Currently, many missionaries show up at members' homes and invite them to talk to their friends and neighbors about the Church. This is one of missionaries' most effective finding methods. But these member visits are so much more effective if the missionaries are in weekly contact with their ward mission leader or ward executive secretary to find out the schedule of sacrament meeting speakers at least ten days in advance. Those who are assigned to give talks, both the adult members and the youth members, are experiencing unique feelings and emotions. Giving a talk is an important and stressful part of membership. For most it only happens every few years. The result is that these members are typically in a heightened state of humility and spirituality the two weeks before their scheduled talk. Full time missionaries and ward mission leaders can take advantage of this!
Either the full time missionaries or the ward mission leader can visit these members’ homes about ten days before their talk. Tell them you know they have been assigned to speak in church and ask them what their topic is. Ask them what they are planning to share and express confidence in them and in their preparation. Then, look them in the eye and say, “we are here today to humbly invite you by the spirit to invite as your friends, neighbors, and co-workers to come to church to hear you give your talk in two weeks.” Their jaws might just hit the floor, but don’t lose heart! Keep going, “we understand that giving a talk is stressful enough just in front of our fellow members, but we believe that many of your friends, neighbors, co-workers, and even acquaintances, will be moved and flattered by your invitation to come hear your talk. We believe that inviting someone to come hear a talk is a much easier and natural invitation than a sudden invitation to meet with the missionaries or just come to church out of the blue. You are a wonderful person, and we are confident many people would be very happy to come and show their support for you on this special day.”
Now, their jaw will slowly return to its place, and you will see the wheels turning in the member's head. They will immediately see the logic behind such an invite, and may even be shocked it never occurred to them before.
One of the awesome and unique aspects to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the sheer quantity of service and teaching opportunities it gives to its members. We do not have a paid pastor or reverend who preaches weekly sermons to a silent crowd of people. We do it all ourselves! We give the sermons, we teach the lessons, it's all us. This Church provides the best opportunity to truly progress and grow because it gives us the most opportunities to serve as Jesus Christ would. Pastors and reverends and priests in other churches have wonderful experiences teaching and counseling their congregations, and they grow and improve and learn tremendously as a result of this service. But all these opportunities should not be consolidated into one person or even a handful of people. Here, in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we all share the burdens, the blessings, and the opportunities of service.
While you are sitting in that member’s home, remind them of this. Remind them of this very unique difference between our church and other churches. An invitation to come hear your talk is the perfect chance to highlight these blessings of membership to a friend or co-worker. That friend, neighbor or co-worker will find it very interesting, and learning about these differences will be in context because they will be curious to know why the member is preaching on an upcoming Sunday instead of a pastor. What an absolutely, phenomenally-natural gospel conversation! And all these members could be having this conversation with all their friends and neighbors if only we went to their homes and encouraged them to make these invitations!
So why meet with the member at least ten days before their scheduled talk? So you can follow up the next week! During the first meeting you will ask them to make a list of people to invite, and then together brainstorm ways they could invite them. At the end of the visit you make an appointment to come back the next week to FOLLOW UP!
FOLLOW UP! FOLLOW UP! FOLLOW UP! FOLLOW UP! FOLLOW UP!
We must go back the next week and check on their progress and continue to brainstorm. Look, this two-week process can get as elaborate and detailed as your member feels comfortable with. They can make personal invitations in person or over the phone, and then they can follow it up with mailed invitations, or emailed invitations, or texts, or social media messages, or all of it combined! Make sure the member provides the time and address, what the friend can expect as far as how people will be dressed, and how the Sacrament works at our church, that it is for baptized members to take the Sacrament. All of these things will lead to more questions and more gospel sharing and conversation! It will be incredible.
Once again, I remind you of the peculiar spiritual and emotional state your member will be in as a result of his or her impending talk. They will be more humble because of their desire to do well and be a blessing to others. That humility will shine through their conversations with their friends during the invitation process, showing a vulnerability that probably hasn’t been present in their prior interactions. This vulnerability and openness on the part of the members will disarm their friends and neighbors, causing them also to become more vulnerable and open to THE SPIRIT!
Now, some members will be very freaked out about all of this, especially some youth speakers. Do not give up on them! Do not let them take the easy way out! Youth speakers have the opportunity to invite friends from school, sports teams, theater groups, and even tutors, coaches, and teachers. You can make yourself available to both youth and adult members alike to be a practice audience for their talk, if they wish, or to otherwise assist with their preparation. Do not be pushy about this, but some will jump at the chance to receive some feedback beforehand, especially some youth. This can be an amazing missionary preparation experience for these youths.
Giving a talk in church is an important and powerful experience for all members, but if that talk is given with several friends and neighbors sitting in the congregation, it becomes something so much bigger. It becomes a testimony-defining experience. Watch and see how the quality of talks improves in your ward when every week there are a handful of investigators sitting there who know the speakers personally. These meetings will become nothing short of incredible. The lingering that often takes place after sacrament meeting also becomes more powerful, as the whole ward reaches out to introduce themselves to these new friends.
You may be wondering, “well, what about Fast Sundays? No one is assigned to speak then, so I guess we can’t encourage members to invite friends on Fast Sundays?” My friends, sacrament talks are paltry, meaningless affairs compared to baby blessings! It is no accident that baby blessings are always done on Fast Sundays. If you think friends and neighbors are flattered to be invited to hear a member speak, you can’t imagine how wonderful it feels for them to be invited to the baby blessing of a family they know! This is the easiest invitation ever!
So, how do you do it? The key is the Relief Society presidency. The full-time missionaries or the ward mission leader needs to reach out to someone in the Relief Society presidency and ask for a list of all the expectant mothers in your ward who are due in approximately two to three months. I highly recommend you not first approach these mothers and fathers just two weeks before their baby is due! Expectant mothers are often so uncomfortable the last few weeks of their pregnancy that that they may not be very open to adding something to their already very-full plates. And, the invitation process for baby blessings can be quite a bit more elaborate than for talks. I don’t mean “expensive” I mean “expansive." They should start much earlier than 10-14 days. Families who are about to bless their baby should invite every friend, neighbor, and co-worker who lives within 100 miles, and can also be used to invite family members who may have distanced themselves from the Church, and others who may live further away.
Baby blessing attendance is especially effective because they happen on fast Sundays. Immediately following the baby blessing, the invited guests then sit though thirty minutes of powerful testimonies about Jesus Christ and his restored gospel.
Coming to a baby blessing is the easiest commitment for anyone to make. Babies are what we call an "open category," meaning that people are more willing and open to talk to and about babies than almost anything else. It can be difficult to help people to attend church the first time because doing so means admitting to themselves and the whole world that they are interested in the Church. But baby blessing guests do not carry that same concern. No, they waltz into church like a warm summer breeze, with a big smile on their face that says, “all y’all are crazy, I’m just here for my friend’s baby blessing!” They walk in without a care in the world, with no idea they are about to witness not only a beautiful baby blessing, but thirty minutes of pure testimony of Jesus Christ. Their minds are about to be blown!
Now, let's ratchet it up a level and talk about working with the entire ward council to combine these two invitations to create maximum missionary impact. First, work with the bishopric to extend speaking invitations to parents who are due to have a baby in approximately two to three months. Think of it as a 1-2 punch. You could schedule the mother to speak two or three months before her due date and the father to speak two or three months after the baby blessing, or vice versa. This would create three invitation opportunities within a six-month period for that family’s friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintances. If that family has youth, even better, they can also be thrown into that mix.
Importantly, this is not a new program and does not require any additional time on the missionaries' or ward mission leader's part. Missionaries and ward mission leaders are already meeting with members, but now they would merely be organizing their member visits around the ward speaking calendar and forthcoming baby blessings. This makes the time you are already spending with members more meaningful, more purposeful, more powerful, and more productive. Eight-year-old baptisms and confirmations are also great opportunities for invitations, and can be utilized in a fashion similar to baby blessings. Even Aaronic priesthood ordinations in January could be used this way. Imagine all the young men in your ward inviting friends, coaches, teachers, and mentors to their ordinations, to be held just before sacrament meeting on fast Sunday.
Missionaries and ward mission leaders who work within the regularly scheduled activities of their wards can fill the chapel with investigators every week for talks, baby blessings, baptisms, and even youth activities. Christmas programs and Primary programs are other great opportunities for invitations. Firesides are chances for youth to invite friends, and even youth conferences. Youth presidencies, male and female, can discuss designing activities that they think their non-member friends would want to attend. This question is not brought up often enough in these activity scheduling meetings with the youth. These invitations can culminate in invitations not just to meet with the missionaries, but to attend Trek, FSY, or Youth Conference. If the nonmember friend’s parents sign the permission slip, the youth’s friend can come along on Trek, FSY, etc.
I know these ideas work. I was in law school when our second son was due. My wife and I worked together, made a list, and in the month before the baby blessing we invited over 200 people. Twenty of these people came to our son's baby blessing. Eric Bednar, the son of Elder Bednar, was a member of the bishopric of our North Carolina ward at that time. I'll never forget walking into the building and seeing him smiling and laughing and talking with all those investigators waiting to see us, our new baby, and the blessing. Eric conducted that day as well, and he adroitly used his time on the stand to not just bear powerful testimony, but to share a mini discussion that briefly covered the Plan of Salvation, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and the restoration of the Church through Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. It was so awesome!
We invited 200 people to the baby blessing and 20 came. My wife and I learned that this "10% rule" was fairly consistent. We had two more sons in Houston, Texas, and our continued efforts to invite people to those baby blessings, as well as whenever we were assigned to give talks, consistently yielded about 10% attendance. This means, about 10% of the people we invited, came. The number of investigators, or new friends, that attend Church each Sunday in our wards will rise astronomically if we take advantage of the spiritual feast that is happening on a weekly basis in our sacrament meetings, during our baby blessings, and at our children's baptisms, and invite our members to love, share, and invite around these personal events.
Now, it's time for us to go and do!
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