Imagine …
It’s early evening and you’re sitting down for dinner when the doorbell rings. Standing on your porch are two combed-over 19-year-olds brandishing short-sleeved, white dress shirts, poorly-knotted ties, and black rectangular name tags. Dinner’s getting cold, the kids are growing impatient, and now you get to deal with the Mormons!
At this moment, kicking those boys off your front porch would be satisfying, but don’t do it quite yet. Let’s leave Elders So-and-So on the step for a few minutes and talk about the best way to handle the situation.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints recently lowered the age requirement for serving missionaries, creating a boom in missionary service. Right now, 82,000 missionaries serve worldwide; the majority were born and raised in Utah to Mormon families who expect their children to serve a mission before college graduation.
I regularly interact with returned missionaries (here in Utah, we call them RMs). And it may surprise you, but too often RMs have a negative opinion of evangelical Christianity … and not because of doctrinal differences. Missionaries generally endure two years of belittling insults from dismissive Christians. Perhaps they’re overly sensitive, but I’ve heard the same story so many times, I tend to believe it. Whether it’s insecurity or frustration, Bible-believing Christians too often fumble a chance to evangelize. And yes, I know what 2 John 10-11 says. We’ll get to that.
LDS Missionaries are generally great kids caught up in a cultural swirl that resulted in their appearance at your door. Most have never been exposed to a loving presentation of the gospel, almost all struggle with their own faith in the LDS church, and many feel trapped by the Missionary rules, the Missionary partnership system, and Mission Presidents that expect them to take a blind leap of faith.
Deceived kids? Absolutely. Unreachable kids? Hardly.
And here’s where you come into play. The state of Utah sends a huge percentage of its young, intellectual capital to states dominated by evangelical Christianity. Let me be as emphatic as possible — my mission field is coming to you … willingly and eagerly, to talk about faith. They’re coming at an age when their minds are ripe for transformation. And you can give them God’s power unto salvation (Romans 1:16). No, that missionary isn’t going to make a profession of faith on your front step, but God’s Word will have its harvest (Isaiah 55:11).
Okay, now it’s time to remember Elders So-and-So, those polite teens we left at your doorstep. Don’t worry, they’re still there — they’ve nothing else to do.
How should you interact?
1. Prepare: This summer, several Utah pastors put together a resource site just for you — realmissionary.com. Read through the site. Order the materials. They’re free! Don’t spend hours, just take 15 minutes to familiarize yourself with the site, order the free materials, and educate yourself on the first step. Simply preparing yourself will make our job in Utah a whole lot easier. If all you do is hand the missionary a Questions for Missionaries card and politely dismiss them with a loving admonition to read it, it’s a win.
2. Engage: I’d encourage you to invite the missionaries into your home, which will probably require you to invite them back at a later time. Trust me, they’ll come back. Besides, you can use the time to re-visit realmissionary.com and prepare a few thoughts.
I do not believe that you are violating 2 John 10-11 by inviting them into your home. John is talking about equipping and enabling false teachers to continue their deception. By inviting them in, you’re not supplying them in any way — you’re evangelizing them! And herein lies the key misunderstanding among born-again Christians: LDS Missionaries are deceived, not the deceivers. They’re not scholars; they’re just teenagers who’ve learned a sophisticated sales pitch. And the deep, dark Mormon secret is that they have very little success in converting people, especially Americans. The goal of LDS missionary participation is to convert exactly one person: the missionary himself. And you can give them the gospel lifeline they need to find freedom from the clutches of this false religion.
Give them 20 minutes to make their presentation in exchange for equal time. Listen politely. When it’s your turn, you’ve got lots of options: you can simply show them the video of Micah Wilder’s testimony from realmissionary.com, work through the Questions for Missionaries with an open Bible, or give a very loving, very calm gospel presentation that emphasizes free grace. Missionaries are required to read their scriptures for two hours every morning, so challenge them to read Romans, Galatians, or John and invite them back to talk about what they read. You’ve got so many options, the important thing is that you get them to read the New Testament.
3. Relax: Be kind. Smile a lot. Tell jokes. Ask them about family, education, and dreams. Ask them if they have a girlfriend. They’re kids. Talk to them like you would any other single in your church. But remember this: Mormons confirm truth through subjective emotional experience. If you’re wound up and ready for war, those negative emotions are going to translate to non-truth for the LDS missionary.
I recently took a tour of Ogden’s newly renovated LDS Temple as hosted by several LDS uppety-ups. One lady said to me, “I just want to thank you for your good manners.” I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that back-handed compliment. I said, “I’m curious, what did you expect me to do?” She said, “I wasn’t sure. I guess my imagination ran wild.” And that’s the point—they’re expecting you to be rudely dismissive. Surprise them.
Finally, remember that they’re more ignorant of Biblical Christianity than you are of Mormonism. You have the truth. The Truth. Not a lie. There’s no need to fret that you’ll be tricked; there’s no magic-bullet argument that can dissuade you from Christ (Romans 8:38-39).
Simply shine the Light. Darkness fades, nay flees, when the light shines.
