Welcome back to the 4-part series of How to invite others to Christ using your digital device.  In this blog, we will discuss how you can successfully invite leaders of your community to tour an LDS chapel with nothing more than your digital device.

Normal course of life

In her book, Go Forward with Faith, Sheri Dew once asked the late President Gordon B. Hinckley what kept him up at night.  He replied,  “I constantly ask myself what I can do to help the 50,000 missionaries … if we could find ways to cause people to bump into the gospel in the normal course of their lives, rather than waiting for missionaries to knock on their door, it would be one of the greatest things we could do.”

That’s where you and I come in.  As disciples of Christ, we are commissioned to find ways to bump those God places in our paths into the gospel.  And if we can do so in the normal course of their lives, and our own, we are helping to fulfill on a prophet’s dream.  Instead of physical doors, we are now knocking on digital doors.

In Part 1 of How to invite others to Christ using your digital device, we discussed the steps to inviting community leaders to host missionaries for a meal.  I have used the same steps to inviting people I know and barely know to tour our chapels.  Touring a chapel is an effective way to share what we believe, while on our feet, and can be done in a way that does not disrupt terribly another’s schedule.  How’s that?  Invite your guest to join you and the missionaries at the chapel for lunch.  We all have to eat.  And you don’t have to cook.  Let me show you how.

Step 1: Chapel tour invite using your digital device

• Ask for help with your church assignment
• Share the purpose of your invitation and personalize it with a photo
• Invite with suggested times/dates (I often invite them over the lunch hour to meet.  I then invite a member of the congregation to help by preparing a meal and attending if possible.)
• Give outline of tour with timeframe
• Decouple invitation from relationship (A Clayton Christensen principle)

 

Step 2: Your role in the chapel tour

It’s best if you can be with your guest and the missionaries while they tour the chapel.  As I was busy running a Chamber of Commerce and didn’t have time to make a meal (and my wife needed a break!), I would enlist a few stay-at-home moms/dads to both help and join me.  “Sister Elrett,” I would say.  “I am giving a chapel tour next week to our mayor.  Would you be available to prepare a meal for five and join us for the tour?”

“Oh, Brother Morey, thank you so much for asking me,” Sister Elrett, and many others, would say. “I have been praying all week to know how I can help with missionary work.”

Prayer answered.  Yours and hers.  Engage your stay-at-home members — and less-actives — to help!

Here’s a brief outline of your role in the chapel tour:

• Begin with prayer (invite one of the missionaries to pray)
• Make introductions (explain briefly the role of a missionary and then allow each missionary to share personal highlights)
• Ask, “What do you know about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?”
• Show the video Church at a Glance
• Cue the missionaries to start the tour
• End by inviting your guest to “pray for you and the missionaries” by way of closing prayer (I never once was turned down).

Step 3: Missionary tour outline 

As we move from room to room, we discuss the tenants of our faith, keep the tour conversational, and at all times invite questions.  This is where you turn the time over to the missionaries and let them do what they have been called to do: teach the gospel.  This outline, although similar to that taught to the missionaries, has been modified to be public affairs friendly (no baptismal invite):

• Restoration (baptismal font)
• Humanitarian and Welfare (bishop’s office)
• Family History
• How Latter-day Saints worship (chapel)
• Invitations (We often invite the guest(s) to come see how we worship on a given Sunday)
• Present the guest with a media or press kit (I include a copy of the Book of Mormon, a Strength For Youth pamphlet, and printouts of The Living Christ; The Family a Proclamation to the Word, and the Articles of Faith).

Step 4: Follow-up Survey

Send the following survey using the communication/social media tool you used to send the invitation:

• What was your overall experience?
• What topics were of most interest to you?
• What, if anything, did you learn new?
• Can we share your responses on our FB page?

What did leaders have to say about touring a Latter-day Saint chapel?

“[My wife] and I truly enjoyed our tour.  It was both enlightening and uplifting. I am drafting a column and, as promised, will send it to you before submitting it to the newspaper. We do plan to visit an upcoming service. ~ Newspaper columnist 

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“I learned to ignore the 100,000 number…a number that I incorrectly associated with the similarity to the Jehovah’s Witness model of going out in pairs to talk with people about their faith in their homes.” ~ Business owner

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“Thanks for the lunch and sharing the exciting information. I am looking forward to working with the Sisters on my project. I think this will be a great experience for them. I was very impressed with the Meeting House. I shared some of the information you gave me with my Sunday School class.” ~ Anthropologist 

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“I know I asked a lot of questions and took up a lot of time, but ever answer you have given me has made me curious to want to know more. In other words, the more you answer my questions, the more I want to know.” ~ Nonprofit executive

A marketing director wants to visit the Salt Lake Temple thanks to a chapel tour

Sometimes we need to step outside of our office and into a chapel together to engage in a gospel-related conversation.  I found that to be so with Penny, a marketing director for a national company.

Penny lives in a small town but works for a big company.  She is quite friendly and outgoing.  She is gifted in the art of conversation, speech, and putting people at ease.  She lights up a room when she enters, always fully aware and in control of her environment.  She is in the customer-service industry.  But it wasn’t until she toured a Latter-day Saint chapel with me that I learned that she is a deeply spiritual person.

Penny quickly hugs the sister missionaries upon introduction.  She quickly begins asking questions — a method she uses to control her environment and set everyone at ease, perhaps especially herself.

A week prior, I had arranged with Sherri Reber, a member of the Anderson Ward, to help prepare a meal and join us on the tour.  She went all out: ham, potatoes, green salad, and dessert (we didn’t get to it because we ran out of time).

Penny asked questions.  She asked about our prophet, about temples and if we consider taking a mecca-like trip Salt Lake City.  She asked about the structure of our meetings, the structure of missionary work, and why we do what we do.  And, she seemed very impressed with the fruits of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and all the service we perform.  She was intrigued with the idea of a lay clergy.

Seeds were planted.  God’s story was told.  The Spirit did the teaching.  Another of God’s precious children walked hand in hand with Him.

Penny mentioned, after watching the Church at a Glance video, that she would love to go see the Salt Lake City Temple someday. Casey, my daughter who was with us on this particular tour, piped up for the first and only time and said, “It took forty years to build it.”

Later I asked her how she knew this. She replied, “I go to church too you know, Dad!”

That she does.  And so did our friend Penny, at least, by way of a tour.

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Part 2 Conclusion

Thank you for joining me on this virtual tour of how to invite others to tour a Latter-day Saint chapel.  I hope you’ve been inspired as to how you too can invite members of your community, even — no — especially the affluent to take part in a chapel tour.  It’s easy.  It’s fun.  And it helps to fulfill on a prophet’s vision of bumping others into the gospel in the normal course of their lives.

Next up: Will you help me with my talk?

Four part series of inviting others to Christ through your digital device

Part 1: Invite others to host the missionaries for dinner and a discussion

Part 2: How to bump opinion leaders into the gospel through chapel tours

Part 3: Will you help me with my talk?

Part 4: Involve the youth in missionary with social media