During the early years of my mission work here in Southeast Idaho, I was often puzzled over hearing from Bible-believing Christians that they had been “blacklisted.”  Their rants shared a common contextual thread that typically ran along this line: “The missionaries used to come around, but we don’t see much of them anymore.  They just walk or ride on by.  I think we’ve been blacklisted.”  In other words, the LDS Mission President had identified their address as one to be avoided, and this, because the chance of converting the resident(s) was about as slim as a trout’s chance in a Gary Borger video.  What was particularly disturbing about these rants, however, was the undercurrent of pride I detected in the ranters.  It was almost as if being blacklisted was a badge of honor.  And from what I gathered most were earned with either a closed mind, a critical ear, a sharp tongue or all of the above.  Well the rants have changed as have the impressions with which many Evangelicals are leaving LDS missionaries.

One of the ongoing strategic thrusts for us at STS Ministries is damage control.  The local church was in dire need of “spiritual triage” given the acts and attitudes of Christians toward LDS missionaries.  “Do whatever it takes to get the missionaries to return!” was the doctrine we began preaching to our evangelical audiences to get a handle on the hemorrhage.  The immediate effects were two-fold: (1) the closed minds, critical ears and sharp tongues of Christians were attenuated and (2) more positive relations were cultivated with LDS missionaries.  “What about God and the Gospel—don’t LDS missionaries need to hear the truth that can set them free?” asked our skeptics.  Well, yes, but when the soldiers of Christ are armed to the teeth and bleeding from the jugular, it’s time to modify the mission.  The apostle Paul’s words are instructive: “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2 NIV).

The second stage of treatment was melding some of the gems in Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People with the wisdom gleaned from nearly seven years of ministry interfacing with Latter-day Saints.  The result was our presentation “10 Don’ts and Dos When Sharing with LDS,” which eventually metamorphosed into Rock 1 of our “Sharing Strategies with LDS” study.  Team STS has since been relentlessly preaching the tried and true principles embedded in Rock 1 to Christian audiences with surprising results.  No, it is not the teachers who are surprised but rather the students.  “I’ve been going about this all wrong!” and similar comments continue to reverberate in the ranks of our new recruits.  But it is the reports from our vets in the field that are the true index of the success of our surge that began in 2005.

At first blush you might get the impression that “the social gospel” has insidiously supplanted the biblical gospel of salvation (see 1 Cor. 15:1-4) in our ministry to LDS missionaries.  Not so!  Just because a triathlete sucks in the swim, doesn’t mean he sacrifices all time on the turf and in the saddle to improve it.  Rather, he merely adjusts his training priorities.  So it is with our vets in the field—they have learned to prioritize their sharing strategies so that LDS missionaries can experience the love of Christ and learn the gospel of Christ simultaneously while minimizing unnecessary collateral damage.  In fact, the Christian soldiers whom we have had the privilege of training over the years are scheduling more repeat-meetings with LDS missionaries (some with Bishops and Stake Presidents) and entertaining more new groups of missionaries than ever before.

This phenomenon has taught us one very valuable lesson: Being blacklisted is not so much the consequence of being difficult to convert as it is being a difficult potential convert.

Charis kai eirene (Grace and peace), Mike