Elder Gerrit W. Gong introduced the term “covenant belonging,” meaning “to belong with God and to walk with each other on His covenant path.” He explained that when we step out of our “worldly self,” “we find and become our best eternal self—free, alive, real—and define our most important relationships.”1 Is this group exclusive, expensive, or difficult to join? Using Paul’s words, “God forbid!” The Savior welcomes all with His infinite love. As we follow and love Him, we come to belong, as we join with him in loving and serving others; the second great commandment—loving (all) neighbors—is natural and joyous.
Rescue in Emergency
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, members are paired as partners to “minister” to families or individuals. Ideally everyone will have someone they can count on “kind of like a built-in friend,”2 and everyone will have opportunities to belong as such a friend
On a Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago, I felt a prompt to engage our ministering brothers more in our family’s life. My husband and I started considering ways we could draw them to our home.
Just two days later, a temperature rise of nearly 40 degrees melted snow accumulated over a very cold and snowy Rexburg, Idaho winter. The result for us was a flooded basement.
I discovered the water and panicked. Then I remembered the nudge I’d felt to connect with our ministering brothers.
I phoned.
“Hi, our family could use a visit.”
“Yes, of course. When?”
“Now!”
Within minutes they had arrived with a shop vac, shovels, and sandbags. An emergency turned into a bonding opportunity.
Rescuers do not have to be assigned to help. A caring, willing heart is all that is required to belong as friends in service.
During a sacrament meeting in Provo, Utah, members learned that an extensive flood had been caused by frozen-broken pipes in the home of a family who were out of the state for Christmas.
A large group of men assembled and organized to provide various equipment and take on various tasks. They worked until the home was ready for its family to return.
Friendship to Belong
Partner pairs of women are also organized to minister. You don’t have to lift heavy objects or use plumbing tools to minister.
Men or women can help relieve an emergency, according to their knowledge, capacity, or experience. But not all life-changing needs involve emergency.
In a general conference talk several years after “Covenant Belonging,” Elder Gong addressed ministering directly. As we follow Jesus Christ, we come to belong to others in His ways, “because lives are waiting to change.”
He specified,
In many places, we can reach out, understand others where they are, and build relationships when we regularly visit members in their homes. Inspired invitations change lives. When invitations help us make and keep sacred covenants, we draw closer to the Lord and each other.3
Some choose ways to belong in a covenant relationship by helping others to make covenants. Aaronic Priesthood holders can take the sacrament to members who are not able to attend church due to illness, disability, or other difficulties.
A retired teacher knows a number of elderly sisters who need help with temple ordinances. She often uses one of her now-flexible daytime hours to invite one of these sisters to go to the temple with her so she can provide the needed help and support.
Covenant for Love
Many are able to belong in response to their own covenants to “succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees” (Doctrine and Covenants 82:5) as well as “mourn with those that mourn … and comfort those that stand in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18:9).
With citing these scriptures, Dieter F. Uchtdorf made applications: “I know there are hearts here today that harbor deep sorrows. Others wrestle with fears that trouble the soul. For some, loneliness is their secret trial.”4
Merely asking “how can I help?” may be defeating, as many are embarrassed to say, “my hands are hanging down right now” or “I’m suffering from feeble knees.” Deep personal sorrows or soul-troubling fears are even harder to express to ask for help.
Sensitive ministers—official or unofficial—can observe and offer specific help in loving, caring ways as Christ would do.
Every Sunday morning sisters in a young adult ward took turns sitting, conversing, and reading with a young woman in their age group who had a disability confining her to her home so that members of her family could attend Church meetings together.
Caregivers of individuals with disabilities—infancy through adulthood—need respite care for those who are their responsibility.
Caregivers are human; they need to get away from home to run errands, visit friends, attend an event or performance, go upstairs for a much-needed rest, or a great big ETC.
A woman whose children were all grown noticed that many young mothers of multiple children who lived near her seemed exhausted and discouraged, although their children did not have “special needs.”
So she would often call one of them to offer “would you like to send your children to my house tomorrow morning?” or “I feel like a walk to the park—can I take your kids?”
As we strive to belong in covenant service, a beloved hymn may sing in our hearts:
Because I have been blessed by / thy great love dear Lord;
I’ll share thy love again / According to thy word;
I shall give love to those in need / I’ll show that love by word and deed;
Thus shall my thanks be thanks in deed. (Lyrics by Grace Noll Crowell [1936])
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