As a missionary, your purpose is invite others--everyone--to come to Christ. Post-mission, the goal is the same. Except, instead of doing it full time you're doing it on more of a part-time basis. My question is: Is it possible to overdo it?
Here's some context: Our ward struggles a lot. We're really under-performing statistically (home teaching, visiting teaching, current temple recommend holders, sacrament meeting attendance, etc.). We have a small handful of ward members who do the majority of the work. We had a special meeting just a week and a half ago, where we were encouraged by our stake presidency to reach out to the less active members; they want us to bring in more people and strengthen our numbers. But what if doing so places heavy burdens on the time and resources of the few fully active members?
One sister that I serve with is of the opinion that going after the less active members "stirs up more problems," and that we should instead be focusing on strengthening the active members who are only lukewarm. (Where we live, a lot of the less active members need to be nurtured both temporally and spiritually. I don't know if it's just because we live in an urban area, but almost all of the less actives that we have reached out to in the past have not been self-reliant, spiritually or temporally. Lack of spiritual self-reliance isn't surprising for someone who is coming back into activity, but the lack of temporal self-reliance puts an extra strain on me specifically--because I'm the one responsible for coordinating welfare assistance.) The "stirs up more problems" comment makes me cringe because of the attitude that it seems to reflect, but does she have a point?
I am reminded of the parable of the vineyard in Jacob 5:
48 And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master: Is it not the loftiness of thy vineyard—have not the branches thereof overcome the roots which are good? And because the branches have overcome the roots thereof, behold they grew faster than the strength of the roots, taking strength unto themselves. Behold, I say, is not this the cause that the trees of thy vineyard have become corrupted?Specifically, I am referring to the phrase "they grew faster than the strength of the roots, taking strength unto themselves." As a missionary, I remember using this passage to try to explain to myself why we weren't having success in an area despite our best efforts. I figured that the ward just wasn't ready to receive more members, so we began to focus more on strengthening the members so that they could be stronger to receive in the future. (Am I way off here with this comparison?)
Elder Ballard gave a really great talk about being wise in our Church service, found here: https://www.lds.org/general-
I think that ideally the solution would be to strengthen active members by involving them in giving service to returning members. But what if they don't want to help, or they think that they can't help because they're too busy? Then all the work lands on the same few people every time. (Along that vein, I wonder: Is burnout possible in Church service? I'm reminded of the verse in Isaiah 40:31, which would indicate no.)
Anyway, I don't want to justify shirking in our gospel duties, but I've been thinking a lot about this and wondering where the balance lies. The answer is probably dependent upon the circumstance and must be determined by personal revelation. But I thought I'd throw it out there to get your thoughts.
