Awesome Ward-Missionary Ideas: December 2010

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Time change!

If you're in a Ward that shares a church building with another Ward and you'll be changing meeting times at the beginning of the year, don't forget to notify your recent converts and anyone who has recently returned to activity about the time change!

Even if the time change is announced at church, there may be those who have been out of town or sick who didn't get the message. And then there are also those who may just plain forget! Lets help our brothers and sisters avoid the inconvenience, confusion, and embarrassment of showing up at the wrong time next Sunday!

A phone call, email, personal visit, postcard, or newsletter that mentions the time change could be very helpful!

Convert baptism program template

My husband was recently called to serve as Ward mission leader and next weekend will be the first convert baptisms since he was called. In our Ward, the full-time missionaries work with the convert to come up with suggestions for the baptismal program and the final program is planned by the Bishop. Then, the Ward mission leader (or his wife!) prints up the programs. Since this is his first time being responsible for printing the program, I searched online for a template that we could use to make the set-up easier. I could have made my own template to use, but I knew that would take me a while.

I wasn't able to find a convert baptism program template anywhere, but I did find a baptism program that was created for use at a child of record baptism, which is easily adapted by making a few changes (for example, I deleted the part about the 'Welcome from the Primary' and added a section for a presentation by the full-time missionaries that we normally have while the convert is changing clothes).

Here is the template I used:

Click here for BAPTISM PROGRAM TEMPLATE ON "MORMON SHARE" WEBSITE

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

New posts?

Sorry for the lack of new posts in the past few months, I've just had a new baby (#3!) and things have been kind of crazy! In other news, my husband has recently been called as Ward mission leader! We're having lots of fun!

Watch for new posts coming soon!

What is missionary work?

As a young single adult (and a recent convert of just 2 years) I served a full-time proselyting mission for the Church. The experiences that I had during my mission were incredible, but if I were to select a time in my life that I experienced the most success in sharing the gospel, I would absolutely choose that 2 year period between when I was baptized and when I entered the MTC (Missionary Training Center).

I wasn't serving as any type of "official" missionary at that time. I was just a regular person who was excited about the changes that the gospel had brought into my life. It felt perfectly natural to invite my friends and co-workers to learn more about the Church. It also seemed completely normal to encourage less-active members to participate in our local branch. I was able to have many wonderful experiences without ever worrying for a moment that I was "putting myself out there" for potential rejection. I genuinely felt excited about my new beliefs and just wanted to offer the same experience to everyone around me.

During my full-time mission, I would occasionally feel frustration with the lack of success in an area where I was assigned to serve. It seemed strange how much more effective it had been to casually approach people as a friend, co-worker, or neighbor in my pre-mission days (when I wasn't wearing a nametag). I loved my mission, but I knew that there would come a day when I would be a "normal" member again and could easily mention the gospel to those around me as I had before, without having a door slammed in my face by a stranger.

Could it be possible that member missionary work is easier and more natural than people imagine it is? Can we use principles of friendship and Christ-like love to reach out to our friends and neighbors in a casual way? How can we incorporate those same principles into other areas, like convert retention and reactivation?

I feel that member missionary work should be a natural part of being a member of the Church. You don't have to be a full-time missionary, or even a ward missionary, to have successful gospel-sharing experiences. The concept of being a member missionary seems daunting to many people in the Church, but it doesn't have to be that way.

After my husband and I were called as ward missionaries, I began to search the internet for additional information to help us in our callings. I was seeking tips and information that had been helpful to other ward missionaries (or to member missionaries in general). While I found many articles, websites/blogs, and books devoted to the subject of full-time missions or full-time missionaries, I found shockingly little information specifically about member missionary and ward missionary efforts. I decided to share our own ideas about member missionary work on this blog!

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Time change!

Convert baptism program template

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

New posts?

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