PROVO, UTAH

Teaching others the doctrine of Christ, inviting them to come unto Him and helping them endure to the end are components of what many of the Brethren are now calling "real growth" in the Church, Elder David F. Evans of the Seventy said in his presentation Jan. 10 at the Seminar for New Missionary Training Center Presidents and Visitors' Center Directors.

Photo by R. Scott Lloyd

Elder David F. Evans holds two items he carries on mission tours: the scriptures and the missionary guide, "Preach My Gospel."

"For the Church to be built up, we must have real growth," said Elder Evans, executive director of the Missionary Department, who addressed the 21 departing couples in one of the opening sessions at the Provo Missionary Training Center.

Using words projected on a screen, Elder Evans gave a number of definitions of what real growth is — and what it is not.

"Real growth means those who grow up in the Church remain active and faithful, being endowed in the temple at maturity, with young men being ordained at appropriate ages and serving missions," Elder Evans said. "And your missionaries, as they go out among the people, will have a profound effect on whether that actually happens or not."

Young people will look to missionaries as an example of what to be like, he said. "We have a responsibility to send out the very best."

"Real growth means that those who are converts to the Church are retained, maturing spiritually through participation in the saving ordinances of the gospel and keeping the associated covenants culminating in the house of the Lord."

"We grow by baptizing people and then retaining them," Elder Evans remarked, "because, as President [Gordon B.] Hinckley said, it does no good to have them come in the front door, which is baptism, and out the back door, which is inactivity."

"Real growth means retaining the spiritual change of heart Alma challenged his people to obtain" (see Alma 5:26).

"That's the question for our converts and the rising generation in the Church," Elder Evans said. "It's the question for us in our lives. ... That ultimately is what has to happen for there to be faith unto repentance. There has to be this change of heart where we embrace the gospel rather than other things and we not only remember how it used to feel but we feel it now. That is the greatest joy we can have."

"Real growth means establishing the Church, not just enlarging it."

Elder Evans said "to establish" can have two meanings, one being to start something new and the other being to strengthen what already exists. The latter "is what this generation of missionaries is going to be doing more than any other generation has done before, and that's what you need to help missionaries understand in their hearts," he said.

Helping rescue the less active is just as valuable as baptizing a new convert, Elder Evans said. "That is the kind of thing our missionaries will increasingly be doing without ever forgetting their fundamental duty to find, teach and baptize."

"Real growth means that the Church comes out of obscurity and is respected for the good it represents and does, thus fulfilling the vision of the 'rising up and the coming forth of my Church out of the wilderness — clear as the moon and fair as the sun and terrible as an army with banners' " (Doctrine and Covenants 5:14).

Elder Evans cautioned that real growth does not mean reducing the number of converts or limiting the number of qualified baptisms. He said that in the past some missions had focused their efforts on retention at the expense of bringing in new members. "That's not the answer. The answer is the same as it was in Book of Mormon times. 'They began to establish the church more fully; yea, and many were baptized' (Alma 4:4). It's never one or the other; it's always both."

Elder Evans said missionaries can accomplish real growth by talking with everyone and seeking referrals from everyone, including less-active members and contacts who might not seem to be very interested themselves.

rscott@desnews.com