Simple and Powerful Discipleship /or/ You Don't Have to Become a Martyr to Be a Saint

The following is the talk I wrote for church last week. I stayed up until 1 am because I got so excited to write it. It's called Simple and Powerful Discipleship, but I like to call it, "You don't have to become a martyr to be a saint."

I’m Mary Hedengren Perez and my husband Krystian and I moved into the ward just a couple of months ago. He spoke last month. I serve as Primary secretary and Krystian works with the Priests and Cub Scouts. We were extremely grateful to receive these callings because, due to a series of unusual circumstances, we had gone the nearly 4 months since we were married without callings in the church. This disappointed us because we were looking forward to serving in a family ward. We certainly had “real callings” in our singles ward, but we were eager to widen the range of our service. We speculated endlessly, wondering whether we would serve the youth, the children or even the babies. We spoke with friends of ours who had callings like  Stake Youth Dance DJ, callings which we had never even contemplated.

The church affords us many opportunities to build the kingdom of God through callings, serving our families and developing personal spirituality. This work is increasingly urgent.

Bonnie Oscarson, the Young Women’s President, reminded us in this most recent general conference that we are blessed to have the fulness of the gospel, but we are also beset with “perilous times.” Under such circumstances, half-hearted work in the kingdom will not suffice. What, then, should we do?

First though, President Oscarson points out, we need to strengthen our own testimonies in the basics of the gospel. We need to develop unshakable testimonies in the divinity of Christ and His role in the plan of salvation. We need to be able to bear strong witness of Joseph Smith’s prophetic role in bringing forth the restoration of the gospel. We need to seek and find the significance of our temple covenants and blessings. Though powerful testimonies of Christ, the restoration and the temple ordinances, we can serve and teach with a powerful spirit.

It’s not enough just to have testimonies, though: we must commit to the acts that will demonstrate our conversion. Just as we need to develop powerful testimonies, we need to commit to powerful acts of discipleship. That was one of my favorite things about Bonnie Oscarson’s talk: she emphasized that these are not the days for rinky-dinky discipleship.

Before I dig into the ways that Sis. Oscarson called us to actively follow Christ, let me take a sidebar to say what these powerful acts of discipleship are not. Powerful acts of discipleship do not make you needlessly a martyr. They do not need, even, to take far more time or effort than what you currently expend. They are always about what matters most.

Pres. Utchdorf has wisely counseled, quote “An acceptable sacrifice is when we give up something good for something of far greater worth.

                   

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Dedicating some of our time to studying the scriptures or preparing to teach a lesson is a good sacrifice. Spending many hours stitching the title of the lesson into homemade pot holders for each member of your class perhaps may not be.

                   

Every person and situation is different, and a good sacrifice in one instance might be a foolish sacrifice in another.

How can we tell the difference for our own situation? We can ask ourselves, “Am I committing my time and energies to the things that matter most?” There are so many good things to do, but we can’t do all of them. Our Heavenly Father is most pleased when we sacrifice something good for something far greater with an eternal perspective” end quote (“Forget me not”).

If you find that you frequently get caught up into this trap, sacrificing unnecessarily until our callings or other service opportunities become heavy burdens and sources of relentless guilt, may I recommend Eld Ballard’s 2006 General Conference talk “O Be Wise”? In this talk, Eld. Ballard gives clear guidelines in creating balance in our callings. He prays that we will “focus on the simple ways we can serve in the kingdom of God.” Simple does not mean weak. Simple does not even mean easy. But it does mean that we don’t run faster or labor harder than we have strength or unnecessarily complicate things.

I propose 4 ways we can strengthen our discipleship without, perhaps, significantly increasing our time or means.

The first principle is demonstrated by a mother Sis. Oscarson describes. This mother “chooses a topic each week, often one that has generated a lot of discussion online, and she initiates meaningful discussions during the week when her children can ask questions and she can make sure they’re getting a balanced and fair perspective on the often-difficult issues. She is making her home a safe place to raise questions and have meaningful gospel instruction.” Pres. Oscarson doesn’t say, but I suspect this mother has family home evening, family dinners and maybe even family scripture study. But she doesn’t just try to get through a chapter, or through an hour: she makes the content meaningful and takes advantage of the time she has to each her family.

Setting aside fifteen minutes a day for scripture study, two hours a month for home teaching, or a day a week for worship and rest will form worthy habits. But to magnify the impact of that time, it’s not enough to just go through the motions. The some of most meaningful scripture study I have done has been to research a real question or concern, seeking for answers and inspiration.  I felt this urgency most acutely on my mission, where I filled this notebook with questions I either heard or anticipated from the people we taught and I dug deep to discover the answers. We do not have time, brothers and sisters, to simply “get through” a lesson, a family home evening or a Sunday. We need to make the most of this time to discuss the crucial, even uncomfortable, truths of the gospel. So principle one, and perhaps the one on which the others stand, is to simply use the time we have more meaningfully.

The mother in that story thought about the needs of her children in gospel learning, as did Sis. Marffissa Maldonado, a youth Sunday School teacher in Mexico. Bonnie Oscarson relates that Sis. Maldonado set up a social media page for her students, and texts them their assignments, connecting with them in ways that are natural to them. She used social media and text to communicate with students rather than, say, paper handouts.  Instead of doing things that felt natural to her, she sought to do things that were more natural to those she taught. Now, posting on a Facebook page takes less time, not more, than creating a paper handout, so she wasn’t needlessly complicating her calling, but she was thinking about the ways her students communicate rather than what worked for her. So, principle two is to serve in the way others need, not in the way that is comfortable.

When Sis. Maldonado when  was called, there were only 7 students regularly attending her Sunday School class. Now there are more than 20. When President Oscarson related her amazement, she reports that Sis. Maldonado modestly said, “Oh, it wasn’t just me. All the class members helped.” And they did. The class members reached out to less active members and even initiated missionary work that resulted in the baptism of a new member.

I’m not sure exactly how Sis. Maldonado did it, but I suspect it included inspiring them about the significance of what was happening every week in class as well as providing them opportunities to reach out to their classmates. What a great blessing for those teenage saints to be enlisted in the work of bringing souls to Christ! Instead of seeing her Sunday School students as passive, she empowered them to do great things. If you think about it, this is what God, Christ, the prophet, the bishop and the auxiliary leaders all do when they extend callings to us, and we can extend invitations to serve to those around us. So the third principle is to enlist the help of those around us, even those we serve.

Finally, for the last principle, I want to especially address my primary kids, but it holds true for youth and non-youth, too. Do you come right away when called for family home evening or prayer? Do you volunteer to say the prayer over the food, or, when you are called to pray, do you do so without complaining? Do you share the lessons you learned in church each Sunday? You can be powerful examples in your family and beyond!  Sis. Oscarson says that “even the very youngest in this audience can rise up in faith and play a significant role in building the kingdom of God. ... All children and young [people] can encourage family home evenings and be full participants. You can be the first one on your knees as your family gathers for family prayer. Even if your homes are less than ideal, your personal examples of faithful gospel living can influence the lives of your family and friends.”

If your families, roommates, friends or coworkers are not all united in living gospel standards, the temptation can be to live the gospel shyly, being embarrassed of your discipleship the way you might hide belonging to a Justin Beiber fan club. Christ commands us to let our light shine before the world.  Don’t be ashamed of your goodness! The world and your family need your goodness. If you’re reading your scriptures, it’s okay if you read your scriptures in the living room as well as the bedroom. If you had a good Sunday, you can share it with coworkers just as proudly as if you had a good Saturday. If there’s a quote you love from General Conference, you can post it on Instagram, hang it in your office, or print it on a t-shirt just as deeply as you engrave it in the fleshy tablets of your heart. We’re not doing this to be holier-than-thou, but because this is who we are and we have no reason to be ashamed of who we are.The final principle is to live the gospel boldly.

To summarize, we can magnify the efforts we are already making in gospel living when we:

1. Make meaningful use of time set aside for gospel learning
2. Serve in the way that is needed, not in the way that is comfortable.
3. Enlist the help of those around us, even those we serve.
4. Live the gospel boldly.

These principles are not easy. You may feel set in your ways and find it difficult to try something new in the way that you study the gospel or serve others. You may hate the feeling of helplessness when recruiting others to do something you feel you can do better yourself. You may be shy or feel self conscious about sharing outside the things you feel inside. But I promise that as you do so, you will see the benefits in those around you as well as within you. We don’t need to do more, but we do need to do better, and with inspiration from the Spirit and a willingness to try, we can. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.