Service Missions
Yesterday, we had a combined Relief Society-Priesthood meeting during the third hour where the local directors of the Washington-British Columbia Service Mission came to explain Service Missions and troll for participants. Service Missions are, I think, one of the most important developments in the Church since correlation.
The premise is that the Church is trying to fill up as many jobs for which it would otherwise have to pay people with “service missionaries.” The list of areas that had openings included:
- The Cannery
- The Bishops Storehouse
- Institutes (CES)
- Employment Centers
- Church owned recreation properties
- Temple Clothing Store (sisters only)
- Prosilyting Mission Offices
- Family History Q&A Call Center from home
- and others
Our service mission has existed for only 6 years, though they have existed in Salt Lake City and other areas much longer. There seems to be some overlap between Service Missions and traditional Missions, and while both mission organizations can fill the needs of the same organization, they are separate bureaucracies. Service missions can be filled by single men and women, couples and 19 year old men and 21 year old women that for physical, mental or other reasons are not able to serve proselyting missions. Missionaries must commit to between 8 and 32 hours a week for 6 to 24 months, live at home with no children and support themselves.
The presenters indicated that through this program, the Church saves between 150-175 Million dollars per year. In our area we have a couple hundred such missionaries, 9 of whom are the younger men and women, but in Salt Lake City, they have over 5,000. All in all, I find this a tremendous development. The less full time paid bureaucrats and instructors in Church the better, in my opinion.
The drawback to replacing paid employees with missionaries is that in many cases, expertise isn’t often available in 6 to 24 month blocks. I think of the Archives, specifically. There are a generation of historians and archivists, ushered in by Arrington, who have spent the better part of 4 decades cataloguing and working in certain collections. Say a Church leader needs something from the Brigham Young Collection, well Joe archivist who is the world’s expert is available to help. I understand that the Church is seeking to replace many of these experts, when they soon retire, with missionaries. What was once protected by knowing guard may now be protected by ignorance. I’m sure there are areas, other than those of my interest that will struggle finding consistency without dedicated staff in it for the long-term. Power will also be concentrated in those few bureaucrats that remain.
I’m tremendously grateful for the service missionaries perform. There is even the possibility that the Service Mission in our area may be branching out to help Washington State with its foster youth transition programs. The future of Church, in my mind, is a time and place where service missionaries are the norm. We will dig wells, teach the illiterate to read and help the homeless as well as cataloguing mission vehicles, teaching institute, and running the cannery.
perhaps retirees might fill their own spots?
Comment by anonon — April 30, 2007 @ 5:43 pm
Thanks for recognizing and publicizing the existence of Service Missionaries — I know dozens of them (I’ve met many, many times more, but as you say, they are in constant rotation), mostly in the Archives and in the security department, and they make a tremendous contribution. In those two departments, at least, service missionaries often seem to have been chosen because of prior related experience. They do a lot of good — Elder Parkin in the Archives, for instance, handles a lot of the research questions that people write for help with. He may need suggestions from professional staff as to what records might have the answer, but he can dig through those records as patiently and as thoroughly as any professional archivist. Service missionaries are 99% responsible for the marvelous Mormon Pioneer Overland Database that is on the church website, too.
Comment by Ardis Parshall — April 30, 2007 @ 6:08 pm
I’m sure everyone’s seen it by now but wasn’t the New York Doll, Arthur “Killer” Kane a service missionary in LA’s genealogical library?
Comment by amri — April 30, 2007 @ 6:11 pm
My brother just got called on a non-proselytizing mission. To Mongolia
Different kind of service mission, methinks.
Comment by Ben — April 30, 2007 @ 6:29 pm
That is right, Dan. The “Service Mission” organization comprises only those people living at home. As I understand it, if you are traveling, even if you are doing the same things as serrvice missionaries, they are under the regular mission bureaucracy.
Comment by J. Stapley — April 30, 2007 @ 6:45 pm
Amri - I just watched that documentary last night. I had no idea what it was when I added it to my netflix, I just have a whole bunch of music documentaries on there, and I was totally blown away. What an awesome and moving story. I don’t know if he was a missionary, but he was working in the library. One of the best parts of the whole thing was after their concert and one of the fans said “so you aren’t going to just go back to the day job now are you?” and he replied “well, they need me at the library, they are pretty short staffed”.
I know it may seem like old news to many of you but I had never heard of that movie and thought it was so amazing. Sorry for the threadjack
As for service missionaries, we had a kid in our ward growing up that had some social problems and was unable to serve a full time mission. He was called on a mission to work in the local peanut butter cannery. It fulfilled a need at the cannery, but it also made him feel really good because he was called on a mission.
Comment by veritas — April 30, 2007 @ 6:48 pm
If I were to serve another mission, I would be much more amenable to a service mission than a proseltying one.
Thanks for this interesting report.
Comment by Kevin Barney — April 30, 2007 @ 7:00 pm
My favorite service missionary story:
A senior couple from Bountiful, Utah, put in their papers to serve a mission. They asked to go on a proselyting mission, but they were called to serve a service mission for 18 months as employment missionaries in a regional employment center in the Bible Belt-ish.
They were pretty confused by the call, but congratulated themselves on “going where the Lord wanted them to go”. They were an intelligent, educated couple, business owners at one time. Certainly, they had the skills to help members learn to find jobs for themselves. And surely, they would be able to impart of their native Utah experience to those out in the “mission field” and show them how to improve things.
A few months passed, and they slowly got up to speed. A few months into their mission, they stood at a multi-regional leadership training meeting (with priesthood, YM, YW, RS, and stake leaders) that covered over 15 stakes. Most of the stake presidents sat on the stand. Hundreds of ward and stake leaders were in attendance. The director of the regional employment center spoke for a moment and then announced that this good brother would bear his testimony of the work.
He stood, faltering a bit, and told the congregation that he and his wife had been surprised at how organized the Church was with regard to employment counseling, that how grateful he was to be called to serve in an area where he could learn exactly how the Lord wanted people to receive employment counseling, and how amazed he was at how perfectly this regional employment center was run.
Then, with total sincerity he stated, “I cannot wait for our mission to end so that we can go back to Bountiful, Utah and teach the good members of the Church there how this program of the Lord should be run.”
You never saw so many stake presidents smiling broadly.
Comment by queuno — April 30, 2007 @ 8:12 pm
[In my example, the missionaries were full-time missionaries. But the other missionaries in the same REC were part-time service missionaries who lived at home and served 10-30 hours a week. At least one service missionary had a full-time job as a special education teacher.]
Comment by queuno — April 30, 2007 @ 8:15 pm
They have a peanut butter cannery?!?! Holy crap! Why have I not heard of that?
How do I fill out these papers? That’s the mission for me.
Comment by amri — April 30, 2007 @ 8:39 pm
The Peanut Butter Factory is in north Houston, TX. You start with 500-lb bags of shelled peanuts and end up with pretty good tasting peanut butter.
It is quite a fun gig–unless you burn the peanuts or foul up the pb-squirter/empty-jar connection; it makes an awful mess.
Comment by Edje — April 30, 2007 @ 9:14 pm
My father is actually the Elder Parkin mentioned in Ardis’ post. My parents are now pushing two years in the mission, and plan on continuing to extend indefinitely.
I’m aware from talking to him that there is anxiety among paid staff about service missionaries. Understandably so. But it seems to be the way the chuch wants to go.
What I mostly know about my father’s work is that he’s had pass through his transit simply tons of historical information regarding the church, on many topics. It has always been a joy for me to talk with him, and now more so. So, from my admittedly limited, personal, blinkered and selfish perspective, there is a democritization of that information inherent in de-professionalizing certain aspects of the work that may benefit a lot of people.
~
Comment by Thomas Parkin — May 1, 2007 @ 12:06 am
I could be wrong but my impression from watching New York Doll is that Arthur was not a missionary, but a paid staff member. He did not have the means to be an unpaid missionary. I think there were others working with him that were missionaries however. That really was a great story.
Comment by MCQ — May 1, 2007 @ 6:33 am
This is a great thing. We don’t use enough those among us who aren’t teachers or organizers. There are many people who don’t want to teach a class or sit in planning meetings who will gladly give up their time to the bishops’ storehouse.
Comment by John Mansfield — May 1, 2007 @ 7:14 am
I can’t speak for all of them, but some of these are not new.
I am almost sure that CES missionaries were around in the 80’s
My mission offices had senior missionaries running the whole show back in the early 90’s.
I don’t know the current status in Mongolia. But previously all missionaries in the country were restricted from active proselyting, which meant that all were called as “service missionaries” (mostly teaching English) and were allowed to discuss the church only if first invited to by a Mongolian.
Comment by MAC — May 1, 2007 @ 8:03 am
Sometimes I wonder how far it can/should go. I thought I’d read on our ward bulletin board that the church was looking for PhDs to serve a mission teaching religion courses at BYU-Hawaii. My gut instinct is that these people should be paid. It just starts to feel like more emphasis towards cost-savings when that shouldn’t be necessary.
Comment by Gander — May 1, 2007 @ 8:10 pm
Re: #1. My friend who worked at the Church Office Building said that she attended several retirement parties, and then the honoree would show up on Monday to do his/her exact same job, but wearing a missionary name tag.
I think it is fantastic to have people volunteer for jobs. However, I do hope they don’t use people who have a short tenure and very little training in jobs that require longevity and expertise. That’s a recipe for disaster. Inspiration rarely replaces experience and endurance. Short-term workers look for short-term solutions. So while a service missionary can operate the cannery equipment, I would hope they don’t use service missionaries to make policy decisions.
Comment by Melinda — May 3, 2007 @ 12:48 pm