Teaching by the Script
In the cover article for Sunstone Issue 138, John Charles Duffy explores a number of topics worth discussing in this forum. (The article is very insightful and well done, you may download a pdf version here. There is also a podcast with Duffy available here.) While I’d certainly like to visit such topics as the evangelical discourse, retrenchment, and a reemergence of Restoration-centered discourse, in this post I’d like to touch on one aspect of the missionary experience that may suffer under the new guidelines: the use of memorization as an effective ritualistic element.
As a missionary, I used the 1986 Uniform System for Teaching the Gospel. While we did not memorize entire discussions, we did employ memorization of certain aspects of those discussions for use in our teaching.
However, Duffy writes:
Speaking via worldwide satellite broadcast in 2003, President Hinckley lamented that standardized missionary discussions (which, it might be noted, he had helped to make normative) had “in all too many cases . . . resulted in a memorized presentation lacking in spirit and personal conviction.” “Let the missionaries shake loose from their memorized lessons,” Hinckley proclaimed. “Let them speak with great conviction prompted by the Spirit of the Lord.”
At nineteen years old, you are fortunate to have the basic doctrine down. The advantage - the strength - of that stage of life is being generally unencumbered by complexities. You know the world, you know the answers, and with that surety comes the confidence necessary to ask a relative stranger to change his or her life. But with this certainty comes danger - at nineteen I had very little appreciation for the type and scale of changes I was asking people to make.
The recent “raising of the bar” has been described as an attempt to raise the caliber of missionaries, to field a force of young men and women who are, in the words or Elder Ballard, “vibrant, thinking, passionate missionaries who know how to listen to and respond to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit.”
I can certainly understand this desire. I served with my fair share of companions who struggled with various personal problems and levels of competence. But this emphasis on dissuading memorization as a key to teaching by the spirit can, I believe, go too far.
I think there is a distinction to be made between memorized lessons and memorization. Certainly rote memorization and mechanical recitation is ineffective, but to a certain extent, memorization has distinct benefits. For me, at least, memorizing portions of the the discussions worked - and it worked well. There are simply certain aspects of the gospel, certain phrases, certain ways of teaching that are far more effectively conveyed using a predefined script than using one’s own words. When teaching about the first vision, it’s far more powerful to use “he saw a pillar of light exactly over his head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon him…”, despite the awkward phrasing and antiquated terms.
When I had the privilege of serving with a companion who could relate specific sections of a discussion in a particular way, our discussions became a beautifully choreographed dance. We knew our parts and we played them well - each reciting, supporting, testifying, and hitting our marks. These experiences relied on memorization, but they were not canned presentations. They relied on ritualistic aspects of telling the story to aid us in inviting the spirit - ritualistic aspects that put us, as missionaries, in the proper realm to receive and act on inspiration.
Let me emphasize - I think the ritualistic recitations benefitted those of us teaching, and then by extension those being taught. We were most effective when we were feeling the spirit, for it was in those moments we could most effectively share that experience with the investigator.
The first discussion was always the best. It was the discussion we had the most experience performing. The challenges for every discussion was in getting into the rhythm, of bringing the investigator along with us, and building to the appropriate crescendos – the first vision, the baptismal covenant, eternal families, testify. Of course there were the problematic parts in the script, the downers in the performance, the topics that always interrupted us with questions from the audience: word of wisdom, chastity, tithing, murder (only once). But for the most part, these brief moments of teaching, of reciting, of performing, of connecting – they were special. They were powerful.
Did I miss the point? Was this all just an act? I don’t think so. Every week in church we perform in little rituals that make us who we are. The invocations, benedictions, sacramental prayers, testimonies, blessings – we generally use a distinct style, a cadence, a vocabulary, a tone that we don’t normally employ in the course of our lives. These ritualistic elements communicate to us a need for a particular mindset, a reverence, if you will, to invite the spirit.
Such was the case with the missionary discussions. Frivolous youth entrusted with eternal truths. When we were able to sit down and teach, the elements of cadence, tone, rhythm – they signified to us that this was a serious time, a time for inviting the spirit, a time for reverence, a time to seek earnest communitas with the person we were teaching. The elements of drama were strong, but so was the spirit.
This kind of memorization does not equate to nor require a consistent, invariable performance. Rather it is a tool, an arrow in the quiver to be drawn at the appropriate time. Each encounter a mixture of improv and recitation all designed to teach the investigator, to help them feel the spirit, to meet their needs by making covenants and being baptised.
Or, on reflection, maybe they were our needs.
At nineteen, this method helped me a great deal to communicate the things of the spirit. As someone older now, as someone who has experienced the more complicated nature of life, I don’t think I would do as well. The new method, the less choreographed method, appeals to me, but I’d be interested to know how I might have fared with such an approach. At nineteen, would I have had the maturity and wisdom necessary to implement this method successfully? I don’t know. I am doubtful.
I do know that my success, like other’s, was relatively short-lived. Though brialliant in terms of baptismal numbers, retention of those individuals is another, darker story. That is one aspect of my mission that I am not proud of. It’s the one thing that haunts me. It’s also one aspect of the new system that is fraught with danger - the seeming removal of minimum standards of conversion in a performance-driven environment.
Perhaps the changes will permeate throughout the culture and this new method will help those young missionaries to slow down and realize a success for the individuals they teach, rather than just meeting personal or institutional goals. Perhaps the missionaries today will take this new direction and construct a new ritualization, one that will aid them in inviting the spirit. If so, and if these new methods result in better retention, it is certainly a welcome change.
April 9th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Interesting post. I had a few experiences like that as well, where a companion and I just clicked. And you’re right, it’s a lot like honing a performance piece to perfection. So while the old system resembled a play, perhaps this new system will resemble “What’s My Line.”
I was a child of the performance driven mission mindset as well. When I first stumbled off the plane and into the mission president’s house, bleary from 36 hours without sleep, the APs gave us this rousing sales pitch. It turns out that a heavently calculus had been revealed to them. It went like this:
If you talk with 300 people each week
20 will take the first discussion, and of those
10 will take the second, and of those
5 will commit to baptism, and of those
1 will actually make it to the font.
Therefore: If you talk with 300 people each week, you will also baptize each week.
Well, I was doing something wrong because I did not baptize each week. But the leadership kept pushing this line. Admittedly, there were some missionaries who thrived under this system. They were the extroverts, the leader type, the go-getters.
I left my mission feeling like a failure. I was one of those missionaries that no one ever noticed. I never got in trouble, but I never did anything brilliant.
I think that’s just a function of the mission field, though. It’s designed to train up leaders. Those who aren’t the leader type (read: Stephen Carter) can fall under the impression that lack of leadership qualities equals lack of spiritual qualities. That was my impression, anyway.
Now that I’ve entered the ten best years of my life I’ve started to see things differently. But it took my quite a while to stop conflating leadership with spiritual quality.
February 7th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
The podcast on the editions of the missionary discussions was interesting. Thinking about the comments in the context of my own experience was worthwhile. My missionary service started in July 1986, the MTC teachers had only recently made the transition and there was alot of controversy among the teachers on methods for teaching the discussions.
I had taken the missionary prep course by the BYU religion department my freshman year before my mission. I was grateful that discussions were supposed to be conversational because I was dreading memorization.
The emphasis on baptism numbers I think disturbed many of us. Ultimately, I did what I felt was right and focused on assuring myself that converts were truely converted prior to my recommending them.
One of the big questions that came up during my mission surrounded the purpose of missions. My mission president regularly indicated that he was there first, to build future church leaders, and then, to obtain convert baptisms. Were these priorities setforth in the mission presidents handbook? (was there a mission presidents handbook in 1986-1988?)
Placing our young men into a virtual monastery makes sense. We do the world a favor getting our best and brightest out of society during that critical part of their lives. So many poor decisions that impact the rest of their lives can take place at this volatile period.