My former “home teacher” came to me the other day and asked what he’s supposed to do to “minister” to my family. He really had no idea, now that there’s no lesson to teach, no monthly report to do, nor any real instructions as to what it means.
One church leader, shortly after the Conference announcement of the program, had all sorts of ideas as to what “ministering” means. In his “Holier approach to ministering”, Elder Neil L Andersen proclaimed that the purpose of ministering is to “strengthen the faith of someone who is slipping or who needs help in moving back onto the path he once traveled.” He offered a set of indicators as to when “ministering” might be in order: things like if you sense that someone might have a problem with pornography, or if you smell alcohol or marijuana in their car.
After listing seventeen ways in which you observe someone’s “faith being affected by compromised worthiness and his need to repent”, Elder Andersen encourages his listeners to minister by taking action, by bearing testimony, and calling upon people to repent and keep commandments.
I cannot imagine a less effective means to minister to my family’s needs than for my “Ministering Brother” or “Ministering Sister” to come with a seventeen item checklist to see what is spiritually wrong in my household and then call my family to repentance.
No thank you.
But when I look into what ministering is about, the Church has defined it explicitly:
“Ministering is Christlike caring for others and helping meet their spiritual and temporal needs.”
I can buy into this definition. I can embrace it. But what “Christlike” means is very different for me than it is in the Church vernacular.
When LDS speak of “committed disciples of Christ:”, they mean, in LDS code, a person who obeys the church leaders without question or doubt. The problem with this is that Jesus actually was quite critical of his church leaders — so I am not sure that LDS leaders fully appreciate what it means to be “Christlike” in the true historical sense.
But “ministering” in a Christlike way isn’t about dissent, but rather *how* Jesus ministered to others. To me, Christ’s example is one of love, acceptance, and communion with those, like me, who are by definition “unworthy” according to church standards.
To me there are three ways Jesus implemented this Love in his ministry:
1. Jesus did not judge the vulnerable people he served. I know this is completely against any LDS doctrine, for we consider Jesus to be the supreme judge. But this is what he said:
“I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”
(John 12:47)
So to be a Christ-like minister, we cannot judge those we are called upon to minister. Jesus, Paul, and James all unanimously reject judgment of others.
Yes, we ought to discern what others need, but we need to embrace the idea that discernment — the ability to truly understand what is needed — cannot be done when we have made a judgmental conclusion about our brother or sister.
In fact, the very act of judging others prevents us from moving to the second and third ways in which Jesus ministered to others.
2. Jesus became our Friend. In our Church, we embrace hierarchical relationships in everything we do. The Book of Abraham proclaims that whenever two people are in relationship, one is “more intelligent” than the other. Priesthood, marriage, every act we do in the LDS church presumes hierarchy.
Jesus changed this radically in the Atonement. He declared that we are friends. He demonstrated this by washing feet — not as an ordinance to cleanse them from the blood and sins of this generation, but rather, to demonstrate that we must meet people where they are.
To me, this is the greatest change in the function of “ministering”. Unlike its predecessors, ministering does not presume a hierarchical “teacher/disciple” relationship. The prior programs were all “teaching”: “Block Teachers”, “Ward Teachers”, “Home Teachers”, “Visiting Teachers”. If we realize that in this change, we now must embrace “friendship”, no longer are we in hierarchical relationship with our friends. We no longer have any role to judge, to fix, or in any way be superior. We’re simply to be friends.
3. Jesus listened in love. When we set aside judging, and simply embrace friendship, we realize that the single most essential thing we do as friends is listen to one another.
An ancient Chinese text speaks of listening as the very essence of the Way: that we go beyond listening with our ears and minds, and embrace listening with our whole spirit. In order to do this, we need to set aside any preconceptions.
Much of the current counsel about ministering asks members to seek revelation about how to serve others. That’s a wonderful idea, but when we do so in a vacuum, when we presume to know what others need without asking them, we cannot truly know what they need.
In the same way that revelation requires both the mind and heart, we need to empty our mind and heart of our ideas, and truly connect with others.
How can we know what someone needs if we don’t ask them, if we don’t listen to them? How can we know what someone needs if we’ve already judged them?
Yet this is what ministering is all about to me.
It’s about being Mormon in the sense that we embrace Alma’s charge at the Waters of Mormon. We lift each others’ burdens that they may be light. We mourn with those who mourn. We comfort those standing in need of comfort. And we witness to a god of love, by being a loving friend.
And you know what? It doesn’t mean fixing problems, although problems will be fixed. It doesn’t mean bringing people back into belief, although faith — trust and love in each other and in god — will increase.
And when we connect with each other as friends, something magical happens: we “understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together.” (D&C 50:22)
In the end I do not know who is the minister or the ministered. To me, let’s just be friends in love, and let the magic happen.