A Missionary Paradigm: Using Agency in the Process

• Invite your friends over to dinner and conveniently have missionaries show up.
• Give the missionaries the names and contact information of your friends and let the missionaries contact them sometimes surprising them.
• Ask people you know if they have heard about the church and if they want to know more.

The church then highlights success stories as though the only thing that happened was the invitation or a convenient meeting with the missionaries. What is not shared is the average of eight or more other touches the investigators had with the church before the magic of conversion happened.

In summary, traditional missionary work is to expose friends, neighbors, and work associates to the mercy of two young missionaries who are taught to use persuasion and manipulation tactics to coerce your friends into coming to church. Furthermore, during the conversation your friends will be told by these young missionaries that their previous beliefs are all wrong, that they have to give up life long habits right now and that the Lord’s Spirit isn’t really with them on a permanent basis, just sporadically.

If one were to conduct a search on the most distrusted professions, salespeople rank up in the top three in almost every poll. The primary purpose people do not trust salespeople is because they use persuasion and manipulation tactics. They remove the prospects ability to say “no.” Agency is in effect not part of the traditional selling process.

Consider the irony of LDS missionaries using these same tactics when preaching the gospel. The initial fear that our friends and neighbors feel about meeting with the missionaries is the stigma associated with manipulation and persuasion. They don’t feel safe and they don’t believe they have the ability to say “no.” A person can never say, “yes” until he can say “no.”

Remember the premortal war in heaven? Lucifer’s design was to remove our ability to say “no,” which means we had no ability to say “yes.”

“For behold the field is white already to harvest…” (D&C 4:4) Harvest indicates the crop is ready to go. It means that the seeds have been planted, watered, fertilized, and cared for. Using the metaphor in real life, our role in the process is not to plant seeds, but to harvest.

Perhaps this charge provides the rationalization for traditional selling tactics of manipulation and persuasion. Is it possible that the opposite is true? If the Lord has already prepared His children for baptism, then our role is only to identify them, not convince them. As with any crop, the cycle is continuous, which translates into a continual seeding, watering, fertilizing, and harvesting system.

Identifying is the process of determining or sifting out those who are ready now versus those who are still being prepared. Sadly, our wonderful Mission Presidents use statistics and measurements that increase traditional selling tactics in the behavior of their missionaries.

Missionaries are often held accountable for investigators in their teaching pool, how many investigators on are date for baptism, and the number of baptisms. When you analyze the measurement tools, each one is out of the missionaries’ control according to moral agency.

Let’s review the three measurements:

1. Investigators being taught
2. Investigators on date for baptism
3. Investigators baptized

If the field is white ready to be harvested, then the Lord has already prepared the investigators. They have had 6 – 10 gospel touches with members or experiences in life that have prepared them to be taught by the missionaries. When missionaries are measured by how many investigators are being taught, they use specific tactics to get their numbers. Which means they teach anybody and everybody. This is not the most effective use of the Lord’s time.

That means they often teach low probability investigators without identifying if the investigators want to hear the gospel’s message. Next, they are measured by investigators on date for baptism. This often means the missionaries challenge them to be baptized in a way that the investigators know very little about what is really going on. Rather than the Spirit guiding, they are guided by numbers. Instead of identifying who is ready to be harvested, they often run the combine through the field months before the harvesting season.

This often removes agency and uses tactics that push many away from the church, instead of inviting them to have a spiritual experience. Based on personal experience and empirical observation, there is a process, that if employed can mitigate our fear and the fear of our friends, while increasing the actual baptismal numbers.

Having many spiritual experiences and success in sharing the gospel with friends and acquaintances, here is a process that has proven highly successful. I have many friends with whom I’ve had gospel discussions, some with missionaries present, but all remain my friends and associates. They continue to query about the gospel, and eventually, when they are ready, they will decide to take action.

The Process

1. Pray sincerely to have a missionary moment with someone everyday.
   1. A missionary moment is a discussion on any topic relating to the restored gospel.
   2. Families, marriage, parenting, Scouting, service, or any gospel topic
2. Be aware of opportunities to be interested in your coworkers, friends and neighbors, not interesting.
   1. Don’t look for an opportunity to tell them about the gospel, instead, learn about them. Be present and listen to their concerns and trials.
   2. This provides a safe space for them to share personal feelings.
   3. Listen, don’t solve.
3. When they express concerns about finding greater happiness, ask them if it’s okay to talk about possible solutions with them.
   1. If the space is safe, the probability of a positive answer is very high.
   2. Again, don’t solve, just listen and ask more questions about what they want.
   3. This establishes mutual trust and respect.
4. If they answer “no.” Let it go. If they answer “yes,”
   1. Find out what has worked and what hasn’t. Ask them if God plays a role in their life and what that role is.
   2. You can explain how the church has helped you and offer a way to determine if the gospel could help them as well. You are asking if they want what you have.
   3. Teach them a gospel principle and ask if they want to learn more.
   4. Invite them on a church tour, to meet with the missionaries, or to attend church with you.
5. Turn it over to the Lord.
   1. You have done your part. Enjoy the rest of the story.

Notice how far down the relationship the invitation takes place. After mutual trust and respect has been established, and a safe environment for discussing gospel topics is possible, there is no fear. At this point, turning my friends over to the missionaries is a seamless transition and my presence at the discussions provides added support, but it is not always required.

The thought of missionary work should never be one of fear and avoidance. However, in an unofficial survey conducted of about 50 members some years ago, over 95 percent of the members indicated negative feelings when presented with this scenario: This Bishop has just announced a special 3^rd hour on ward missionary work. What are your immediate feelings? Here are the top ones…

• guilt
• fear
• avoidance
• nervous
• anxiety

D&C 18 speaks of great joy associated with missionary work! What has happened to the Lord’s saints and His program of sharing happiness?

I’ve been blessed to see my friends and associates join the church using this process. Strangers who only know me through a classroom setting request to be taught the gospel because they perceive the space as safe, no persuasion and no manipulation.

On countless occasions, people are shocked when learning I am a Mormon after we’ve had an engaging religious discussion. After thanking me for the experience they often comment that they usually get in an argument with most Mormons.

I pray we can use these guidelines and principles as a tool to increase the work by identifying souls who are ready to be harvested, and gladly plant more seeds with those who are still preparing.