Abstract

This study is a review of proselyting techniques in the full-time missionary program of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1830 to 1974. Official handbooks as well as Mormon mission publications were the major sources. The writer's experience as a full-time missionary gave additional perspective.

Missionary techniques involved personal contacting on the streets and door to door. Group contacting came through public meetings and the mass media. Church members played a vital role in contacting and fellowshipping nonmembers. Early proselyting lesson plans written in outline form emphasized logic and reason. Later ones were in dialogue form and memorized by missionaries.

This study found that with improved techniques, convert baptisms increased. Also re-emphasis in recent years on using the Book of Mormon and bearing testimony plus the urgency of baptizing converts paralleled proselyting techniques of the first decades of missionary work.

Degree

College and Department

Religious Education; Church History and Doctrine

Rights

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