Sympathy For The Home Teacher

Yesterday, on a local talk radio station, a host I admire posed this conundrum to the audience: a relative of his inactive wife had given his contact information to his neighborhood congregation of the LDS church and two men (their new home teachers) came over to talk to them, but they don’t want to be contacted by church members; how should he proceed?

He politely hastened to add that the pair of visitors who had most recently come to his door were perfectly polite (though, apparently, some had been not quite so courteous in the past, unfortunately); nonetheless, they prefer not to have church members come visit them in their home. I heard a couple of callers give some decent advice on the subject (I wish I’d had time to hear the whole conversation), but it’s really a no-brainer: you politely but firmly ask not to be contacted, then take up the issue with the well-meaning relative.

 

I want to address another angle to this situation. A lot of people out there have had experiences similar to that of our talk show host friend, but fewer have been on the other side of these encounters. I’ve been on both sides, and I want people to understand where we’re coming from.

 

First of all, I hope everybody considers just how hard it is to approach the home of someone you don’t know, someone who may very well be hostile to you, and try to talk about religion. It can be terrifying. It takes courage and can only be motivated by a genuine gratitude to God and concern for the welfare of others. Remembering that might make more of these encounters more hospitable. That’s why my wife and I don’t close the door on Jehovah’s Witnesses: we may not agree with their doctrine, but at least they’re putting themselves out there doing hard, thankless work, trying to make the world a better place. It deserves respect.

 

Most people don’t like to be bothered by strangers when they’re at home, but don’t forget that those guys from the nearby church knocking on your door have lives, too. They have families waiting for them, they have jobs they’re tired from working at all day, and they have plenty of other, more comfortable things that they could be doing. But they’re giving up that time and comfort and risking instigating the occasional confrontation because someone out there could need them.

If anybody has heard yet another irritating knock after you’ve told three different people three other times to leave you alone, and you want to just rip into this new guy, please understand that this most recent person probably doesn’t know about anyone else who has been over. Even if you told the bishop to make sure nobody contacts you, it’s not like there’s an updated memo in everyone’s hands with personal notes on everybody in the area; a hundred things could happen that somebody tries in good faith to get in touch with you anyway, not the least of which is the passage of time and your neighbors wanting to make sure that another child of God is doing well and to see if anything has changed in their life.

 

Sometimes these contacts are just to see if you want to come to a chili cook off or to invite your kids to a community “trunk or treat,” which lots of non-Mormons know about and gladly do all the time. But sometimes people really are alone out there and nobody knows them and they could use a neighbor to check on them to help them find a job or just to pray for them.

 

If you’re offended by the church keeping careful records of people, please remember that. If it weren’t for the records and the attempts at regular contact, a lot of good, needy people would never get the physical or spiritual help they need. If that means occasionally knocking on the door of someone who told someone else six months ago to go away, then so be it. When you’ve seen the miracles that come into people’s lives from the efforts of a friendly community of faith, you’ll know that that is by far the lesser of two evils.

 

The Internet (and, it seems, talk shows) are full of stories about people being annoyed by people from the Mormon Church dropping in, uninvited and unwanted, asking to get to know them. The stories that are less well advertised are the ones of people who needed those visits, for whom they may well have been the answer to prayer. I’ve seen people who haven’t had any contact with the church for years suddenly get a visit just when they were getting desperate about life and it was exactly what they needed. I’ve seen others who tentatively made chit chat, and that was all, on and off perhaps for years, but when life made them need the church, they knew where to go and they knew they were welcome.

 

That was the case with me, too. After I joined the church, I pretty quickly fell away. For a long time, I avoided those calls asking if someone could come visit, and when they did get me and I agreed to a meeting, I’d be sure I wasn’t home when they came. I even ignored the doorbell a few times. But when a crisis broke me and I needed God, I knew where the door was and I knew it was open. And now, in what seems like a whole different lifetime, I am one of those guys who goes out and tries to reach out to others.

 

On the radio last night, one caller said that what the home teachers ultimately want is to get the host and his wife to be active in the church, and the host quickly replied, “Oh yeah, I know that.” That was an unfortunate exchange. On one hand, yes, as Latter-day Saints who have felt the Lord’s blessings in their life, we want everyone to have the opportunity to also be blessed. If everyone in the world joined our church, we’d be ecstatic, because we know what peace and joy that would create. Of course. But to imply that that’s the only goal and that’s all we care about is sad.

 

As home teachers, we follow the example of Jesus in serving others. Yes, we want to bring spiritual messages into people’s homes, but if someone’s not interested, it’s not like we say, “Whatever, buddy. It’s your loss,” and storm off. We should be involved and serve in whatever capacity we can. I’ve home taught people where most of my time there has been spent pulling weeds from the yard, or giving someone a ride. One family doesn’t want scriptural messages (though I’ve offered just to read quotes from the Bible, which they’re comfortable with), so I’ve just brought over cookies, checked to be sure they’re doing OK in the current economy, and brought my family to sing carols at their door the week before Christmas. That’s home teaching, too. I’m happy to do whatever I can for them because I know God loves them.

 

And I hope when inactive members or people with old and tenuous ties to the church get contacted on the first Sunday of a month by teenage boys with blue envelopes asking for money, that you’ll consider giving a little. That’s not tithing, which is what’s used to build churches and print Bibles and things like that. They’re collecting fast offerings, which is the money that would have been spent on the two meals that we’re asked to skip on that day each month. That money only goes to help needy people put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. Bishops use those funds to take care of those in trouble. That’s all. Please, give what you can.

 

And cut the home teachers some slack. Even if you don’t care what lesson from the church they might have this month, don’t give them a hard time. They’re probably good guys, they’re there to serve you on your terms, and they want to be good friends and neighbors first and foremost.  Everybody could use more of those.