsroom routinely showcases LDS olympians and other professional athletes who have spent much of their life tuning their craft at many a Sunday tournament or practice. 

Sure, playing sports is one thing, but how about watching?  My experience teaches me that it’s frowned upon to actually attend a sporting event on Sunday, but watching on T.V. seems to be acceptable.  That is, unless the olympics are being held in Salt Lake City.  Then you need to go volunteer and help run the event so things go smoothly.  Regardless, would sporting events even be held on Sunday if there was no audience to watch?  I’m sure some would, but I also bet that many wouldn’t.  Even still, our sacrament meeting attendance seems to be a little thinner on Superbowl Sunday.

So, dear readers, what is it we should tell our young members of the church when they ask if it’s OK to play sports on Sunday?  Does the answer change if they have potential as a future olympian or NFL quarterback?

Medical Emergency During Sacrament Meeting

Posted on by
13

Sacrament meeting was very eventful yesterday.

With about 25 minutes left to go and half way through the third speakers talk, we had a medical emergency in the congregation.?Ǭ† This particular emergency happened smack dab in the middle of the chapel.?Ǭ† Very quickly, members close to the situation tried to assist and get control.?Ǭ† One quickly left and called 9-1-1 to summon the paramedics.

Now, if that wasn’t interesting enough, the response of the rest of the congregation was.

We had a member of the stake presidency sitting on the stand for our meeting (you know, the guy who is suppose to be presiding at the meeting).?Ǭ† He did absolutely nothing and sat there as if it was any other Sunday meeting.

Our bishop sent one of his counselors down to investigate.?Ǭ† The counselor, after assessing the situation, went out into the hallway and waited for the paramedics to arrive instead of reporting back to the bishop.

The speaker received no direction from the leadership on the stand.?Ǭ† He just stayed at the pulpit and continued to give his talk until he was done.?Ǭ† No effort was made to shorten it or look to the leadership for guidance.?Ǭ† He clearly didn’t have anybodies attention.?Ǭ† Everyone in the congregation was watching the unfolding drama happening in the pews.

After his talk, the other counselor instructed organ player to play interlude music while we all sat there.

When the paramedics arrived, the entire congregation sat and watched them work on this individual to a nice rendition of “I know that my redeemer lives”.

Nobody at any time attempted to give a blessing to the person in distress.

The themes of all the talks were… wait for it… ?Ǭ†”How to be better disciples of Christ”.

I cannot recall a time where I felt more akward in sacrament meeting.

Have you ever been in a sacrament meeting where a medical emergency has occured??Ǭ† How was the situation handled?

A Successful Missionary

Posted on by
10

Page 10 of the new Preach My Gospel:

Your success as a missionary is measured primarily by your commitment to find, teach, baptize, and confirm people and to help them become faithful members of the Church who enjoy the presence of the Holy Ghost.

Avoid comparing yourself to other missionaries and measuring the outward results of your efforts against theirs. Remember that people have agency to choose whether to accept your message.

There it is in black and white.

I am still surprised at how many missionaries, ward mission leaders, bishops, stake presidents, and mission presidents measure their success by baptisms alone.

But how else would you go about measuring commitment??Ǭ† Why the need to measure in the first place?