Which is the Greater Service?

[clbent04]

An LDS man for the last 37 years has never missed a month home teaching his families. He gets to know them and is involved in their lives, offers Priesthood blessings when needed, and never expects anything in return but the friendships he's fostered and his own personal relationship with the Lord.

Another LDS man never goes home teaching, but loves to travel and decides for one of his trips why not do a humanitarian project in Africa. He comes back from his trip and uploads lots of pictures on Facebook posting how humbled he was to see so many impoverished people, and what a privilege it was to build a couple thatched roof huts for them to live in.

The greater service of the two undoubtedly in my mind is the faithful home teacher.  I am a firm believer in the divine inspiration of the home teaching and visiting teaching programs of the church. While some members may see these monthly visits as a nuisance (both for the home teacher and the families he visits), when home teaching is done right, it is one of the greatest services we can provide.  

What better way to serve than serving those in your own backyard, to build rapport and trust with those in your own ward?  Service is more effective when provided by someone who you know to be truly invested in you and your family.  Home teaching gives us the opportunity to build meaningful relationships, to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to make a positive impact on our own neighbors.  

If we can't love our own neighbors, are we capable of loving anyone else in the world?  The greatest service is always performed with love.  Oftentimes, it's your own impression that you leave on people for which they're most grateful for, not just the act of service.

Edited August 26, 2017 by clbent04

[Grunt]

The greater service is the service that doesn't judge another's service.

[clbent04]

2 minutes ago, Grunt said:

The greater service is the service that doesn't judge another's service.

Are you judging me for being judgmental ole Gruntster?

[Grunt]

I'm answering your question.

[clbent04]

4 minutes ago, Grunt said:

I'm answering your question.

[Grunt]

3 minutes ago, clbent04 said:

What is wrong with you?  Seriously.

[Maureen]

Why does one service have to better than the other? Why can't they both be good.

M.

[clbent04]

4 minutes ago, Maureen said:

Why does one service have to better than the other? Why can't they both be good.

M.

Sorry Maureen, but Grunt beat you to the correct answer

[Snigmorder]

Main issue is that the Africa guy went and told everyone about his alms and how astute he was in learning from the experience.

Edited August 26, 2017 by Snigmorder

[Fether]

15 hours ago, clbent04 said:

An LDS man for the last 37 years has never missed a month home teaching his families. He gets to know them and is involved in their lives, offers Priesthood blessings when needed, and never expects anything in return but the friendships he's fostered and his own personal relationship with the Lord.

Another LDS man never goes home teaching, but loves to travel and decides for one of his trips why not do a humanitarian project in Africa. He comes back from his trip and uploads lots of pictures on Facebook posting how humbled he was to see so many impoverished people, and what a privilege it was to build a couple thatched roof huts for them to live in.

The greater service of the two undoubtedly in my mind is the faithful home teacher.  I am a firm believer in the divine inspiration of the home teaching and visiting teaching programs of the church. While some members may see these monthly visits as a nuisance (both for the home teacher and the families he visits), when home teaching is done right, it is one of the greatest services we can provide.  

What better way to serve than serving those in your own backyard, to build rapport and trust with those in your own ward?  Service is more effective when provided by someone who you know to be truly invested in you and your family.  Home teaching gives us the opportunity to build meaningful relationships, to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to make a positive impact on our own neighbors.  

If we can't love our own neighbors, are we capable of loving anyone else in the world?  The greatest service is always performed with love.  Oftentimes, it's your own impression that you leave on people for which they're most grateful for, not just the act of service.

I greatest service is the service you are called to do.

[clbent04]

I'd like to say congratulations again to my boy @Grunt for getting the right answer on this. Good job. We shouldn't judge which service is better, and like @Fether said, we should accept whatever we are called or inspired to do (all sarcasm aside, I concede these are the right answers).

Shifting gears here, I really just want to talk about the value of home teaching needing to be given more credit. At face value, home teaching may seem like an overly simple task that isn't meaningful whether you do it or not, but it should be meaningful. If more members took it upon themselves to make home teaching more than something to receive a check mark for every month, I think we would see a lot of positive value.

How many Elders Quorum meetings do you go to where the EQ President talks about how low the home teaching numbers are?  I've usually see the numbers right around 50 percent.  I think they're always low largely due to how a lot of members view home teaching. 

I remember being visited by home teachers assigned to me and my family maybe 50 times (and that is being generous).  And ever since I left my family home at 18 years old, I have never been contacted or visited by the home teachers assigned to me. So take the 31 years I've been a member multiplied by 12 months and you get 372 months.  On average, I've been visited 13 percent of the time (50 visits divided by 372 months).

Now, you might ask, were my own home teaching numbers any better? Probably not. I've never really taken it that seriously either except maybe from when I was 25 to 27 years old. I remember putting more effort into it back then. But that doesn't mean I still don't see the value in it. If I do get back into the full swing of things, I'd like to try to be a better member of the church by taking home teaching more seriously myself.

I thought about this a while ago. If you were tasked with making this world a better place, what would you do? How would you design a program everyone could follow that makes a difference? I arrived at the conclusion that I would like to make a difference in my own backyard, to make positive changes in the very place I live, to get to know my neighbors, to find out their likes and dislikes, to earn their trust so that they might be able to rely on me if they ever needed help, and to share the message of the gospel as much as I can.

And I thought, wait, isn't that exactly what home teaching is? We already have the program right there in front of us. Why am I not embracing it? And then I slowly stopped going to church altogether, but I'm still enthused nonetheless about how great home teaching can be when it's done the right way.

Edited August 26, 2017 by clbent04

[Fether]

15 hours ago, clbent04 said:

I'd like to say congratulations again to my boy @Grunt for getting the right answer on this. Good job. We shouldn't judge which service is better, and like @Fether said, we should accept whatever we are called or inspired to do (all sarcasm aside, I concede these are the right answers).

Shifting gears here, I really just want to talk about the value of home teaching needing to be given more credit. At face value, home teaching may seem like an overly simple task that isn't meaningful whether you do it or not, but it should be meaningful. If more members took it upon themselves to make home teaching more than something to receive a check mark for every month, I think we would see a lot of positive value.

How many Elders Quorum meetings do you go to where the EQ President talks about how low the home teaching numbers are?  I've usually see the numbers right around 50 percent.  I think they're always low largely due to how a lot of members view home teaching. 

I remember being visited by home teachers assigned to me and my family maybe 50 times (and that is being generous).  And ever since I left my family home at 18 years old, I have never been contacted or visited by the home teachers assigned to me. So take the 31 years I've been a member multiplied by 12 months and you get 372 months.  On average, I've been visited 13 percent of the time (50 visits divided by 372 months).

Now, you might ask, were my own home teaching numbers any better? Probably not. I've never really taken it that seriously either except maybe from when I was 25 to 27 years old. I remember putting more effort into it back then. But that doesn't mean I still don't see the value in it. If I do get back into the full swing of things, I'd like to try to be a better member of the church by taking home teaching more seriously myself.

I thought about this a while ago. If you were tasked with making this world a better place, what would you do? How would you design a program everyone could follow that makes a difference? I arrived at the conclusion that I would like to make a difference in my own backyard, to make positive changes in the very place I live, to get to know my neighbors, to find out their likes and dislikes, to earn their trust so that they might be able to rely on me if they ever needed help, and to share the message of the gospel as much as I can.

And I thought, wait, isn't that exactly what home teaching is? We already have the program right there in front of us. Why am I not embracing it? And then I slowly stopped going to church altogether, but I'm still enthused nonetheless about how great home teaching can be when it's done the right way.

I get a little fired up on this topic. I was visiting my parents Ward a few weeks ago and the lesson on EQ was about service or something like that.

It was a very good lesson  at the end, the teacher posed the question "what can we do to find more opportunities to serve?" Now in my own Ward, we have as low as 13% home teaching sometimes. And I know the church has a major problem with this. I brought up in that lesson that we shouldn't be seeking additional service opportunities when we are failing in the service we are called to do. And I tried to say it in such a way to not extend judgment as I didn't know the numbers there, nor was it my place or duty.

[clbent04]

1 hour ago, Fether said:

Now in my own Ward, we have as low as 13% home teaching sometimes. 

I thought the numbers were lower than 50%. I didn't want to understate how low they were, so I went with a conversative percentage from what I was able to recall in my own wards.

Why do you think the numbers are low? Are members not seeing the value? 

I remember back in my family ward growing up, whenever the EQ President tried to get the numbers up, he would share experiences from visiting his assigned families and how it made a difference in their lives.

Sharing personal experiences is probably the best way to help others see the value. But instead of having that effect on my at the time, I remember just thinking the EQ Pres was just some kind of exceptional guy who wasn't like the rest of us average members.

So instead of his stories inspiring me to do my hometeaching like I'm sure he meant to, I just ended up viewing him as an exceptional member that was in another league than the rest of us

Edited August 27, 2017 by clbent04

[Fether]

1 hour ago, clbent04 said:

I thought the numbers were lower than 50%. I didn't want to understate how low they were, so I went with a conversative percentage from what I was able to recall in my own wards.

Why do you think the numbers are low? Are members not seeing the value? 

I remember back in my family ward growing up, whenever the EQ President tried to get the numbers up, he would share experiences from visiting his assigned families and how it made a difference in their lives.

Sharing personal experiences is probably the best way to help others see the value. But instead of having that effect on my at the time, I remember just thinking the EQ Pres was just some kind of exceptional guy who wasn't like the rest of us average members.

So instead of his stories inspiring me to do my hometeaching like I'm sure he meant to, I just ended up viewing him as an exceptional member that was in another league than the rest of us

The best way to raise any percentage in the church is to raise overall righteousness if the members. No matter how many miracle stories there are and no matter what tactics you use to people to do home teaching, it won't last unless they are praying, reading and living the gospel every day.

I don't like "miracle" stories because like every miracle or conversion story in scripture, they are the exception and not the rule.

I had a cool experience where I helped a YSA I home taught become active again. but I don't tell that story nearly as often as I tell the story of the old couple whom I HT. They are as active as they can be due to health restraints. Before and During my first visit, they told me 3 or 4 times that they hadn't had HT in 3 years and how they had missed it so much (in reality they had HT but they never came). I spent 30 minutes just talking and getting to know them. It was fun!