Contributed by Samuel Wilkinson
Introduction
If you are anything like me, you genuinely want to share the gospel but are sometimes restrained by fear or because you don’t know the best way to proceed. So I want to share some principles that I have learned, both from first-hand experiences and from my Church leaders, about how to be more effective in sharing the gospel. I will try to teach these principles through stories.
Member Missionary Work is Different than Full-time Missionary Work
The first principle is that being a member missionary is very different than being a full-time missionary. Those who have served full-time missions may be able to attest to this. When I first returned from my full-time mission in Las Vegas, I was determined to convert all my closest friends and acquaintances to the gospel. I invited two of them over just to chat and somehow manipulated them into letting me teach them the first discussion. In retrospect, I had the faith, but I didn’t have the skills or the techniques. Over the two years of my mission, I had become an excellent teacher, but I wasn’t very good at getting people who weren’t interested to become interested. Genuine interest is essential for someone to receive an answer to prayer that the Book of Mormon is true. While my friends were polite enough to listen, recognizing that I had spent the last two years of my life dedicated to this stuff, they weren’t really interested in learning about the Church. Also, I had a hard time relating to them because I had spent the last two years of my life speaking missionary jargon and was isolated from popular music, news, and other aspects of “normal” culture. I was disappointed that they chose not to progress and I lost a little bit of the wind from my sails. Thus, the first thing we need to realize is that many of us do not know how to be effective member missionaries. We need to be humble and willing to seek counsel as to how to proceed in our missionary efforts.
Respect Others’ Agency
Another important principle is that we need to respect people’s agency. We don’t have to offend people or lose our friends when we share the gospel. Since I returned from my full-time mission, I have always wanted my best from high school, James, to accept the gospel. I have tried on many occasions to share it with him, but he has always turned me down. One time I even gave his name to the missionaries at the Visitor’s Center at the Washington, D.C. Temple, hoping that they would have better success than I did. He called me a week or so later and told me about how someone had called him. He wasn’t upset or offended, but I think he was a little curious as to why I kept trying to force my religion on him. I have since realized that I wanted him so badly to have the gospel that I wanted to make the decision for him. We must remember to respect people’s agency. When people say they are not interested in learning about the gospel, we should not try to force or impose our religion on them. If we are worried about offending somebody, perhaps we can preface an invitation to come to Church or listen to the missionaries with something like: “I don’t want to offend you and I know that religion is a personal topic, but my faith has really blessed my life and I want to share those blessings with you.” If we are motivated by love, and we do not approach missionary work merely as an assignment, then there will be no offense or lost friendships. In contrast, I believe that even if people reject our sincere invitations, we will grow in friendship and love.
Lessons from Sharing the Gospel with Brian
Let me share another experience of my efforts at sharing the gospel. Just after my most recent Stake Conference (January 2009), my wife and I were fired up about missionary work and so we prayed to the Lord and set a date to have someone in our home to listen to the missionary lessons. It was just a few days later that I mustered up the courage to invite my friend and classmate, Brian, to take the lessons. We had just finished studying anatomy together and we were about to go our separate ways. I had determined beforehand, however, that I would go through with the invitation. I remember feeling terrified as I tried to turn our conversation to the gospel. With a prayer in my heart, however, I just said whatever came into my mind. It came out something like this: “Brian, I have a proposition for you. I don’t want to force you, but the Church has really blessed my life and I want to share some of that with you. Would you be willing to come to my home and listen to the message of the missionaries?” I was understandably ecstatic when he said yes. However, he was not ready to commit to a specific date. It took another month or so, and subsequent conversations until we were finally able to set a time and a date for him to come over and listen to the missionaries. Well, a week and a half ago, he did come over. It was a wonderful experience, to have our first missionary lesson in our home and to have the missionaries teach our good friend about some of the doctrines and the blessings of the restored gospel. Brian was not ready to commit to a second lesson, but he was willing to read the Book of Mormon and ask God if it is true. I believe that because of his humility and his willingness to seek out truth, he will eventually be baptized. Less than a week after listening to the first lesson, he traveled to Michigan to spend Spring break with his uncle. His uncle just happened to join the Church when he was in medical school. I don’t think that Brian’s experience is a coincidence. The Lord is in the details.
I learned several things from this. First, although sharing the gospel can be scary at first, the Lord will bless us as we open our mouths. When I first invited Brian to listen to the missionaries, I came home later that day and told my wife that the feeling I had reminded me of when I asked her to marry me. I was incredibly nervous! I had no idea what I was going to say when I tried to steer the conversation towards the gospel, but the Lord seemed to do that for me.
Second, we don’t have to offend or lose friends in our efforts to share the gospel. Because I was a little worried that Brian might take my invitation the wrong way, I prefaced my invitation with a little bit about how much the gospel had blessed my life. That way, he knew that I was trying to share what meant so much to me. When our friends see that we are genuine and that we are not trying to compel them to accept our faith, then they will not be offended. I believe that we will actually grow in friendship as we try to share the gospel, even if our invitations are declined.
Third, I learned that we can improve in our abilities to share the gospel as we try. Sharing the gospel as a full-time missionary is vastly different than sharing the gospel as a member. Anyone who has served a full-time mission can attest to that. If you have served a mission, think back to what it was like. At the beginning of your mission, you were likely excited to share the gospel, but you were a little scared and you didn’t know how to proceed. Towards the end of your mission, you had improved in many of your teaching skills, and you were more comfortable in sharing the gospel. The same ought to be true of our efforts in sharing the gospel: we can improve and become more confident and comfortable in missionary work as we apply true principles. The first time I invited Brian to listen to the missionaries, I was a little uncomfortable and awkward. However, as we had subsequent conversations and I had to prod him a little to set a date and time to come to my home, I became better at it. It became more natural and less forced or awkward. I have become a better missionary as I am trying to share the gospel. I look back at each experience and ask what I could have done differently to be a little more effective. Surely I still have many weaknesses, but the Lord will not allow my weaknesses to stop someone from eventually joining the Church.
Fourth, I learned that ordinary people like you and me can be successful at doing missionary work. We don’t have to be General or Area Authorities to have amazing missionary experiences. And while we do not aspire to the offices of our leaders, we ought to aspire to live the kinds of lives that they do. We ought to aspire to have the faith that they do. In General Conference of 1984, Elder Ballard gave a challenge to any member who would take him up to write down a date to have someone ready to listen to the missionary lessons. He challenged us to write down not a name, but a date, and then to pray hard and work hard to fulfill our commitment to the Lord.
Preparation is Important
Another principle is that we ought to prepare ourselves to feel comfortable talking about our faith with others. I have always wanted to have one of those classic missionary moments, where you sit next to someone on an airplane flight who is just a golden investigator and you talk about the Church and you commit them to baptism right then and there. Well, I have never had that experience. When I was coming from and going to BYU over winter and summer breaks, I would occasionally talk to people sitting next to me and make small talk. Often, the subject would come up of where I was attending school. Invariably, people would ask me, why did you go to BYU? And you know what I would say? I would say because the tuition is so darn cheap. But honestly, that wasn’t why I decided to go to BYU. I went because I am a Mormon, and BYU is a Mormon school. I have wasted many perfectly good opportunities to share the gospel because I wasn’t confident enough to come out and say, ‘I am a Mormon and I am proud of it.’ One of the reasons I wasn’t confident was because I wasn’t prepared to answer people’s difficult questions or to talk about my faith in a natural, non-threatening way with people. I have tried to change that, by using some of my scripture study time to prepare answers to commonly asked questions, and I have by and large become much more confident and comfortable in explaining my faith. On an airplane flight during my most recent Spring break (Saturday, March 7, 2009), I had an interesting conversation with a young man who is going to school to become a pastor. Had I been in my previous mindset, I would have been terrified to talk to him about the Church. However, I had prepared and I felt confident in my testimony and my ability to explain things in a natural, non-threatening way. As a result, I had an involved gospel conversation with this young man for about an hour. Now, it doesn’t appear that he’s likely to join the Church anytime soon because he was merely curious, but not interested. But we did have a respectful conversation and I did clear up some misconceptions he had. Furthermore, I was able to bear testimony of the Book of Mormon. So, I believe that as we prepare ourselves to be confident in talking about the gospel and the Church, we will become much more effective member missionaries. Lds.org has some great resources and does a good job at explaining sometimes complex issues and questions to a non-LDS audience. In General Conference of October 2007, Elder Ballard suggested we write a one-page summary of our beliefs to give to people who are curious about our faith. This is a great exercise that helps us to become more confident in talking about the blessings of the gospel to those not of our faith. In short, we ought to pray that the Lord will give us missionary opportunities. But it is also important to show our faith that He will give us these opportunities by preparing for them.
Be Creative in Sharing the Gospel
Another principle of sharing the gospel is that we ought to be creative as we invite others to learn of the restored gospel. Most people I know are probably not interested in hearing about Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon, at least initially. But they are interested in true principles that will help them to live better lives, and we have a whole lot of that to share with them. Let me share of an experience in which I tried to use this principle. A few weeks ago I was sitting in a class at my medical school. The whole class is aimed at helping prepare medical students to become doctors who are more personable. The lecture was trying to teach us how to listen better to our patients so that we could be more personable physicians. The professor, Dr. Johnson, was telling of experiences he had in trying to comfort patients when they were terminally ill. He told of how disconcerting it was that he could tell them everything about their vital signs and other medical information, but he could not tell them where they would go when they die. Dr. Johnson then shared the writings of religious physicians that had helped him form some sort of context in which to place his difficult experiences. I realized that he was searching for religious truth. After the lecture, I felt impressed to go speak with him about the gospel. I was pretty nervous, but I tried to suppress my feelings of doubt and fear. I approached Dr. Johnson and told him that I had enjoyed his lecture. I told him that I too was religious and that I hoped my religion would help me bring better perspective into my role as a physician. He asked about my faith and was complimentary of the Church. He asked about my missionary service and we talked for a bit. I didn’t really invite him to do anything, but I was happy to have had the conversation. Later that day I got an idea. He had said that he enjoyed very much the writings of religious physicians and I thought about Elder Russell Nelson, who was a world renowned heart surgeon. I looked up a few talks and articles by Elder Nelson as well as some articles about his amazing life. I highlighted words and terms that would be unfamiliar to someone not of the Church and I made a glossary of Mormon terms in which I explained the terms in my own words. Then I sent the articles as well as the glossary to him, explaining that this physician had been an inspiration to me. A day later he sent me back an email, and I will just quote from it:
“Thanks for making [these articles] available to me. I look forward to reading [them]. Looks like we touched on a theme that is very important to you, and will be equally important to many of your patients. I have come to it later in life. You appear to be off a better start. I look forward to reading the articles with your interests in mind and replying to you again.”
Now, this isn’t necessarily saying that he is going to join the Church anytime soon. He hasn’t even read the articles yet, but he was grateful that I shared them with him and he said he would read them. He was not offended, and it was not awkward or uncomfortable. If he is truly searching for truth, then he will feel the power of the Spirit as he reads the testimony of an Apostle of the Lord.
Balance
Most of us have busy lives. The demands on our time are numerous: school, work, church callings, family responsibilities, and the list goes on. On top of that, we are supposed to attend the temple regularly, be engaged in community service, and share the gospel with our friends and family members. It can be easy for us to make excuses for ourselves and say, “Well, I will make a more concerted effort to share the gospel when life gets less busy.” If this is our mentality, however, we will miss out on some amazing missionary experiences and the blessing of having an added measure of the Spirit in our lives. The Lord knows our lives and our responsibilities, and He wants us to maintain the important principles of balance in our lives. Let us start small, perhaps by using some of our scripture study time to prepare ourselves to talk about the Church in a natural way. As we become more confident and develop more of a desire to share the gospel, I believe we will realize that we can create missionary opportunities without actually having to schedule them into our lives.
Blessings of the Gospel
As my wife and I have tried diligently to become better member missionaries, we have been blessed with some amazing experiences. Perhaps most importantly, we have been able to feel an added measure of the Lord’s Spirit in our lives. And when we have more of the Spirit in our lives, everything just seems to go better: work, school, church callings, family relationships, etc.
We live in a world where we desperately want to protect our children from the influences of the world. But I believe that if we become effective lifelong missionaries and earnestly strive to bring people into our home to listen to the missionaries, that our children will be much more likely to gain a strong testimony at a young age. I believe that we will be able to raise our children anywhere in the world if we have the Spirit of the Lord in our homes, and one of the keys to having the Spirit is doing missionary work. Can you imagine the fortifying effect that this will have on our children, if we strive as families, to have someone who will listen to the missionaries once or twice per year? Won’t our children see our devotion to the gospel and want to follow our lead? Won’t they be strengthened as they participate in missionary lessons in our home and feel the spirit of the Lord as missionaries teach our friends in our home? Won’t there be an added measure of the Spirit of the Lord in our homes in general? I believe that the promised blessings of those who seek to share the gospel throughout their lives—to truly become member missionaries—are indeed real and they are worth the effort. Perhaps one of the best decisions I have made in my life was to commit myself to become a lifelong member missionary.