When I was a missionary one investigator asked me why I (and presumably the other missionaries) was going around trying to teach people. In hard-learned Japanese I said something to the effect of, “Going to heaven alone would be kind of lonely, wouldn’t it?” She later told me if I’d said anything else she would have lost interest right there. I think we in the Church do have something of the greatest value to share with non-members, but I think they have a lot to offer us, too — indeed, they themselves are most precious. How can we best reflect this in the way we approach them?
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\nOn the occasion I just mentioned, I managed to present the gospel message in a way that really seemed friendly, and not condescending. As it happens, the investigator already thought of herself as Christian, but was put off by the smug, holier-than-thou attitude of many in the congregation whose meetings she had been attending. So what I said that day was (unbeknownst to me) the perfect thing to say to her right then. As a missionary in Japan, where most people are not Christian, I found enough people were simply curious about us that we could begin talking to them, and because we were missionaries it was the most natural thing to talk to them about our beliefs: the initial broaching of the subject didn’t seem condescending because the premise was mere curiosity as often as not, and then as the conversation progressed we would often awaken a deeper interest. I have had a tough time, though, since then, approaching friends and acquaintances about the gospel. I’ve done it a few times, but it’s been very difficult for me. I have some really great friends, and I often feel the Church needs them more than they need the Church! So first, is that a heretical thought, to think that the Church might need them more than they need the Church? If so, I’d like some help getting straightened out. And second, now that my relationships are based on other things (i.e. I’m not wearing a missionary name tag), and most of my friends think they already know all they need to know about Jesus Christ, how do I get rid of my worry that if I invite someone to learn about the Church I’ll seem condescending?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was a missionary one investigator asked me why I (and presumably the other missionaries) was going around trying to teach people. In hard-learned Japanese I said something to the effect of, “Going to heaven alone would be kind of lonely, wouldn’t it?” She later told me if I’d said anything else she would have lost interest right there. I think we in the Church do have something of the greatest value to share with non-members, but I think they have a lot to offer us, too — indeed, they themselves are most precious. How can we best reflect this in the way we approach them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}