Tuesdays with Mormons.

It's a familiar summer sight. Guys dressed in white shirts, nicely contrasted with their black pants and black ties, pedaling along on their bikes. No, they're not the latest ad for menswear or mountain bikes. Nor are they bike messengers, weaving in and out of traffic, delivering letters and small parcels to anxiously waiting recipients.

Theirs is a different kind of messenger service.

These guys deliver their version of the Good News. They are the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons, working to evangelize whatever part of the world they have been assigned. They follow in the footsteps of Joseph Smith, who founded their church; Brigham Young, who led the Mormons to Utah; and ensuing generations of Latter-day Saints.

Many young Mormons give two years of their lives to go forth into the world, meet others, and evangelize them into their particular interpretation of the gospel. I'm sure many a Catholic catechist would like to know the secrets of a Mormon religious education that produces such a loyal, effective, and enthusiastic cadre of young adult missionaries.

The distinctively American Mormon denomination of Christianity was founded by Joseph Smith, who was born in Vermont in 1805, grew up in New York, published the Book of Mormon there, moved his church first to Ohio, then to Missouri, and, finally, to Illinois, where he was killed in 1844. His story is well told by Richard Lyman Bushman in his book Joseph Smith (Knopf) published just last year. This mighty tome, some 740 pages and subtitled "Rough Stone Rolling," is fascinating reading for anyone interested in a mighty religious leader who established a unique religious tradition.

Next to Joseph Smith, the name of Brigham Young is also forever yoked to the Latter-day Saints. After Smith's untimely death, Young assumed leadership of the Mormon church and eventually moved vast numbers of believers to Utah, where the church flourishes to this day. But that's another story, best learned by reading Brigham Young: American Moses (University of Illinois Press) by Leonard J. Arrington.

In this age of interfaith understanding and activity, many Catholics work hard to know and understand other faith traditions. Dialogue groups with Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Buddhists have become commonplace within many precincts of Catholicism. Yet other denominations of Christianity don't always get the same amount of attention, interest, or understanding. There's a lot of myth and mystery surrounding the Mormon tradition, often accompanied by prejudice that dialogue would help to mitigate.

The time has come to extend the same hospitality toward the Mormon missionaries pedaling through your neighborhood and knocking on your door this summer that we extend to the other faiths outside of Christianity. Invite them in for a chat. Make it a dialogue. We all could learn a lot.

PETER GILMOUR ([e-mail]) teaches at the Institute of Pastoral Studies of Loyola University Chicago.