I actually mailed this to my brother-in-law a few weeks ago, but thought it was worth posting here.

Hi M.:

Before I go into anything else, let me first tell you how proud L. and I are that you are out there serving a mission. You are involved in one of the most important roles in the church, and from your letters I can tell you are taking it seriously and working hard.

This month marks the 12 year anniversary of my baptism, oddly enough, not too long (7 months) before you were baptized as a child of record. I will never forget Seth and Taylor, my missionaries, who completely changed my life. You will now have that same opportunity to find people who are ready to enter into discipleship. One of the greatest lessons I learned from missionary work, I learned while being taught. I don’t know if you know this, but 2 weeks before my baptism, your sister told me she didn’t like me and didn’t want to see me again. You see, she was afraid I was joining the church for her, and not out of sincere conversion. Frankly, after she left me, I wondered if this in fact was true. Was it possible I was just deluding myself, and that it was merely for a pretty face I was joining the church? Was I confusing romance for the spirit? Anyway, with the romance shattered, I got down on my knees and asked the Lord for guidance, only to discover the missionaries moments later knocking on my door, out past curfew, following a spiritual prompting to come see me. Seth and Taylor sat down and Seth told me he didn’t care if I was baptized or not, as he only wanted me to make the choice that would make me happy, and that we would be friends forever. It was having that release from the pressure to make a decision that allowed me to ultimately feel the confirming power of the Holy Ghost which allowed me to acknowledge that yes, the spiritual promptings I had experienced up to that point were not artificial, but that God really did want me to become a member of the church. As a missionary, when you genuinely care about people as individuals rather than as potential converts, that’s when you gain the ability to show the love, and it is love (charity) which never fails.

Having served a mission myself, I know it can be a challenge to always think about people as individuals with real lives and needs and feelings. Missionaries attract crazy people and crazy people are exhausting. I’ll never forget the guy on my mission who swore he had found the stone of Coriantumr’s people that King Benjamin translated and then was brought to the Philippines by Hagoth’s ships. It was a small boulder with a crack down one side which looked absolutely nothing like any form of writing. While it was hilarious, dealing with people like that day in and day out can have a sort of numbing effect on you. You can’t worry about it too much, but don’t miss the forest for the trees, and forget why you are there while you are racking up baptisms. I remember at one point on my mission being in district meeting after a stent of 10 weeks straight of baptisms in my area, when it occurred to me that there I was, gloating about the numbers I was hitting to my fellow elders when I realized that no one else in my district had any baptisms for months. Heck, no one in my zone had baptisms. Suddenly convicted of my sin of pride, I desperately wished there was something I could do to help the other missionaries have success in their missionary service, as I was having. To me, that is the next level of missionary service. It’s not just about helping people who aren’t members of the church find the Gospel and be converted, but it’s about helping the other missionaries have an incredible experience with Christ and helping the members to feel the power and love of God in their local congregations. I don’t mean lording over them as “one above them all” but loving and serving to and with them as Christ did.

I don’t know why I’m getting into all this with you M. Maybe it’s only to remind myself of it so that I don’t forget. That reminds me. 11 years ago, I was not sure I would serve a mission. I really struggled with it, as a convert. I just wanted to marry your sister and get on with my life. I was 22 years old and just starting my senior year of college. My Dad made me promise I’d finish college before I did anything else, and L. had just received her mission call to Italy, so I was reeling, unsure of what the best choice was. I felt like I was being asked to offer up my whole life on the altar of the Lord. We came to Texas after Philmont and visited your family, and went to talk to Bishop Hargrave about the struggle I was having with the choice to serve a mission. What an amazing Bishop! He and I talked and he assured me it was my choice and we frankly talked about how as a convert he had never served a mission, and the culture of Mormonism and how he felt it would be easier for his kids if he had served. Anyway, again feeling that there was no external pressure to make a choice, I went to the Lord on my knees, and asked him if I should serve. In that moment, in my mind’s eye, I surveyed those who would be impacted by my not serving. I saw in my mind’s eye the converts I would have. I saw L. and R. and A. and B., and that serving my mission would benefit them. And I saw you. Little 8 year old you. And so I chose to serve a mission because of you. That choice, though it was so hard at the time, was one of the greatest things I have ever done. So thanks for being a good little 8 year old. Your earnest example of Christlike love meant a lot to me.

Anyway, the girls[ed.-my daughters] ask about you. We love reading your letters. We’re so glad you’re a missionary.

Matt W.

Some time back, Kevin Barney ventured forth the opinion that the Church’s approach to atonement is a mix of many theories, especially pointing to how the hymns of the Church can be mapped to what Barney refers to as the four key theories of atonement. [1]

I believe Barney is correct in his assertion that the Church adopts a variety of explanations for how the atonement operates, but I’d like to further note that this is really the only option that a church attempting to holistically follow the Bible can make. The Bible itself does not have a central argument for explicitly how the atonement occurs, but rather has several contradictory metaphors.[2]

In order to illustrate this point, I would first like to openly suggest that everything we know from the Bible regarding the atonement is primarily derived from the writings of Paul. Paul is the one who connects the dots between Old Testament forms of ritual and law and Christ. New Testament teachings regarding the atonement outside of Paul are typically seen either as derived from Paul (Hebrews, Letters of John) or as later additions to early texts (as in the last supper references). For those who say these points are arguable, that’s totally fair, but I think focusing on Paul can still get my point across.

Paul uses a variety of metaphors, drawn from his Jewish culture and background to explain the atonement. He uses sacrificial sprinkling [3], the sin-bearing scapegoat[4], a paschal lamb [5], heroic martyrdom [6], royal adoption [7], slave redemption [8] and conquering victor [9] just to name a few examples, and he often mixes and conflates metaphors. [10] As one author put it, he uses these concepts not to create a singular doctrine, but instead to create a “multiplicity of ideas” that “influence one another…but also contradict one another”. [11] (more…)

So I’m expanding from history a bit this week.

Is anyone aware of any writings where LDS theologians/authorities/thinkers have addressed any of the following questions?

1. Why would God allow an apostasy to happen?

2. Why would God put Christ on Earth only to follow up with 1800 years of apostasy?

3. Why couldn’t the apostasy happen again?

I was called as Elder’s Quorum Instructor last Sunday, and will be teaching next Sunday on the early church (Here’s my lesson outline) and would love to read up on any literature around these questions in the meantime.

If you click on the picture, that’s my profile.

Well, it’s got some formatting issues, but I just cut and pasted some posts from the blog, and while it took a few weeks for it to get approved, no one asked for edits.

If it disappears, it is because I am trying to fix the formatting issues.

Continuing my series of church history questions

Question #4- So I read somewhere that during the Korean War(1951), there was a shortage of Young Men to go on missions, so the seventies were asked to fill the gap, and married men were then called to serve full-time missions. How did that work out? For How long did this go on? How long were these missions? How does this correlate with around the same time the first missionary lessons/discussions were published for standard use throughout the church (1952)?

Seth Godin, in his somewhat disappointing book tribes, (disappointing in that it hammers the one note of the wonders of the internet and social media, which everyone already knows, and in that it reads like a bunch of blog posts thrown together into a book.) brings up an interesting conversation about faith, that I’ve been thinking about for about 6 months now. We often seen setups where faith and science are made to be contra one another, but I found his setup very interesting, faith vs. religion.

‘Faith goes back a long way. Faith leads to hope, and it overcomes fear. Faith gives our ancestors the resilience they needed to deal with the mysteries of the (pre-science) world.Faith is the dividing line between humans and most other species.
Religion, on the other hand, represents a strict set of rules that our fellow humans have overlaid on top of our faith. Religion supports the status quo and encourages us to fit in, not to stand out.

Religion works great when it amplifies faith.

That’s why human beings invented religion. It’s why we have spiritual religions and cultural religions and corporate religions. Religion gives our faith a little support when it needs it, and it makes it easy for your peers to encourage you to embrace your faith.
Religion at its best is a sort of mantra, a subtle but consistent reminder that belief is okay, and that faith is the way to get where you are going.

The reason we need to talk about this, though, is that often religion does just the opposite. Religion at its worst reinforces the status quo, often at the expense of our faith.’

I am pretty conflicted in terms of this statement because I totally agree with it, and also totally disagree. But rather than share my views, I want to hear from you.

What do you think?

How good is our church at boosting faith?

Continuing my series:

Question #3- How did we get to where The Aaronic Priesthood is the Young Men’s program of the church? When did 12 become the starting age for the priesthood? (For example, why not make it 11 since scouts starts at 11?) I see in the 1950’s the ages to be ordained teacher’s and priests moved from 15 and 17 to 14 and 16. Why the change?

So I’ve decided to continue a series of questions regarding church history that I can’t seem to get google to answer for me. I’ll be asking one a sunday until I get lazy and forget (maybe next Sunday.)

Question #2 is this- What did the church do for converts before Gospel Essentials class? I see in 1958 a “new program for convert integration was adopted” (per the church almanac), but have no idea what it was or how it fits in with our current convert integration efforts.

So I’ve decided to start a series of questions regarding church history that I can’t seem to get google to answer for me. I’ll be asking one a sunday until I get lazy and forget (maybe next Sunday.)

So Question #1- Per the 2010 Church Almanac, the church started home teaching in 1964, replacing ward teaching. What was the difference between home teaching and ward teaching. And since we (the church) always site the story of Joseph Smith’s home teacher being nervous, and Joseph coaching him, how does that all work out, since home teaching didn’t start until over 100 years later?

Bonus- When did visiting teaching start?

In the spirit of the 13th Article of Faith, I would like to spend some time looking at retention strategies in the Evangelical church, and especially those of Nelson Searcy as outlined in “Fusion: Turning First-Time Gests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church”
(more…)

Two years ago, we were told our ward was the top baptizing ward in the top baptizing stake in Texas. “Good Job!” we were told. “It’s because you are such a loving and welcoming ward.” We were told. We had 20+ baptisms. We retained 1 person.

As a very dedicated convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one of my main concerns is seeing those who come into the church, like I did, not make it. We have lived in the ward we are in currently for 6 years, and have seen 60+ baptisms in that time, but only 4 (1 family, 1 lone man) that I know of are still regularly active. My wife and I sometimes refer to this situation as the “catch and release” program of the church.

Now there are, upon reflection, many different reasons for this abysmal statistic, but none of this is because of baseball baptisms or faking records. In other words, missionaries are not breaking the rules.
In order to capture some of the issues I’ve seen, I’m going to break our wards missionary work out into the 4 typical areas of missionary work. All these issues are anecdotal, but that is all that’s available to me at the time.

1. Finding- A lot of the people who are found by the missionaries in our area are either transient people or disabled. A large percent of them don’t have cars. These people are typically not member referrals.

2. Teaching- Many people who are taught do not completely understand the expectations the church has for its members (callings, service, visiting other members, etc.) Few members are available to take time off to meet investigators.

3. Baptizing- In conjunction with #2, Many people who are baptized, have had trouble fulfilling their commitments prior to baptism, especially the commitment to attend church regularly.

4. Retaining- People have complained about not feeling welcome at our church. Converts typically do not last long enough that being endowed ever becomes a concern. Most new members are brought in solely on the missionaries’ efforts, not through member referral. Home Teaching is poor.

Above, I have tried to assemble a quick sketch of the symptoms of the problem we are having.

And so I ask you, are you having the same problems in your area? And if so, what do you think is the root cause? Ie- What are we doing wrong and how do we repent of it?

In part two, I will talk about ways I think missionary/retention efforts are being done in other churches, and ask if we should borrow any of their ideas. First I just wanted to see how typical my anecdotal concerns are.