Comments on: Covenanting with the Lord

By: John T.

John T. — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 02:38:55 +0000

It is a shame that dialogue deteriorates with degredation of devotion.

By: Jeffrey Giliam

Jeffrey Giliam — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

My mission trainer tried to get me to go in for this. I instantly recognized it as trash. We don’t get to force the Lord to do anything we want. We can only “bind” him when he tells us he will do something if we do something first. Nowhere do the scriptures ever suggest that we get to invent covenants to our own liking and attempt to bind the Lord by them. Covenants, if they be bilateral, need both parties to agree for it to have any effect whatsoever. When we make covenants willy-nilly we are leaving out God’s part in the matter. Even God didn’t invent the covenants he proposes for us. Instead, they were worked out by God, gods, angels, men, women and everybody else in the preexistence. Like William Clayton said:

“It has been a doctrine taught by this church that we were in the Grand Council amongst the Gods when the organization of this world was contemplated and that the laws of government were all made and sanctioned by all present and all the ordinances and ceremonies decreed upon.”

By: Jordan

Jordan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I remember one such program that disgusted me just with the name: “Bind the Lord”

Like the Lord was my personal slave or something…

“Bind the Lord…” Oh Lord. ;p

By: Steve (FSF)

Steve (FSF) — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ah, the old big lie of A+B+C = lots of baptisms (a la Drawing on the Powers of Heaven) that so many I served w/ tragically apostatized over. When they realized the book was utter rubbish doctrinally and, contrary to the book, usually the most relaxed missionaries make the best proselytors, they just couldnâ€™t handle being lead astray by the GAâ€™s that pushed that crap.

By: Jared

Jared — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I encountered such a program on my mission. Not by official endorsement, just one of those things that circulated. I believe there are some true principles behind it, but the application distorts them. One of the most destructive things, I think, is that when you screw up you destory your faith. “Well, I over-slept. How can I expect the Lord to bless my work? I guess today is a loss–I’ll have to try harder tomorrow.”

I was glad to see that the Preach My Gospel manual makes statements that indirectly repudiate such programs.

For some reason, our church likes to invent programs. I’m rather hesitant to believe that the latest program is the secret key to missionary work, or whatever. “If only we had known about this program years ago! We would have been so much more successful!”

By: quinn mccoy

quinn mccoy — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

i was label a rouge disobedient missionary when i didnt want to make convenents with the lord about the number of baptisms. it was kinda silly. i always hated the commitment thingy and this covenent thing. it really takes the spirit out of teaching.

the problem on the mission is that there are so many missionaries ignorant to the doctrine of the church that flashy evangelical techniques are very inviting. if missionaries would really prepare for the mission, and i am not talking about seminary, especially in the west(utah and whatnot). i would like to see real scripture study from premissionaries. if that were to happy silly “doctrines” lack making outrageous covenents with the lord would be less frequent.

just a side note, one month the district all decided to make covenents. my comp and i said that we didnt like the program….and well be baptized more than everyone…so much for a rouge.

By: John Mansfield

John Mansfield — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Posts like this one have caused me to reflect more than once on how good I had it in my mission. So many items of missionary culture were absent because we were spread across the Patagonia and the Pampa and lacked the clusters of frequent contact to breed these things. Having few programs handed down to us, the compansionships had room to work out plans for themselves. That process of figuring out how to work provided significant spiritual experience as missionaries and companionships tried to understand what God wanted of them. I suppose this is the way things mostly worked in other places as well, but it sounds like many missions had more distractions from this.

By: quinn mccoy

quinn mccoy — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

john mansfield, you make a good point. my wife was in a part of brazil that is also very spread out, and as such the meetings were rare. she says that she had never really heard of covenenting, among other things. as a result she states that her mission was one of the most spiritual times of her life, absent of many missionary culture items. plus i think that alot has to do with the mission pres. since i had 3, for weird reasons. the one that i like most really limited the time that the APs spent teaching about how to teach and he spent a lot of time on true doctrine, which help combat the silly convestation and plans of attack that 19 year missionaries come up with.

By: a random John

a random John — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I agree that the time during which I was geographically isolated from the larger mission was probably the best time of my mission. I am glad that I was able to serve in an area where I was able to teach a relatively large number of people. However I hesistate to attribute that to personal righteousness. You wouldn’t believe how productive some of the bad missionaries were and good missionaries could go through long dry spells.

I think that in some ways this gets back to what I said in my comments in Aaron’s post about his talk. This concept of demanding blessings is odd. One’s personal righteousness should not be based on expecting miracles in the short term, or some other concept of reward.

Yes, I know about D&C 82:10. But that is a one way street. You don’t get to dictate to the Lord what the results of your righteousness will be.

By: Steve (FSF)

Steve (FSF) — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

A good part of the problem w/ these programs is the same problem so many have w/ in accepting Jesusâ€™ gift of redemption. When an individual thinks he/she is in charge, the HG can’t work w/ or through that person. It takes a relaxed, open state of mind to feel the promptings of the Spirit. Hence why rouge, rule breaking, go-with-the-flow, but hard working missionaries often find/baptize the most.

My biggest beef with all this is most of the people I served w/ arenâ€™t LDS any more because of this crap. In my mission it was pushed by a guy whoâ€™s an apostle now, and to the typical GA groupie missionaries, the deleterious impact on testimony is probably beyond repair. Post-Christian Europe is a tough mission field. I was fortunate to have baptized a lot there, which I openly attributed to having a very relaxed attitude about my missionary service. My opinion: by going with the flow so to speak and being free to ignore silly rules, work late into the night in the Summer, etc, the HG could more easily work through me, prompt me where to go, what to do, etc. Our most effective proselyting was on the golf course and other out-of-uniform (still wore name tag) activities. In short, I worked hard and played hard, and my stats, unfortunately meant the typical â€œdiligentâ€ missionaries didnâ€™t baptize, for which they were unfairly condemned. The real kicker was two Elders, one American and one European, who lead the mission stats and were off the LofC wagon.

One of the saddest things for me today is how itâ€™s been a generation since Iâ€™ve served and the GAâ€™s still havenâ€™t ditched the dorky uniform our poor missionaries have to wear.