Church 2.0

I dig your report.

Church was better than last week….more comfortable. There were only 8 other people, besides the walds and the stake people. Five of them were the BP family. This makes me sad. They need us, to hold callings and such…and I feel pretty helpless. I feel bad for BP.

Whoa, that’s a small branch. I have relatives in John Day. I wonder how many people attend their branch.

15 months ago we had between 25 and 40 folks a week. This is sad to me, and why I think my family did a tremendous amount of harm to this branch. I don’t know if I and jwald could haved helped the BP help these people or not…but it weighs heavily on me and makes me sad.

Hey, is there more to your story that I could read? Is there a thread prior to “Call from the Stake President” (Dec 2010)? Yes, I’m stalking you.

Anyway…Not one branch member mention JS or the BOM or even “I know” in their testimony. Not one. It was all about Christ and Gospel and hope. Obviously they are talking and they are understanding why the walds (and perhaps the other branch members) are in “apostasy” and recognize there is a problem.

I’ve realized I like it more when someone says “I believe.” It’s interesting.

Oh yeah. One more nugget. Oldest boy asked if he could wear a blue shirt. I told him I did not care…but if he did, he would not be allowed to pass the sacrament.

He wore the white shirt and tie.

That’s pretty cool for your boy to do that. I actually want to talk more about white shirts and such, but don’t want to hijack your thread. What do you think?

Sounds like a good meeting overall for you, I’m happy for that. I have recently seen the difference between “good” meetings as my ward typically has – focused on loving Christlike values – vs. harsh old-testament type “be righteous or be damned” preaching that I find extremely difficult to apply in a practical way in my life.

I would much rather hear ideas that I can apply to life than speculations on literal scriptural interpretations.

Not sure what I did to deserve high praise from my favorite alien, but I sure appreciate it.

I’m glad you went and had a positive experience and I’m thrilled the meeting was Christ centered.

I wanted to bear my testimony as I sat in our meeting but a beloved family is moving this week and they were speaking. I didn’t want to take away from the love we were all feeling for them and for our ward family. That sense of community is so needed.

I’ll go away now.

Why?

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Someone else linked to the “an ominous development for middle way Mormons” thread recently. It was quite a read. I’ll go away now.

Shawn….what do you want to know? You have been critical of my motives here. You have read my church horror story…from my perspective. Somewhere I have a an intro I suppose… but I did mostly lurking at first…and evolved into a board nemesis to Ray….mostly about WOW and GC stuff, and too much apoplectics etc etc.

I am a RM. Married jwald in the logan temple. Moved to Oregon in 95 to get away from Mormons. I was active in the church until 2011…held a TR off and on just to hold leadership callings to help out the BP…same BP I have today…but I haven’t been to the temple since 98.

Around 2009-2010…I determined I could no longer stay in the church for integrity reasons and was going to resign….fortunately I was referred to STAYLDS by a mormonThink admin.

I went through church disciple last year…all about the john dehlin “movement”…almost resigned again…would have rather than doing the whole court thing…but because of this site…I am still hanging on.

The spirit has told me that the Lds church is a divine pathway, one of many, that people can follow to find the gods and peace…in this life, and perhaps the next.

That is good enough for me at this time.

Not sure what else to say.

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Someone else linked to the “an ominous development for middle way Mormons” thread recently. It was quite a read. I’ll go away now.

Shawn….what do you want to know? You have been critical of my motives here. You have read my church horror story…from my perspective. Somewhere I have a an intro I suppose… but I did mostly lurking at first…and evolved into a board nemesis to Ray….mostly about WOW and GC stuff, and too much apoplectics etc etc.

I am a RM. Married jwald in the logan temple. Moved to Oregon in 95 to get away from Mormons. I was active in the church until 2011…held a TR off and on just to hold leadership callings to help out the BP…same BP I have today…but I haven’t been to the temple since 98.

Around 2009-2010…I determined I could no longer stay in the church for integrity reasons and was going to resign….fortunately I was referred to STAYLDS by a mormonThink admin.

I went through church disciple last year…all about the john dehlin “movement”…almost resigned again…would have rather than doing the whole court thing…but because of this site…I am still hanging on.

The spirit has told me that the Lds church is a divine pathway, one of many, that people can follow to find the gods and peace…in this life, and perhaps the next.

That is good enough for me at this time.

Not sure what else to say.

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I have a hard time saying things tactfully. Thanks for the background. I was just wondering how you became a “bearded, blue shirt wearing, beer drinking EQP.”

I have a hard time saying things tactfully. Thanks for the background. I was just wondering how you became a “bearded, blue shirt wearing, beer drinking EQP.”

Oh I see. Fair question.

Somewhere on my journey, the spirit told me that things like beards, tea, blue shirts, beer etc etc were just man-made commandments. I tried to find the inner spirit…gave up and quit caring about what I considered to be Pharisaical practices…it was a distraction to me…kept me from really getting in tune with the gods.

For some…it helps them focus on the divine. For others….it keeps them from it, you know, always looking beyond the mark…concerned about the should and should nots.