This Sunday, a group of my friends sat down and discussed the familiar topic of why missionary work is so hard. Two points emerged that I wish to share here.
Perhaps one of the reasons we find missionary work difficult is that the typical person who questions us about what Mormons believe expects us to answer as "the representative Mormon." When this occurs, we find ourselves searching our minds to pull out official church documents or passages of scripture that we might quote so that we can speak for the organization as a whole. Unfortunately, these statements typically fall flat when told to non-members,not only because they are frequently written in language that only a Mormon would understand, but also because they do not reflect our own voices and the nuances of our personal beliefs.
The trouble is that none of us are representative Mormons. Rather, we are each individuals with slightly different beliefs who speak in different words. I want to suggest that we cannot be effective missionaries who can speak with spirit and conviction unless we respond as individuals rather than as representative Mormons. Unless we can use our own language to share with others why being a member of the church changes our lives in specific terms that the other person can relate to, then others will not be able to have an intimate, spiritual conversation with us.
Of course, we must also realize that the non-member we speak with is not a "representative non-member." Unless we attempt to learn about the specific details of the other person's life and beliefs, then we will not be able to have an effective exchange of ideas that will foster the spirit and community.
Once, however, we decide to be missionaries who respond as individuals rather than as representative members to inquiries about Mormon beliefs, we might feel that we do not want to always immediately answer a personal question. Sometimes we feel anxiety to respond to every question instantly, which is why we often fall back on general church statements, but not every question is appropriate for a non-member to ask. For example, one of my friends noted that she does not feel it is appropriate to respond to a question about what Mormons believe about chastity at work. So, she tells the person asking that the Mormon church says x, but she would prefer to go for a walk and discuss her personal believes on the matter in a more intimate, friendly setting. Missionary work does not mean that we need to respond to everything immediately; we should respond to questions when the time and place is right, and create a better time, place, and conversational terms when needed.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
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3 comments:
Nice discussion, Natalie, and it is really hard to not lapse into "the Church teaches that ..." or "most Mormons believe that ..." when answering some questions. Given how many different flavors of Protestants there are out there (all insisting on their right to believe their own version of the Protestant gospel), it would be easier for people to grasp the idea that there is a spectrum of Mormon belief on some points of doctrine as well.
Amen.
I recently went with the Elders to visit an professed atheist couple who have been reading the Book of Mormon for a few weeks/months. They had a lot of questions about Mormon doctrine and beliefs. Another couple in the ward had given them a lot of "official" answers, many of which I thought were flat out wrong, some of which I agreed with, and some of which I thought were technically correct statements of what mormons believe but mistatements of what the doctrine of the gospel actually says.
I think many of us feel the need to put on a united front when dealing with those we consider outsiders. I can see the value of that, but I think, as you seem to have argued, that in missionary work it can be counter-productive because it reduces two individuals to representatives of two groups. We get more diplomatic and less intimate. In my experience, the spirit is stronger when we are more familiar and less diplomatic.
I went ahead and told this couple what I think mormon doctrine says rather than what "the church teaches" or what "most mormons believe." At one point, I even flatly contradicted something one of the Elders said ("We are not anti-war"). I hope he wasn't hurt by that (but I don't know, he was transferred before I saw him again). I emphasized that the church has no creeds, and that each member is free to discover for him or herself what the doctrines mean. It was a new approach for me, and I felt like it was a liberating way to do missionary work. It seemed more honest.
Natalie, your ideas ring true to me also, and similar to the statements that Richard Bushman made up here in the Inwood 1st Ward several months ago. But his take was slightly different.
If my take on his comments is correct, Bro. Bushman said that we didn't need to put LDS doctrines in our own words, or give our own take on LDS doctrine, but rather that we needed to talk about those things in the gospel that are important to us -- the stories that actually convert us.
Regardless, I do think that our rhetoric is part of the problem we face in missionary work. We often focus (as Bro. Bushman observed in that same talk) on the insider stories and rhetoric -- the code that we use to communicate with each other. This code doesn't work when communicating with others, because the meanings of our phrases are lost or misunderstood by those who don't share our culture.
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