How Do I Help A Friend Who is Struggling with Being Active?

Introduction

It is hard to tell when someone is struggling to believe in the Church. There are no absolute warning signs. No one goes through a step by step path when slipping away from the Church. Showing concern for a friend who is struggling with his or her testimony is a tremendous act of love, and it starts by understanding them.

What’s at Play behind the Scenes

People struggle with activity in the Church for a few different reasons. Often people leave for a combination of reasons though few make them obvious. The purpose of this section isn’t to help you “diagnose” what’s wrong with your friend. Guessing what effects your friend’s testimony and then trying to resolve it may do more damage than help. This section is can help you remain sensitive knowing your friend’s shift away from the Church is likely complicated. If your friend confides in you about the reasons for her weakened activity, then you can at least know some general background behind the reasons. These include:

• Pressure from Family or Friends
• Feels Guilty for Committing a Sin
• Confused about a Doctrine
• Feels Alone at Church
• Offended by a Church Member
• Laziness
• Feels Burned Out

Pressure from Others

Every youth in the Church eventually meets peers whose influence will try to draw them away from the Church. The youth then has to decide if he will make his standards clear, shut out those peers or make disastrous compromises. If the youth decides to give in, he may be too embarrassed to admit he made that decision to members; choosing to hide it instead. Eventually, he may quietly slip away from the Church without anyone ever aware he needed their help at crucial times before. . Sunday then becomes a day where he has other important priorities such as work, school or spend time with the family (in cases where the family doesn't go to church either).

Sometimes family - especially where the youth is the only member of the Church in the family - create an "us vs. them" choice as a way to get the youth to stop going. If it gets heated, the family may make rash statements such as, "If you follow Mormonism, you aren't a part of this family." Even if the clash doesn't turn that heated, opposition like this is hard for a person who loves her family. If she wants to protect her family from potential criticism from others, she may never give any hints about a family problem barring her from activity.

Feels Guilty for Committing a Sin

Sinning is a painful act. One of the first results of committing a sin is to feel guilty. Even though we all sin, confronting our guilt from bigger sins can be demoralizing. What can be even worse is when our sins become obvious to people who don’t approve of them.

If an individual feels too embarrassed to repent (which may involve admitting the sin to a Church leader), he is left with the decision to hide the sin, or become less active in the Church. Hiding the sin and acting as if all is fine is hardly a permanent solution. The youth will eventually choose repentance or separation which will be influenced by how you react to him. If he doesn’t feel you will forgive and forget anything he has done, he probably won’t confide in you and instead look for reasons to slip away from the Church.

Confused about a Doctrine

Not everyone who struggles with the Church committed a serious sin or is afraid of peer pressure. Some youth falter because they misunderstand a Church policy or doctrine. Misunderstandings range from a careless discussion in church, such as taking a sarcastic remark literally, to criticisms published by anti-Mormons.

Admitting doubts about the Church can be embarrassing. Often we convince ourselves that those with stronger testimonies never had doubts like we do. If your friend does not feel like you will understand her doubts, or doesn’t feel like you can help her find the answer, she may keep whatever is troubling her secret.

Feels Alone at Church

Meeting up with friends at church is one of its most rewarding aspects. If a youth feels on the outer edges of the church social network, he may not want to come back.

The problem is some youth do not make it easy to be their friend. They could be shy, bad tempered, tease too much or annoy in any other number of ways. Even if we put considerable effort to reach out, they may feel we aren’t serious about including them.

Each person has his own reason for believing we aren’t really trying to be his friend. We may never understand it. However, if we give up trying to include him, he could ultimately choose a bad group of friends which may lead him into problems for the rest of his life.

Offended by a Church Member

Church is a pleasant atmosphere where people are generally nice to each other. People who come to expect this may let their guard down; taking offense to comments or actions where it wasn’t even intended. When a youth has their feelings hurt by a church member, she has three choices. She can forgive the individual, stay offended but remain active, or stop going to church. If she stays offended, she’ll eventually have to handle the awkward situation some way and may decide to passively discontinue church activity. Sadly, the offender may never know she offended the youth and would have apologized had she been aware.

Adult leaders are more likely to offend youth out of the church than their own peers.

Laziness

Stepping back from church may not be as complex as we may believe. Some youth simply don’t care to make effort to go to church – often in cases where parents don’t encourage them. Laziness may just as easily be an excuse as a reason – if it deflects attention from a deeper issue. We may do more harm than good if we assume a friend stops attending church out of plain laziness.

Feels Burned Out

Membership in the Church often requires us to help out in making it run. We give prayers, talks, participate in class, and twelve year old deacons especially get acquainted to church service the first time they collect fast offerings.

While it is not common among youth, some youth are given too many responsibilities and don’t know how to manage them. Some push through, some may drop some of the responsibilities, and a few decide to take a break from them. Often this means taking a break from church as well.

Taking a break is easy to announce and easy to justify, but sometimes the vacationer decides not to come back. There are a lot of ways you can support your friend, without supporting them in their desire to stop attending church.

Warning Signs

Whether it’s a conscious effort or not, people often send signals that they are struggling. These come in a variety of forms. While these warning signs inform us of potential danger, someone may give them off without actually struggling with her testimony, and not everyone who struggles gives off warning signals showing such. Our goal as Christians shouldn't be to analyze everything our friends say or do, but learn to show love in a spontaneous and natural way. Picking up on these signs simply means that we can probably show more concern and interest in the person exhibiting them.

Typically warning signs show up when we see a change in behavior or activities. Here’s a list of some common ones.

Change in Behavior

People change their attitudes for a reason. If a friend says something unusual for them like, “How could Joseph Smith know that?” or “I don’t think the Church should do that,” it may indicate something deeper than a simple cynical remark. If they seem strangely uneasy, bored, quiet, or angry at Church, they may be preoccupied with a bigger issue than a mere bad day or perhaps a failed dating relationship (even if they say that is all there is to it). If a Church leader asks your friend to do something, a snide remark may be a sign he has a bigger conflict going on in his head.

Change in Activities

A struggling friend may attempt a transition away from the Church by placing other activities in its place. Reasons may include sports, responsibilities (perhaps from family members), or work. Anyone who once actively attended church knows when they miss it. If your friend seems casual about it, she may not understand why activity in the Church is important or may simply be unconcerned (signifying a deeper problem). How else can these activities show signs of struggling? Let’s look at instances where activity is interrupted by work. While we can’t judge people for working instead of going to Church, we can help them see that Sunday work isn’t a permanent compromise. We can support them with testimony and encouragement to firmly ask their boss for Sunday mornings off or start looking for another job. After making a lot of effort to encourage your friend, if he says something like, “but I like my job” or “I’ll get fired if I ask” then he may be saying “work is more enjoyable than Church.” If this is true, he’s indicating that there’s a larger issue than just needing money. Understanding this will help you know how to encourage him to reconsider these priorities and find time for both.

Reacting

If we are sensitive to those around us, we’ll eventually meet someone who is struggling. Ideally, if lifting others becomes your habit, you will help others before they ever show any signs that they need help. It takes time to develop this which makes knowing how to react to those struggling now important. We can have both good reactions and bad reactions. Your main priority in any reaction should be to gain your struggling friend’s confidence. Without that, she will ignore any other well meaning attempts to reach out to her.

What Not to Do

• First, don’t panic. If your friend even makes a dramatic statement like “I don’t believe in God,” you can only make poor decisions by reacting dramatically.

• Second, don’t attempt to catch your friend in the act of struggling. For example, if your friend makes a cynical comment about the Church, pointing it out to him will probably only make him mad.

• Third, don’t argue. Arguments bring out pride in people and reinforce it. If you are right, it won’t matter. Arguing also assumes your friend is sure of her decision to leave when in fact most people who have doubts if they should leave doubt their own doubts in the church.

• Fourth, don’t send them an ultimatum. An ultimatum is a direct challenge where you say or imply “change as I say or I will officially give up.” If your friend says “no,” (which is surprisingly easy), you are forced to either ignore him from then on or admit you weren’t serious. Either way, it isn’t consistent with the Christlike attribute of patience.

• Fifth, don’t believe you have changed everything in one conversation. Although it’s tempting to believe a friend’s problems can be solved with a few sentences, it’s rarely true. Struggling people need ongoing encouragement and care. While you shouldn’t single a friend out like a patient or a subject, if you assume everything is okay before it is you may find yourself surprised when your friend slides away again – often with more motivation. Knowing when enough help is given is next to impossible, so don’t stop.

• Sixth, the main rule of all is: don’t assume. Far from an assumption, know that being a better friend and showing more interest in others will always improve the quality of their lives and will help them strengthen their testimony of Jesus Christ.

What to Do

Fortunately, knowing what to do is simpler than knowing what not to do. Unfortunately, it takes more effort.

Small acts such as simple conversations, listening more, and giving compliments can do much more good than we realize. People who feel accepted and appreciated at Church want to come back.

If a friend admits she’s struggling, listen and ask respectful questions to fully understand the issue before giving advice. Thank her for placing confidence in you, and pledge your support to help her figure it out. In cases where a serious sin is involved, remind your friend that the only right way to resolve the problem is by seeing your friend’s bishop.

In cases where you can’t approach your friend at church (for example, he works on Sundays now), help him see things he can do now such as attend seminary and youth night (assuming your friend doesn’t work then). What’s important is you keep up contact often especially face to face contact. Even better is if you can make some time available where you can talk privately; not possible if you only see each other at school for instance.

Signs You are Doing a Good Job

Few people say, "You saved my testimony." You may never see any signs from others which show you helped them through challenging moments in their life. Your reward for reaching out to youth around you will come when you feel the Spirit stronger guiding you in your own challenges, as you see your own nature changed to be more Christlike, and as you feel your sins forgiven knowing that you have done exactly what your Heavenly Father wants you to do. As His child, you will know He is pleased with you.