(Photo Credit: Thomas Hellberg)
I never imagined that the sister missionaries and I would be working at cross purposes, but that’s just where I found myself that January afternoon.
The three of us were sitting on a couch, visiting with a fortysomething woman in the ward. I had never met her or her family members, despite having lived in the same neighborhood for over seven years. She was joined by her live-in boyfriend. They were sitting across from us on matching recliners.
The sister missionaries had asked me prior, “Will you bear testimony of the plan of salvation?” I told them that I wasn’t sure what I would say because I wanted to respond organically to the emerging situation.
In my current church calling, I work primarily with visiting teaching and compassionate service. I’ve had the honor of entering the homes of about 70 of the 130 women in our ward. My priority has been to validate these Relief Society sisters by complimenting their strengths, offering support for their worthwhile goals, and acknowledging how they are full of good works.
Woman do so much service for others, and their work is often unacknowledged. I try to name what is taken for granted.
In this particular situation, the sister missionaries’ goal was to get the couple to marry so that the boyfriend would be eligible for baptism.
As the visit wore on, I found myself trying to backpedal after every question or statement the sister missionaries were making.
“Don’t you two want to get married?” They would ask.
I would then interject, “I don’t believe in making goals for other people.”
Because the boyfriend crossed his arms across his chest, I took that as a sign that he was getting too much pressure.
I just met these two! I wasn’t ready to challenge them to radically change their lives. I was more willing to listen to them talk about her serious health problems, to offer service if the woman experienced another hospitalization, to compliment her for all that she had achieved despite various obstacles.
Once we got back to the car, I expressed my extreme discomfort. I don’t think the sister missionaries will be asking me to go on visits with them again.
If I have change my own behavior, it’s because other have expressed affection, performed service and led by example. OK, there have been a few times that I have changed because someone challenged me—but this was after a hundred expressions of love and a hundred acts of service over years of friendship.
I have to admit that I have been the person to challenge others. All-too-often I have asked people to change their attitudes and behaviors. I can be bossy. I can be pushy.
Right now, I’m in a space where I’m overtly choosing to validate others rather than challenge them. Adult women in the church know the doctrine. They know the status quo. They don’t need me to preach to them. They need service, affection, and encouragement
But maybe I am lacking faith? Maybe I am not seeing the power in challenging others? Maybe the sister missionaries are more courageous than I am? Or do we just have different roles? Maybe there is a time and a season for all things?
I am not sure, but I do know that I never want to be in that situation again.
Karen, I can see both sides of this. As a missionary I wanted to see results quickly. I knew people could change and I wanted them to. Missionaries are taught to challenge people. I think there's something about the youth, optimism, and also naivete of missionaries that makes it possible for them to say things (guided by the Spirit) that others can't say. In one area where I served, we experienced some success that members thought would be impossible–they had seen those people around and never pictured them as members, but we were bold/naive and challenged them, and they changed.
On the other hand, a few years ago we had some sister missionaries stop by my house and ask for member referrals in our ward. Keep in mind that I live in Utah Valley. My husband was in the bishopric at the time, and I knew that before I sent any missionaries anywhere in the ward they HAD TO coordinate with the ward mission leader to be sure they weren't stepping on toes or damaging fragile relationships that had taken years to cultivate.
I think the best thing is to seek for the Spirit, and be guided to know when to challenge and when to validate. You see prophets and apostles doing both, and both are needed.
I was too bold sometimes as a missionary, and I wish you'd been there to put me in my place. Missionaries are well-meaning but tone deaf sometimes.
Thanks, Karen, for the challenge to think about this more deeply. You are right — it is a constant balancing act, even in families. I am a natural challenger (not only of others, but also of myself) and it is hard for me to understand why people don't want to grow (i.e., in the same way I do!) But nor do I ever feel it my right or duty to "set goals for other people". It seems to work best when I focus on bringing the highest level of spiritual energy that I can to any situation or relationship; Spirit is the only One who can inspire change, so I need to be full of Spirit. In some cases, like with my sister, I am feeling called to be the Challenger in her life right now. I always appreciate when someone loves me enough to call me on my s–t, and sometimes that's the kind of tough love we need to bring. The best friends are those who both validate AND challenge.
Karen, I fully support and agree with your position on this. His body language was enough to realize that they were pushing too far. Agency! We can offer suggestions but it is NOT our decision to make…nor is it ours to push an agenda. I believe that love in action will accomplish more than words ever will. Well done, my friend!
I love your idea of validating, rather than challenging. What a breath of fresh air that must be to so many women. I'm glad you told the missionaries about your discomfort. It's easy as a missionary to assume the position of bold challenger, but it's so often exactly what the person listening does not need.
Perhaps this isn't an either/or. Christ has the perfect ability to both validate and challenge. He understands where we've been. He accepts us where we are. And then He asks us to come to him, one step at a time. In this case, perhaps the step to marriage was not the next step for this couple to progress. Maybe praying together once a day would be more realistic. Or something else as directed by the spirit. Maybe the next step is to ask them to read a certain chapter in the scriptures, or to attend a ward activity. Not as a pressured situation or maybe even a challenge, but as an invitation. I think that is really the pattern the Savior has set. Love people where they are, and invite them to come to Him.
I can understand your discomfort. I probably would have felt that too. But, have you considered that you weren't validating the sister missionaries. You were challenging them and what, I assume, was their prayerfully considered plan. You had never met that couple, but they had. Maybe they knew what they were doing. Sometimes missionaries feel inspired to be direct to see what the reaction is. Sometimes it helps them determine whether they should continue to teach this person or leave them alone and let the ward members fellowship them instead. Maybe the whole point of this visit was for you to have a chance to be introduced to this couple so that you could know to reach out to them in all of the ways that you thought about during your first visit. Heavenly Father knows their needs and knows that all of their needs can't be fulfilled by the missionaries.
Thank you for taking the time to offer your perspective, Emily M., Elle K., Lisa G., Kathi J., Ashmae, Kristin W., & Nancy. Have a splendid weekend.
The way I see it is that the missionaries will ALWAYS challenge, because of their role, their calling, and that will make us feel uncomfortable because that is not our calling. The best thing is to have BOTH roles simultaneously. The sisters receive your affection and validation with their challenges and her life improves. My humble opinion 🙂
After being away from the church for 50 years and experiencing devasting heartache, my brother decided to come back to hopefully find peace and understanding. 2 sets of missionaries were content to just visit him and give the discussions but nothing more. He attended church but there wasn't anything happening spiritually. Then came an amazing sister missionary who asked him why he was even going to church. When he told her what he was looking for, she responded " so what are you personally doing to find that? Are you praying? Are you reading the scriptures?" Then she told him that before she returned the following week, he was to accept the challenge to read a chapter a day from the Book of Mormon and to talk to Heavenly Father in prayer daily. Then she wanted to know what he had felt at the end of the week. He told me by the 3rd page of the Book of Mormon, he had a firm witness that Joseph Smith was a prophet. As he accepted her challenge, the Spirit entered his life and that was the turning point. 6 months later he was re-baptized and is experiencing everything he had been looking for. I am eternally grateful to that sister missionary for challenging him to start the actions that turned his life around. He said her challenge was done with such love and respect, that he was never offended, but forever grateful.
I have a personal phrase that guides my study of the gospel: "dancing in the tension." I believe this is a perfect example of one such tension.
I think missionaries are called and authorized to preach repentance, to give the law. I think members are often there to help people navigate that message given where they are. So maybe it was the right mix of both for this couple.
I wouldn't hesitate to go with the missionaries again. Maybe people need your perspective with the missionaries' to invite them to dance in the tension. Maybe that is exactly what fellowshipping can be, too. Maybe baptism is the end and that fellowshipping through the messiness is the means.
I also agree with Emily. I think the Spirit has to be the guide, and I love what Lisa said — because as parents we need to play both roles. Studies have shown that it's both permissive and authoritarian parenting that causes problems. I think the dancing in the tension is just what our children — and the children of God? — need.
Paula, Nana and Michelle: Thank you for your thoughtful replies. It's a delicate, dynamic situation.
In my current calling I train young missionaries out in the field.
They are taught in the MTC to "invite to commit". However, they are REALLY YOUNG, and they generally are so focused on trying to remember what they've prepared to "teach" that they don't remember that listening and clue gathering and validation is VITAL to teaching and they come into the mission field generally never having done much teaching at all. And so they don't "invite to commit", they "challenge" and "push". (Challenging and pushing are classic teen-age persuasion tools and most of them are in or just barely out of their teens.)
And my husband and my job is to teach them how to actually do the kind of listening, loving and inviting teaching that Preach My Gospel (PMG) instructs them to do.
Unfortunately, most of them have not read Preach My Gospel in much detail. And unfortunately, it takes lots of repetition and practice with them to help them understand what's there. But when some of them do finally get it, it's pretty amazingly good.
My husband and my job in our calling is to help them understand that they are not called to tell an investigator all the things he or she is doing wrong. Or ask them why they aren't doing things we think are right. Or "challenge" them to do anything.
Instead, according to PMG, they are to validate the things there investigators are doing that are good and the insights they have (PMG p. 118), share what they feel is true (PMG p. 198) and invite those they teach to experiment with that in specific ways (PMG p. 196). And above all they are to love them, are patient with them, listen to them and serve them (PMG p.118)
So, I hope you will keep going with them. And modeling the above both in your interaction with those they teach and in your interaction with them. We love it when members to do that with the missionaries we work with. It's extremely helpful.
Since we have no way of knowing where other people are spiritually, mentally, etc. I think you should always validate. If you feel the need to challenge yourself: go ahead, but not others.
When I was young I was the typical TBM, read my scriptures every day, prayed every day, attended every meeting (and I was always early) accepted every calling, VT every month, etc. One General Conference a well-meaning leader challenged us to read our scriptures for 30 minutes a day "or we weren't getting anything out of it." I was a daily scripture-reader and had been for all my life (we're talking a 30-35 year habit), but not for 30 minutes a day. It lasted one day. I haven't picked them up since and its been about 10-12 years. That literally was the straw that broke the camel's back. Now I don't do any of it: don't pray, don't read my scriptures, barely make it to Church, leave early, don't worry about VT. I really don't care what "kingdom" I end up in either. That "challenge" literally flattened me and drained me. I was pushing as hard as I could and was told it still wasn't enough.