Church #2: PART TWO: Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Okay, so we've established that Mormons really want to share their message. And as noted in my post a few days ago, they're the 4 largest church based on memberships in the United States so they're certainly meeting their quota. However, I am a bit turned off by their sales strategy. Being in sales myself, I can appreciate the need to close a deal. I understand the thrill of the chase and the sense of pride that comes with "getting a new client" but we're not moving a bunch of used cars here. This is God we're talking about. And our faith is not something that we should be muscled into.

I was getting hit with a hard sale while sitting in the LDS church, this much I knew. As if the "sales manager" was watching from the boiling room behind the tinted glass making sure that every sales rep met each of my objections with a carefully orchestrated answer. I'm not saying the entire congregation was working off commission. Tom believed his message, I could see his passion for the church's principles. However, I encountered a fair share of inauthentic church members who slapped a fake smile on their face just long enough to introduce themselves to the new visitor and keep up the facade. It just felt like they were going through the motions because "that's what good Mormons do" instead of sharing the experience with one another because they were so overjoyed by the spirit of God.

I consider myself a warm, authentic person. I think I have an innate ability to connect with people. I also think my BS radar works pretty darn well. And I felt like I was being sold. Even when the missionaries walked me to my car, it wasn't as if they did so because they just wanted more time to share God's message with me, but instead, I suspected I was the target of an ornate new business pitch. While opening my car door, they went straight into the hard closing questions as they opened their calendars and asked, "when are you available to talk again?" I knew that question all too well. I was taught it in every sales training I'd ever been to..... "So, How have you liked what I've shown you today Mrs. X, and when can I follow up with you again?"

Then they launched into another great close..."will your husband be available then?" This way, the sales rep can have both decision makers in the same room so they can shorten the sales cycle. Most good salesman know that if the wife or husband isn't part of the buying process, they will talk their partner out of spending the money, and if the question isn't asked and the spouse talks their husband and wife out of the purchase, the responsibility falls directly on the sales rep.

I know it sounds like I'm really giving the Mormons a hard time, and you know what, I guess I am. But it was all too predictable. I could have written the pitch myself. I'm not suggesting the church members were all out to make a deal. I watched many of them walk up to the podium and speak about the Lord with tears in their eyes as they shared how Jesus Christ had changed their lives. The sermons and the message were ON POINT. They were inspiring, direct, and incredibly sincere. The Sunday school lesson was passionate and profound and the speaker energized the room while asking thought provoking questions about the Bible that really made us question our understanding of the Bible.

As I entered the room where the Relief Society was being held, a question was written on the chalk board. It was almost as if God wrote it out Himself just for me. It read: "What would you do without God?" I had been asked to consider this very same question just 2 days before while I prayed for my sister. It resonated with me personally. I wholeheartedly believe this is the way God speaks to us. And because He was speaking to me through these people, I know He was present in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on Sunday. Which made me wonder.....If this really is God talking, and this message comes from a place of Love.....What's with all the incredibly pushy salesman?

God, if experienced authentically, has a pretty great product! Salvation doesn't need a lot of marketing. I think eternal bliss is a great selling point and anyone took the time to get out of bed, get all dressed up and drive to church to hear His message is already displaying some pretty major buying signs. So why do the loyal members use the same sales techniques as the reps in the Life Insurance industry? The Love of God doesn't require a sales team. So I wonder why the church finds it necessary?

In my opinion, their recruitment strategy is flawed. However, I've also found that hard sales is not for me. I'd rather establish a relationship with my prospects by being honest and forthright and hope they see the benefits of my product or service enough to purchase it. I hold the belief that if you believe in what you're selling, people will be attracted to you just by default. But ya know what? The hard sale does work because Mormons have an incredible following and there are BILLIONS upon Billions of dollars in the Life insurance industry. They must be doing something right.

Before I went to church, I promised myself that I would have an open mind and an open heart. I asked God ahead of time to show me through this experience whether He wanted me to find the story of Joseph Smith true. I asked Him to show me the Truth and I am confident that He has.

The church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is wrong FOR ME. And just as the Mormons instructed me to do, I went home on Sunday night, closed my eyes, clasped my hands and allowed the darkness and silence of my mind to consume me. I then humbly asked God to show me the way. I said, "Dear God, please show me the Truth. Should I follow the Mormon religion and move forward with it's teachings?" God didn't hesitate. Not for a moment. God told me loud and clear that this religion and it's practices are not for me. That I WILL NOT and SHOULD NOT become a Mormon because it was not right for me. So that was that. Was I now to believe that Mormons are "wrong" because God had told me to not believe in the Book of Mormon, their Doctrine or the story of their Prophet?

This whole experience led me to an interesting question. It has sparked a sincere curiosity within me.......

Could God be telling me and the Mormons two radically different things? I once asked my father a very similar question, I said....."Dad, could all the religions be right?" His answer at the time never settled right with me, and it still doesn't today. He said, "Jessica, the road to heaven is very narrow. There can only be one Truth. God is not a liar, therefore He couldn't be telling several different people several different things that all conflict with one another. That wouldn't make him honest. And God is perfect and honest. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. No one gets to the Father unless it is through the Son, so therefore, if it doesn't line up with the Bible, it can not be Truth." I always suspected their was more to it than that. That God's plan for us was not so simple. That there may have been something bigger there and we, as individuals, were just a bit too small to see the entire picture and how the puzzle all fit together.

My dad is no longer alive today. Interesting enough, he rejected this school of thought years after he studied the Bible and came to an entirely different conclusion all together about God and Truth and wasn't so convinced that there was only one way to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Or whether there was a Heaven at all actually.

I had to wonder when a new Mormon attended the LDS church for the first time and they went home that night, clasped their hands, closed their eyes and asked God with an open heart and mind to show them the way, truth, and light...could God's reply have been"Follow down the Mormon path. This is truth." And then could that same God turn to another person like myself and advise me not to all the while still being an honest God?

My heart just doesn't allow me to believe that this massive group that claims to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died on the cross for their sins can all be "wrong". Because my faith allows me to believe that God never steers us in the wrong direction. Ever. And that all we have to do is ask for the Lord to show us the way and He will. So how did he steer me and Tom in two entirely different directions while still being a 100% genuine, truthful, and just?

There just has to be more to it than the traditional biblical belief that there is only one Truth and those who believe it get the dangling carrot and those who don't get Nothing and fall short of the glory of this loving God.