Missionary Work Lesson Outline

Okay, so I just re-watched Elder Ballards talk, Put Your Trust in the Lord, and I'm no closer to being prepared to teach this lesson than I was when I woke up this morning. I had a couple of quotes copied down from the first time I watched it recently, but those, and the topic of missionary work, are all I'm really pulling out of his talk that can help me. Fortunately, I've been blogging about this topic for half a week, so I might be able to turn my own blog posts into an outline.

"White Christmas" - I'm not sure whether or not I want to mention this in my lesson, to be honest. The goal that our Bishop is encouraging us to reach is a numeric one, and I kind of have mixed feelings about that. Yes, I would love to see people actually become converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and be baptized, but I worry that if we put too much focus on just getting someone baptized, especially if we want it to happen by a certain date, we might end up baptizing someone before they're ready. As I said a few days ago, baptism is a commitment. If the investigator doesn't understand and accept the terms of the commitment, they might as well not even making.

But I also want to get people to want to do missionary work, so if I even mention any misgivings about the "White Christmas" goal, I need to talk at length about the content of my next blog post after that.

Three Good Reasons to Do Missionary Work - One, to share blessings (and I hope to brainstorm a list of Blessings Worth Sharing, adding items from my own list to "prime the pump"), Two, to save others, and Three, because God said so.

I may want to play with the order of this list. Maybe I'll list "To Save Others" first, tying it together with the saving ordinance involved in the White Christmas goal. If we're just baptizing people so we can reach our goal, then that's not so good, but if we're baptizing them because it's a saving ordinance and we care about the welfare of their soul, that's a lot better.

I also want to put a lot of weight onto the "Because God Said So" reason, mostly because God Himself did. For that, I might quote directly from my own blog post.

Through Prophets and Apostles from Joseph Smith to today, [God has] told us over and over again that "The greatest and most important duty..." And you've heard it so many times that you already know what it is without me having to finish the sentence. Now, I don't like to use infinitives. I'd freely say that many things, including many duties, are "great" or "important," but I'd consider myself foolish to casually throw around words like "greatest" and "most important." Furthermore, I'd be very surprised if God was any less careful with His words than I am with mine, knowing that they'd be written down, quoted from, and lived, by hundreds of millions of people. God has placed a very strong emphasis on missionary work, especially in the last few General Conferences. 

... 

God really wants us to preach the gospel. That alone should be reason enough for us.

Once I've got the Elder's agreeing that missionary work is a good idea, I'll want to talk with them about what's holding us back, or, in other words:

Reasons We Don't Do Missionary Work - Time permitting, I'll address the concerns I've listed; timidity, not knowing what to say (both cured by the presence of the Spirit), fear of hypocrisy (focus on the church, not you), fear of offending people (keep it positive, try not to compare churches), and fear of being overbearing (let them know that you honestly care about them and are sincerely trying to help them).

What I'm going to try NOT to do is to bring up a concern someone may have about missionary work without having a REALLY good answer to address that concern. The last thing I want to do is instill in someone a concern about doing missionary work that they didn't have before.

If we have time after all of that, I'm going to want to talk about practical application of these principles. Okay, so we have a lot of good reasons to do missionary work, and we've established that we have no good reason not to do missionary work. Now what, specifically, are we actually going to do? Yes, there's the Ward goal of getting someone baptized (or something like that), but what can we, as the Elder's Quorum and as individuals, do to help with that? Of course, this will be open for discussion. I'll want to hear other people's ideas and input on this, and if we're going to accept a goal, we all have to agree to it. I'm going to suggest that we adopt Elder Ballard's goal verbatim:

We are not asking everyone to do everything. We are simply asking all members to pray, knowing that if every member, young and old, will reach out to just “one” between now and Christmas, millions will feel the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what a wonderful gift to the Savior.

Put simply; First, Pray for Missionary Opportunities; Second, Reach Out to at Least "One" before Christmas. That'll be a good individual goal. As a quorum, we may make a goal to extend the gospel to one individual per each active Elder. Yes, it's a numeric goal, but if we focus on this being our Christmas gift to the Savior, and an opportunity to share the blessings of the gospel with our fellow man, we (hopefully) won't get distracted with our desire to get good numbers.

I think that ought to make a pretty good lesson. I'll take some more time to try to organize my thoughts a little more, and I'll print up the relevant blog posts so I'll have those resources available while I'm teaching, but for now, I'm going to go get myself physically ready for church.