The new missionary thrust

[_karl61]

I'm not sure why you are discussing religion at the office but if you do, you should talk about how frustrated you are that Joseph Smith was married to so many women - put that in your report and see what happens.

[_Nightingale]

This is what JWs do. In the WatchTower Society, they take seriously the concept "every member a missionary" and each member is expected to do a certain number of hours of preaching a week. Otherwise they are not considered "active" (a "publisher" of the Good News) even if they attend every meeting! Their part time and full time missionaries have to log many more hours.

Wow, talk about a lot of record-keeping work! And another way to make congregants feel guilty for not measuring up.

Going from that to attending a church where you enjoy the music, hear a relevant message from the pastor, grab some refreshments and take in an interesting, useful course on offer if you want to (not because the bishop is rounding you up and scooting you into mandatory classrooms) is very liberating. What, you mean they don't need me to DO anything? :)

Not that I left the church because I'm lazy, I hasten to add, but just that yeah, sometimes it's about peace and rest and rejuvenation, surely?

I knew a JW who was very depressed, partly through having an "active" family while he himself was considered inactive. He just could not abide going door to door, he was far too shy. Being considered inactive while you sit in church meetings week after week can be a total downer. JWs do practice shunning and there is a definite hierarchy of active/inactive, missionary, etc. This man committed suicide many years ago. I still think about it and feel sorrow for that. I have zero tolerance for labelling people according to outward appearance, especially when it comes to arbitrary standards of church involvement.

[_Jason Bourne]

My Sweet Pickle came home from ward council the other night with a new gem: In my ward, we're now supposed to report any conversation we have with a non-member that is about the church or the gospel. These conversations now count as missionary outreach and will be compiled into a monthly report by the Ward Mission Leader. I am now required to report all conversations of this nature that occur in my office (and since they're a curious lot, they happen quite often).

Supposedly, the church is trying to document the missionary efforts of the members.

Is anyone else doing this? Does anyone else think this is pretty danged bizarre?

Nope

I imagine this is a local ward and stake thing.

[_Jason Bourne]

I agree with LOAP. It smacks of a local attempt to improve missionary work.

And like all of its predecessors, an ultimately unsuccessful one that will be quickly and, without fanfare, abandoned.

if all efforts to improve missionary work have failed then how come the Church still brings in converts? This is simply not true. Some efforts succeed and some have been better than the others over the years. But the Church has and still does convert so something works.

[_cinepro]

I agree with LOAP. It smacks of a local attempt to improve missionary work.

And like all of its predecessors, an ultimately unsuccessful one that will be quickly and, without fanfare, abandoned.

if all efforts to improve missionary work have failed then how come the Church still brings in converts? This is simply not true. Some efforts succeed and some have been better than the others over the years. But the Church has and still does convert so something works.

He probably wasn't referring to conversions in general, but instead to specific, gimmicky programs that pop up at the ward, stake or mission level where some new technique or fad is supposed to improve convert rates.

Especially catastrophic are pronouncements from the pulpit regarding member efforts and conversion rates. Bonus points if they attach a number or percentage! Usually, the leadership will let the quota or program mercifully die from inaction, but my favorites are when they just keep bringing it up month after painful month. And if you hit the jack pot and actually get the Prophet to set a goal for your area, that sucker is never going to die (the goal, not the prophet).

[_KimberlyAnn]

Are Mormons still expected to hand out those embarrassing little Pass-Along cards? Anyone else remember those?

KA

[_Mercury]

I agree with LOAP. It smacks of a local attempt to improve missionary work.

And like all of its predecessors, an ultimately unsuccessful one that will be quickly and, without fanfare, abandoned.

if all efforts to improve missionary work have failed then how come the Church still brings in converts? This is simply not true. Some efforts succeed and some have been better than the others over the years. But the Church has and still does convert so something works.

Why Jason? Crack cocaine, gullibility and out and out stupidity.

[_cinepro]

Are Mormons still expected to hand out those embarrassing little Pass-Along cards? Anyone else remember those?

KA

One of my employees had some random postcards up in his cubicle, and one of them was a spanish pass-a-long card with the painting of Jesue emerging from the tomb. But he had penned in an eye-patch on his eye, a pirate hat on his head, and pirate sword hanging from his belt, and written "Pirate Jesus" across the top. I definitely did a double take on that one.

Imagine this:



with an eye-patch, hat and scabbard :)

On another note, does anyone remember the Church-wide craze in the 80's of having people write their testimonies and put a family picture in copies of the Book of Mormon for the missionaries to hand out? Our ward must have done a thousand of those. Sometimes I come across one at a used book store or in a Church library, and it brings back memories.

[_Trinity]

Wow, Harmony! You will most likely be the top missionary in your ward! Congrats. ;)

[_KimberlyAnn]

On another note, does anyone remember the Church-wide craze in the 80's of having people write their testimonies and put a family picture in copies of the Book of Mormon for the missionaries to hand out? Our ward must have done a thousand of those. Sometimes I come across one at a used book store or in a Church library, and it brings back memories.

Yes! I did the same thing! I even wrote my testimony in the front of my own Quad. Every now and then, I read it just to embarrass myself. Like I don't do that enough anyway...

KA