The Ministering program is part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, to which I belong.
For years, I’ve heard this statement in regards to “Ministering” or what was formerly known as “Home and Visiting Teaching”,
"Ministering is learning of and attending to others’ needs. It is doing the Lord’s work. When we minister, we are representing Jesus Christ and acting as His agents to watch over, lift, and strengthen those around us." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/ministering/what-is-ministering?lang=eng
For years, I’ve heard this statement in regards to “Ministering” or what was formerly known as “Home and Visiting Teaching”,
“I don’t believe in assigned friends."
I
was blessed with parents who home and visit taught. I saw how they blessed other people's lives. Each with an assigned companion, visited assigned brothers and sisters. They taught, served and comforted them. I knew I wanted to minister because of their examples. Over many years, I’ve met my dearest friends through these programs. Sometimes, I have struggled reaching out to assigned sisters I didn't know well.
When a member of our church is called to a volunteer position such as a teacher or leadership over an organization, they are given a priesthood blessing with hands placed on their head that is known as being "set apart". It confers responsibility
and stewardship in the role and blesses them in fulfilling it. Perhaps, it's because we are not formally set apart as ministering sisters and brothers that it’s hard sometimes to
feel the spirit of the assignment to minister?
In
pondering these things, the Holy Ghost reminded me that each of us have been called and set
apart to minister.
In the Book of Mormon, in Mosiah 18:8-10, the Prophet Alma teaches,
8 …Behold, here are the waters of Mormon … and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;
9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—
10 … if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?
As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, when we are baptized we take upon us these covenants. When we enter the Holy Temple, we also take
upon ourselves sacred covenants. Each
week we worthily partake of the Sacrament, we renew all of the covenants we have made.
A prophet of the Lord, President Spencer W.
Kimball said: “… the real purpose of the sacrament, (is) to help us
to remember … [that which we have] covenanted at the water’s edge or at the
sacrament table and in the temple.”3 The
Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball (Salt Lake City:
Bookcraft, 1982), p. 112.
Everyone of us who has entered the waters of
Baptism has covenanted to bear our brothers and sisters burdens. Prophets of the Lord have asked us to help watch over our Father’s sheep and lambs.
I hope that we can all discover the joy of
ministering to our Heavenly Father’s children - our brothers and sisters.
Each of us will be blessed as much and, in my experience, even more than those whom we minister to.
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