My son's mission is part of a 24 month test...

[Solon]

I thought the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.

At least, that's what Bluto told me.

Leave him alone, dude. He's on a roll.

[myboynoah]

meh, I guess it could work better. I'm concerned about the numbers, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Sadly, as ineffective as it might be, I found tracting to be the most effective method of finding and baptizing people. It gave me the best opportunity to directly share the Gospel with as many people as possible.

[Moliere]

This sounds like a great idea, and I agree with some that even if there isn't an increase in baptisms (or even a decrease) this is a better way for mission to be done. It doesn't eliminate the finding or the teaching, it just makes the missionary more effective in the community.

My mission president once lectured me after he found out I'd street contacted for 6 hours straight one day. We did it just to beat our old previous record of 5 hours and we had nothing else to do, or so we thought. Our MP constantly challenged the missionaries to do 5 different activities a day as a way to break up the monotony, which was helpful to not burn out but we really didn't do much more effective things. If given a green light to do more service I'd imagine more missionaries would have jumped at the chance. In spite of the little service we did, I'd venture that we added many more investigators that way than tracting or street contacting, at least in proportion to hours spent.

And let's be honest, the members in the ward are not going to do more missionary work than they already do. I doubt ward missionary leaders would be asked to do more, or they'd be asked but wouldn't do it.

Overall, this is a net positive for the church and I hope it takes hold in all missions.

[Moliere]

meh, I guess it could work better. I'm concerned about the numbers, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Sadly, as ineffective as it might be, I found tracting to be the most effective method of finding and baptizing people. It gave me the best opportunity to directly share the Gospel with as many people as possible.

If you take the number of investigators I added to my teaching pool through service per hours spent doing service and compared that to a similar ratio for tracting or street contacting, the service numbers would blow the tracting numbers out of the water. Granted I was in Europe, which is a place that I think a program like this would make copmlete sense.

[thesaint258]

If you take the number of investigators I added to my teaching pool through service per hours spent doing service and compared that to a similar ratio for tracting or street contacting, the service numbers would blow the tracting numbers out of the water. Granted I was in Europe, which is a place that I think a program like this would make copmlete sense.

In my European mission, it was the exact opposite (at least in my experience). We found more people tracting than we did doing service, and both of those were higher than member referrals--zero. I think the success of this new program will be dependent on the area, but if there's a better way to share the Gospel with people, even if it doesn't result in baptisms, I'm all for it. Perhaps there's a way to make a hybrid of the two methods. Rather than just doing organized service projects like statman was describing, maybe you walk around, knock on doors, and ask if there's anything that you can help with. I can see that being effective, too.

[jay santos]

My mission president once lectured me after he found out I'd street contacted for 6 hours straight one day.

My mission president called me up to chew me out for giving out too many BOM's.

[Indy Coug]

I got so fed up with 40+ hours tracting a week that I decided to become a reactivation missionary since most of the wards I was in had 15%-30% activity rates. If I couldn't get some newbie to get wet, I at least wanted to help someone come to church that hadn't been going. It was about the only productive endeavor I had my entire mission.

"Service hours" didn't exist on my mission.

[RC Vikings]

While we were counting tithing the 2nd councilor in our ward mentioned that he heard from a good source that the church was doing away with tracting and focusing more on service work. Just imagine if the endowment was cut down to about 15 minutes and all the extra time was spent helping the living and not the dead. This church would really be known for their Christ like behavior.

[Indy Coug]

Just imagine if the endowment was cut down to about 15 minutes and all the extra time was spent helping the living and not the dead. This church would really be known for their Christ like behavior.

How many hours a year do you think the average member spends doing endowments? You might have a valid point if that's a large number, but my guess is that most members spend a lot less than 10 hours a year doing endowments (excluding commute times).

[Solon]

meh, I guess it could work better. I'm concerned about the numbers, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Sadly, as ineffective as it might be, I found tracting to be the most effective method of finding and baptizing people. It gave me the best opportunity to directly share the Gospel with as many people as possible.

This reminds me of the guy in my mission who wouldn't do service since he had been sent "to teach."

He preferred street-contacting to service.

He was also a Zone-Leader.

[Moliere]

How many hours a year do you think the average member spends doing endowments? You might have a valid point if that's a large number, but my guess is that most members spend a lot less than 10 hours a year doing endowments (excluding commute times).

That was my thought as well. On ward temple night we are lucky to have 5-6 couples and most of them are older. MJ and I go to the temple 10-12 times a year and I bet we are an outlier, at least in our ward.

[RC Vikings]

How many hours a year do you think the average member spends doing endowments? You might have a valid point if that's a large number, but my guess is that most members spend a lot less than 10 hours a year doing endowments (excluding commute times).

My main thought here is the time spent by people working in the temple. Let's say we have a 1000 temple workers here in Rexburg and they all spend an average of 4 hours a week. Cut the time needed in the temple by half and you free up 2000 man hours. Most of these helpers are older so that would limit things but 2000 man hours helping out at the local schools would make a huge difference.

[SCcoug]

A service focused mission would be a great experience. I am skeptical that members would pick up the finding slack though. I think a mix of service missionaries with a few traditional missionaries could be good, a bit of variety would be nice.

[wuapinmon]

A service focused mission would be a great experience. I am skeptical that members would pick up the finding slack though. I think a mix of service missionaries with a few traditional missionaries could be good, a bit of variety would be nice.

There is no slack. That's the thing. If members aren't doing it now, there's no way in hell that they're going to do more if the missionaries are gone.

The true benefit of this is that people will see us being Christlike instead of talking about being Christlike.

[CJF]

Not to rain on the parade here, but this is not new. In the mid 90's the church was testing this in the Richmond, Va mission. In the NY NY North mission I served in areas where we were not allowed to tract. We worked at the Boys Club, Red Cross, YMCA, and after school programs. Some of my best mission experiences happened in those areas. The church has been toying with this concept for at least 20 years. I doubt there will be any major roll out any time soon.