Elder Heartthrob

I was watching General Conference, the bi-annual, two-day event in which worldwide church leaders address the church via television broadcast (which I have written about here and here), yesterday when, during the final hymn sung by a choir from the Missionary Training Center, my wife exclaimed, “Oh my gosh! There’s David Archuleta!”

I didn’t recognize him, but when I looked I could see the name tag: Elder Archuleta.

I was a little bothered about this sudden outburst from my wife, but I have since been assured that she was only excited because he grew up in her aunt’s ward in Utah, that’s all.

Putting that aside for the moment, I was happy to see that during this General Conference, the church didn’t go out of its way to highlight the presence of one of the most famous Mormons alive right now (I happen to believe that he was just standing where the camera happened to be pointing, although you could argue that the camera pointed there because he was there, but we can all agree that they could have spotlighted him much more than they did).

As a part of the choir, he hardly stood out at all among the rest of the missionaries-in-training. But, some marketing guru might ask, wouldn’t the church be wise to use his celebrity to spread its message? Couldn’t it leverage his influence for its own benefit?

In order to answer that question you have to understand that what the church wants is different from what a company wants.

A company wants to sell its product. Whether or not that product will actually benefit the people who buy it, a company’s sole purpose is to maximize sales. What happens after that sale is of little interest to the company. The sale is the thing.

And in some ways, the church’s main focus might seem similar to a company’s. It isn’t selling anything, but missionaries are sent out into the world to maximize baptisms. While missionaries try not to focus on numbers, few church leaders would say that we wanted fewer baptisms.

So, why not use David Archuleta’s popularity to get as many baptisms as possible? He could go into city after city and there would be a surge of baptisms, probably of the young woman variety, wherever he went. Why wouldn’t the church want that?

Well, because the church doesn’t care only about baptisms. The church cares about what happens after. Is the newly baptised member keeping baptismal covenants? Is this person living righteously? Is this person coming closer to God? These questions concern the church just as much, if not more, than how many people are being baptised.

And Elder Archuleta will have no special advantage to help make that happen over Elder Anybody. They will all have to help people develop faith by teaching them the gospel and helping them keep God’s commandments. In order to do that, they won’t be able to rely on Star Power, but Spiritual Power. And that comes through diligence, dedication, faith, and love.

Elder Archuleta should be commended for sacrificing a very lucrative time in his life to serve a higher cause. I have no doubt that he will be a wonderful missionary. And I’m glad that the church, and he himself, knows that success depends on more than the beauty of his voice and the sparkle in his eyes.