Winning back those who quit the church

I am not judging the church on the basis of true or false, (OT criteria).

I am judging it on whether or not its fruits are good or bad. (Christ’s own criteria).

When one judges the church by its fruits (good or bad) most of the reasons for quitting the church cease to exist.

Hi Pete! Welcome,

I like your point that maybe there is a better question to ask than purely “is it true or false?” Those topics can become so tangled.

I too relied heavily on the fruits as a reason to stay with the church when I was in the worst of my crisis, I have always enjoyed many parts of my church membership. To be fair I think we should also recognize that not everyone has the same experience, and if they find for their own life that the fruits outside of church membership taste sweeter for them than life inside, I think we should lean on the 11th article of faith and wish them the best.

I agree with cwald. I’m also surprised by your assertion that all the church’s fruits are good. Have you not read any of the personal stories here? Or do you suffer from selection bias when it comes to other people’s lived experience? I actually posted on this question earlier: http://www.wheatandtares.org/12345/is-it-more-important-that-the-church-be-good-or-true/

Wearing the moderator hat here I don’t see that Pete is saying everyone should have the same experience he has had. I can see how that may be assumed with his statement that most problems can fade if everyone will focus on fruit, but I did read it as a personal reflection based on individual experience. Could he be open to acknowledging different experience? We do allow people to share their honest experience and insights here, yes? …as long as mutual respect can be maintained.

I will stop speaking for Pete now – and hope we can all maintain respect.

I agree with the “by their fruits” measure as a whole, and it’s one of the reasons I joined the church to begin with (after reading”A Marvelous Work and a Wonder”). However, I can’t say that other churches don’t have good fruit or even that there is not good fruit to be found outside religion.

My reaction to the OP is quite quite simple and I often repeat it: “It’s not that simple” (Pres. Uchtdorf). I think Pres. Uchtdorf was trying to make a point when he made that statement, and that point is that active members like to pigeon hole inactives into a categories as to why they’re inactive. This is an attempt to do the same, IMO. It’s not that simple.

I am firmly in the camp of …the fruits in no way are better than most other orgs….in fact the church does a much poorer job of compassionate service than many other orgs. Kindness to each other? Not so much….watch conference from just a month back..not lots of compassion…did hear a lot of judgement and self righteousness….not many words I can imagine coming from the saviors mouth though.

Sheldon – When you post one liners like that one and your icon picture is next to it, I just bust up. Love it. 😆

I would never say, even just in my opinion, that the LDS church is the “most righteous church on earth.” But I can imagine saying what (I think?) Pete is concluding after actually searching for another congregation. If having a flesh and blood congregation is important to you, and you try a bunch and come back to the LDS church, that makes it the “most” something. . . for him.

Turinturambar just posted a second introduction and I thought this line applies here: “Regardless of the generally negative fruits of the institutional church in my life, my local reality is pretty good.” Maybe “all politics is local,” and all religion is, too.