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The missionaries were tracking in my neighborhood today, as they do about once a month or so.

It got me wondering when the church is going to stop this practice.

In this day and age, people just do not want folks dropping in, they do not want to discuss relgion with those who believe differently, and they think missionaries are odd.

I mean seriously this is not the 1950's.

It is getting to be embarrassing.... not only is tracking ineffective, it seems to be doing more harm than good. It is making the church look kind of stupid.

I feel badly for the missionaries ....

~dancer~

truth dancer wrote:The missionaries were tracking in my neighborhood today, as they do about once a month or so.

It got me wondering when the church is going to stop this practice.

In this day and age, people just do not want folks dropping in, they do not want to discuss relgion with those who believe differently, and they think missionaries are odd.

I mean seriously this is not the 1950's.

It is getting to be embarrassing.... not only is tracking ineffective, it seems to be doing more harm than good. It is making the church look kind of stupid.

I feel badly for the missionaries ....

~dancer~

I have wondered about this. When I served from 79-81 we tracted a lot and it was quite succesful for us. We also phones tracted at times which certianly would be less effective today though then we actually got lots of appointments and baptized from them.

Where I live the missionaries still are baptizing from tracting though I think it is harder. As long as they teach and baptize from it I think they will keep doing it.

Could be worse, we could be harassing people as they walk down the streets.

truth dancer wrote:The missionaries were tracking in my neighborhood today, as they do about once a month or so.

It got me wondering when the church is going to stop this practice.

In this day and age, people just do not want folks dropping in, they do not want to discuss relgion with those who believe differently, and they think missionaries are odd.

I mean seriously this is not the 1950's.

It is getting to be embarrassing.... not only is tracking ineffective, it seems to be doing more harm than good. It is making the church look kind of stupid.

I feel badly for the missionaries ....

~dancer~

I hated tracting. In the end I used it as a dysfunctional way of acting out aggression. I loved it when they didn't like us. It was the only thing that snapped me out of the zombie-like state I was in.

Jason Bourne wrote:

truth dancer wrote:The missionaries were tracking in my neighborhood today, as they do about once a month or so.

It got me wondering when the church is going to stop this practice.

In this day and age, people just do not want folks dropping in, they do not want to discuss relgion with those who believe differently, and they think missionaries are odd.

I mean seriously this is not the 1950's.

It is getting to be embarrassing.... not only is tracking ineffective, it seems to be doing more harm than good. It is making the church look kind of stupid.

I feel badly for the missionaries ....

~dancer~

I have wondered about this. When I served from 79-81 we tracted a lot and it was quite succesful for us. We also phones tracted at times which certianly would be less effective today though then we actually got lots of appointments and baptized from them.

Where I live the missionaries still are baptizing from tracting though I think it is harder. As long as they teach and baptize from it I think they will keep doing it.

Jason, did you notice the quantity (not quality mind you) of baptisms rose in economically depressed areas? I sure did.

truth dancer wrote:The missionaries were tracking in my neighborhood today, as they do about once a month or so.

It got me wondering when the church is going to stop this practice.

In this day and age, people just do not want folks dropping in, they do not want to discuss relgion with those who believe differently, and they think missionaries are odd.

I mean seriously this is not the 1950's.

It is getting to be embarrassing.... not only is tracking ineffective, it seems to be doing more harm than good. It is making the church look kind of stupid.

I feel badly for the missionaries ....

~dancer~

Is not part of it a sort of rite of passage?

barrelomonkeys wrote:
Is not part of it a sort of rite of passage?

In terms of Mormon culture, I would say yes, of course. There are all kinds of rituals and cultural values attached to it.

I had a personal rule that I wouldn't tract more than an hour a day. Usually I did none. I preferred to stand on a bench in Town Center and preach. Much more fun.

When I did tract I always played games. Have your companion come up with a word and you had to work it in to your approach. I served with one gung-ho tracter who was convinced that if he talked fast and loud enough he could get results. I tried his approach once to show him how it looked. After the initial denial I then told the man that I was giving out tenners to everyone and would he like a few:

"No, not interested mate."

I keep the door approach short and sweet. If they rebuff you thank them and move on. After the third sentence if they're not interested they're just trying to find a polite way to shut the door. My best source for Baptisms was UNO. A lady with tons of non-member friends would invite us over and we'd play silly games and have a good time, not telling them much more than that we were missionaries. Without fail they'd like us (hey, it's me) and ask her all about us and want to know what we taught so she'd offer to set up another get-together and we'd teach them. Another favorite was football (soccer). You play with the kids down on the pitch and you meet their parents at some point (though sometimes you played against them in the first place). Often you get a dinner invite and later a chance to teach.

My motto for finding people to teach was a reword of a Christian Saint: "Teach the Gospel. Use words as little as possible, there will be time for that later."

Being a missionary is fine... I'm talking about tracting particularly.

The walking around knocking on doors.

It is not exactly productive... at least not in the areas I have lived over the last many years.

Missionaries are looked upon as an anoyance, and the church is not looked upon positively.

My idea would be... to have missionaries do service; they could help with the red cross, or the homeless, or whatever the needs of the community are. They could teach investigators, help with ward missionary work etc. etc. etc.

I bet if the church did a poll they would find out tracting hurt more than it helped.

I just think it would be a lot better for missionaries and a lot better for the PR of the church.

~dancer~

My son and I talked about this a few weeks ago (he just returned home from an "honorable" mission in Europe).

The only people who might view two boys in white shirts and ties as hopeful symbols would be the INSIDERS (ie blind Mormon
leaders, some active members and missionary parents. I would see two white shirts and feel torn as to whether I should write
my son and tell him what I now thought about the church or wait patiently for his return.

There are a number of countries where wairing this wanna-be business attire makes you a terrorist target as well.
The safety concern was my biggest issue. I would have prefered they blend in rather than stand out like a becon of western
culture. It's an AMERICAN church.

The moment an OUTSIDER (pretty much any non-mormon) sees these clones approaching, they will automatically go into defense mode
and switch off. Why? Because they have met them before or have been told and warned about them.

The motto in the mission area I served in was, "commit their face off". No kidding. It was no wonder we got hammered back on nearly
every door, even if my companion and I didn't pester the contact. The damage had already been done by a number of previous "elders".