The Mission of the Church

In the April 1981 general conference, President Spencer W. Kimball said the following: “As the Brethren of the First Presidency and the Twelve have meditated upon and prayed about the great latter-day work the Lord has given us to do, we are impressed that the mission of the Church is threefold:

·        To proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people;

·        To perfect the Saints by preparing them to receive the ordinances of the gospel and by instruction and discipline to gain exaltation;

·        To redeem the dead by performing vicarious ordinances of the gospel for those who have lived on the earth.

All three are part of one work—to assist our Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ, in Their grand and glorious mission ‘to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.’”  This was I believe the first mention of this “threefold mission of the Church” and has been common language in meetings and among members ever since that time. 

Recently, though, the leaders of the church have emphasized that we should not focus so much on these “three missions” that we exclude other divine roles of the Church.  When the new handbooks were released in 2010, Elder Oaks spoke of about the 1981 statement.  His remarks were summarized in the Ensign this way: “The new handbooks clarify confusion regarding what the First Presidency referred to in 1981 as the three-fold mission of the Church—proclaiming, perfecting, and redeeming.  Handbook 2, section 2.2, reaffirms the First Presidency’s intent in 1981 that these three applications were part of one great work, stating: ‘The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized by God to assist in His work to bring to pass the salvation and exaltation of His children’ (see Moses 1:39).  Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles warned against giving ‘excessive attention to definitions and boundaries among these three applications of the Lord’s work’ or ‘excluding other essential elements such as caring for the poor.’”  Elder Oaks summarized, “The general principle, stated in section 2.2, is that ‘the programs and activities of the Church [are intended to] support and strengthen individuals and families.’”  I’ve heard it since stated by members that the Church “added” a mission to its threefold mission and now has four, but I don’t believe that’s what Elder Oaks was trying to say at all.  He was simply giving an example of one aspect of the Church’s work—caring for the poor and needy—that might get neglected if we focused exclusively on those three stated missions.  Other “missions” we might mention could be defending the family or suing for peace in the world.  The First Presidency’s original statement helped to focus the members on three critical areas of the gospel, but perhaps the most important part of the statement was that proclaiming the gospel, perfecting the Saints, and redeeming the dead were really all “one work—to assist our Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ.”  Ultimately our Father in Heaven and the Savior have only one work, and that is to bring to pass our salvation and eternal life.  The Church’s mission is to do the will of the Father and the Son in assisting Them in their great mission of bringing souls back to them.