Hindrances to the Church

The most serious hindrances to missionary work are not the result of anti-mormons or the "hardness of peoples' hearts".  The most serious problems are caused by (1) missionaries or (2) members who are not fulfilling their duties.

"For the Lord hath said: This is my church, and I will establish it; and nothing shall overthrow it, save it is the transgression of my people."  Mosiah 27:13

"And thus, in this eighth year of the reign of the judges, there began to be great contentions among the people of the church; yea, there were envyings, and strife, and malice, and persecutions, and pride, even to exceed the pride of those who did not belong to the church of God. And thus ended the eighth year of the reign of the judges; and the wickedness of the church was a great stumbling-block to those who did not belong to the church; and thus the church began to fail in its progress."  Alma 4:9-10

"Now this great loss of the Nephites...would not have happened had it not been for their wickedness and their abomination which was among them; yea, and it was among those also who professed to belong to the church of God."  Helaman 4:11

"For behold, the Lord hath said: I will not succor my people in the day of their transgression; but I will hedge up their ways that they prosper not; and their doings shall be as a stumbling block before them." Mosiah 7:29

"And because of their iniquity the church had begun to dwindle; and they began to disbelieve in the spirit of prophecy and in the spirit of revelation; and the judgments of God did stare them in the face."  Helaman 4:23

One South American missionary told me that many missionaries in his mission they tried to baptize people without first having them attend Church because the activities of the members were bizarre.  This is in my opinion dishonest because people are being asked to take on a lifetime commitment to serve in the Church when the nature of the commitment is being intentionally withheld from them.  In fact, missionaries are far from helpless when placed in a ward with members who act suboptimally.  The way to fix the problem is to (1) meet with members and branch leaders and explain the problem and reinforce the critical nature of living the basic commandments, including daily reading in the Book of Mormon and (2) to encourage investigators to attend and serve in the Church after preparing them that the Gospel is perfect, but the members are not.  By circumventing Church meetings, these missionaries were not escaping the problem.  In fact, they compounded it greatly and guaranteed both high future inactivity and the perpetuation of serious problems among "active" members by continuing to baptize people uninformed and unprepared for Church service with little emphasis on the importance of keeping commitments.

Missionaries are not helpless in wards and branches with serious member problems.   They can visit members and challenge them to live the core commitments.  They can visit with members who are assigned talks or lessons and encourage them to prepare carefully and with the spirit.  As members do this, the Spirit will return to their lives and into the Church meetings, and investigators will feel the Spirit there and want to be a part of it.  Most importantly, missionaries need to make sure that they are doing what is right themselves.

Anti-mormon Literature

1. Never contend or argue (see the section on teaching).
2. No one can convince a person who will not listen (See Alma 19:32)
3. Most anti-mormon literature is written by people who deny, distort, and corrupt the truth.  Most of it is so ridiculous that it warrants no reply, just as Christ was silent before his accusers and just as Alma and Amulek did not answer the wicked lawyers and judges.  In each case, the error and wickedness of the accusers was so great that to take them seriously and attempt to respond to something so irrational in a rational manner it would only add credibility to the false accusations.
4. However, missionaries need to understand the errors of common fallacies about the Church and be able to explain them to investigators who are open-minded about the truth.
5. Reinforce that the test of truth is not in how many people believe it, but in the Spirit sent from our Heavenly Father to teach and support truth.
 

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