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Sooo…. I’ve been asked to be Branch Mission Leader. The Branch President is a very good friend and is partially, but not entirely, aware of my faith transition. When speaking to him today he said:
“I’m aware of your concerns and things you’re finding difficult at the moment. That’s OK, they don’t stop you from being the person I want to be our Branch Mission Leader.”
I said:
– I’m concerned that the missionaries will be looking for someone who is more focused on their goals and I might not be
– I’m worried that some strict members will see me as a bad influence and not conventional enough
– I don’t think that everyone should become a Mormon in this life. I’m not trying to get DW back to church because I think that not attending, at this time and perhaps for all time, is the best thing for her.
– I don’t want to start laying out plans and programs. I don’t want to use ‘tactics’ and I’m not interested in converting anybody.
– Having said that, I do enjoy being a member of this church. There are doctrines, especially the big picture of Mormonism, that I find exciting and would be willing to share with others. I will also be willing to encourage the membership to sincerely do the same.
– I’m not interested in making everyone a Mormon, but I am interested in helping people develop a clearer sense of purpose and a stronger relationship with God, in whatever way suits them. If Mormonism is that way, then I’m happy to help them do that.
He said he was fine with that. He didn’t need me to simply go out teaching with the missionaries 3 times every week nor to guilt the members into referrals. He wanted me to open doors and hearts within the branch. To help people welcome the missionaries in, to help look after new members and returning members and bring them into the church community. I think I can do that. I feel worried that this could be a bit of a ‘make or break’ challenge to my being in the church, but I’m willing to try.
Just as we were leaving he said one final thing that impressed me:
“Some of our strict members could do with thinking a little more and maybe some of our thinking members could do with being a little more strict. I’m confident you can help both types strike a balance.”Wish me luck!
Wow, good luck! mackay11 wrote:I’m not interested in converting anybody.
I did chuckle to myself when I read this part.
I’ll be very interested to hear your experiences. I didn’t initially want to share this but just so you know, I’m currently a branch mission leader and I share all of your sentiments (except the strict members one, only my branch president and wife know my current feelings/thought processes). In fact just today I posted in another thread about how my doubts lead me to approach my branch president about being released, a taboo in the church and something I thought I’d never do. That was over 6 months ago and I’ve been serving as best as I could ever since that day, ie I still haven’t been released. I’ve been in the calling, feeling all of your reservations and motivations that you’ve listed, for a year now.
I know finding a replacement is still a work in progress and as recently as last week I’ve felt the need to approach the branch president again but he was out of town. After finding this forum and reading people’s insights (I literally found it this week) I’m not 100% sure I want to approach him about it anymore, I’m in a period where I’m trying to find my path. I think the wheels have already been set in motion though, maybe you’re my replacement.
My main issue was that I felt the branch deserved someone better than myself, at least in the sense of someone that had a stronger testimony in the church than I was currently experiencing. I didn’t want to hold the progress of the branch back, I also felt that in some ways I was being intellectually dishonest with myself and others.
I also put out a feeler in the stages of faith thread about what people in stage 4 did to be at peace with doing missionary work for the church.
Put it this way, I would be thrilled if our presently-serving missionary had a WML like you. Looking forward to hearing about it. Mackay – I sustain you with my right hand held high. I promise it’s not the sloppy one I often use. Please keep us posted, and please believe you have something to share. The Universal God you are finding may be just what the missionaries need to learn about. I keep hearing about missionaries who get half-way on their mission and realize they don’t believe it, they can’t teach it, or something. You may a link to helping a lost soul in ways you can’t imagine. That said, I do know your calling isn’t to help them, but who knows. Keep the light of your faith strong – and remember if little Tommy Monson can set a forest on fire, so can you.
It sounds like your Branch President is a good man, and I would be happy to have you as our Ward Mission Leader (even though ours also is a good man, so maybe you two could share the calling). :thumbup: mom3 wrote:Mackay – I sustain you with my right hand held high. I promise it’s not the sloppy one I often use. Please keep us posted, and please believe you have something to share. The Universal God you are finding may be just what the missionaries need to learn about. I keep hearing about missionaries who get half-way on their mission and realize they don’t believe it, they can’t teach it, or something. You may a link to helping a lost soul in ways you can’t imagine.
That said, I do know your calling isn’t to help them, but who knows. Keep the light of your faith strong – and remember if little Tommy Monson can set a forest on fire, so can you.
What a great line
I’m really warmed by your support. I really hope I can find the right balance. I’m concerned, and DW is also concerned, that I could actually do the opposite. I don’t want to undermine anyone’s testimony. I was talking about the idea of a universal God in a teaching appointment a few weeks ago. I’d said that I believe God hears all prayers, whether they’re addressed to Heavenly Father, Mary, Buddha or whomever. I encouraged the member (previously Catholic) to bring all the good that she had and add to it. I told her that none of her previous religious experiences had been wasted or invalid and that in life we have opportunity to interact with God in many ways and places. One of the missionaries flinched a couple of times. Oh well.
Ann wrote:Put it this way, I would be thrilled if our presently-serving missionary had a WML like you. Looking forward to hearing about it.
.
Old-Timer wrote:It sounds like your Branch President is a good man, and I would be happy to have you as our Ward Mission Leader (even though ours also is a good man, so maybe you two could share the calling).
:thumbup: Thanks Ann and Ray, I appreciate the support.
And yes, the BP is a very good man, a long time friend and a great balance between “strict and thoughtful.” A few years back I was his counselor and together we coined the phrase “let’s help the members go from being good Mormons to devoted Christians.”
DW (who hasn’t attended regularly for 3 years) asked whether I was mainly doing it to support him. I think that’s a part of it. One of my main motives in being at church these days is finding people I can help and support. The fact that I like him makes it much easier (!!)
nibbler wrote:I’ll be very interested to hear your experiences.
I didn’t initially want to share this but just so you know, I’m currently a branch mission leader and I share all of your sentiments (except the strict members one, only my branch president and wife know my current feelings/thought processes). In fact just today I posted in another thread about how my doubts lead me to approach my branch president about being released, a taboo in the church and something I thought I’d never do. That was over 6 months ago and I’ve been serving as best as I could ever since that day, ie I still haven’t been released. I’ve been in the calling, feeling all of your reservations and motivations that you’ve listed, for a year now.
I know finding a replacement is still a work in progress and as recently as last week I’ve felt the need to approach the branch president again but he was out of town. After finding this forum and reading people’s insights (I literally found it this week) I’m not 100% sure I want to approach him about it anymore, I’m in a period where I’m trying to find my path. I think the wheels have already been set in motion though, maybe you’re my replacement.
My main issue was that I felt the branch deserved someone better than myself, at least in the sense of someone that had a stronger testimony in the church than I was currently experiencing. I didn’t want to hold the progress of the branch back, I also felt that in some ways I was being intellectually dishonest with myself and others.
I also put out a feeler in the stages of faith thread about what people in stage 4 did to be at peace with doing missionary work for the church.
Thanks for sharing this nibbler. I can really empathise with your feelings. I’m torn between a concern that I won’t be able to teach the ‘Preach my Gospel’ version of mormonism in the way the Missionaries would want from a member. I’m also not sure I want to be out several times a week with them. Having said that, the BP specifically said he didn’t want me to, that he wanted me to help the missionaries connect with the rest of the members in the branch.
I completely understand the concern about someone better being able to do it. At least someone more TBM in outlook.
On the other hand… I feel there is a message to represent. I feel Mormonism would benefit from following the inclusive, accepting and more universal perspective that Elder Uchtdorf preaches.
Roy wrote:Wow, good luck!
mackay11 wrote:I’m not interested in converting anybody.
I did chuckle to myself when I read this part.
Indeed
If I’m completely honest, I see this as a litmus test. It’s one thing to sit in sacrament/classes making occasional thought provoking comments while blogging about “
where I’m 1/2/3 years onI’m not actually sure that I really belief the “house of faith” I’ve reconstructed is a well-built as I think it is. I wonder whether it is really made of bricks or of straw. I’m a little worried that in 6 months time this will have been the thing that leads to me leaving completely. I hope that I find that what I claim to believe is really what I believe. I hope that my house of faith is strongly built and I hope that my house of faith can still sit comfortably in the Mormon village.
(And I really need to stop talking in metaphors so much. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m talking about!)
I recently wrote about about rebuilding my house of faith in an introduction on Bill Reel’s ‘FairMormonSupport’ forum. Here’s a bit of it:
Quote:(In summer 2012) it felt like one bit at a time, everything I thought I knew about the church was violently dismantled. It wasn’t only the critical websites that hurt. They were the ones I used the least and the ones I treated with the most scepticism. I would always go and look up the original sources they quoted in context and recognise that often they were being selective and the big picture was a better picture than they were painting.
Despite this, I was in a full blown crisis of faith. I felt lied to. I felt like I’d suddenly been wrenched out of a bubble of ignorance. A bubble I’d been very happy in but now that it was popped, was never going to be an option.
There were several FARMS ad FAIR articles that confirmed the worst. In their well-intentioned attempts to answer the question or criticism they only compounded, for me, the severity of the problem.
I felt physically sick. One night, while reading a FARMS article (“A nation now extinct…”) I genuinely thought I was going to vomit.
I felt angry, frustrated, duped, belittled. I lost confidence in church manuals, teachers and leaders.
I would sit in a lesson, or sacrament meeting and want to stand up and scream when I heard the simplistic, unfounded, whitewashed, misrepresentative nonsense that people were saying. Things that, until a few weeks and months earlier, I was also very happy saying. Nonsense is probably the polite word for it.
I seriously considered resigning my membership in the early days. I felt like I was losing every aspect of belief.
I walked right up to the face of Atheism and seriously considered it a possibility for about a week. As much as I think I wanted to, possibly as a way to ease the pain and confusion, I couldn’t do it. Deep down, I knew I still firmly believed in a creator. A divine source of life and purpose.
Having stripped everything right back to that simple core I slowly started to rebuild my house of faith.
I decided I also still believed in Jesus Christ. In 2011, I had made an extensive study of the New Testament. I had developed a lasting love for the behaviour model of Jesus, as well as the personal conviction, through experience, of the healing, invigorating power of the atonement’s principles of grace, change, restoration, forgiving and forgiveness.
We are rightly taught that Christ should be the cornerstone of our faith. When everything else crashed down, my foundation remained.
My confidence in Joseph Smith and with it the Book of Mormon, the keystone, had broken. With the central piece removed, the rest of my house of faith fell.
I decided to take time to try to rebuild my faith, one brick at a time. I reminded myself I had promised to give it a year.
As much as I wanted to throw away every brick that had a Mormon stamp on it, I recognised they had fallen, some had cracked but I hadn’t properly tested each one. I didn’t want to look back in 40 or 50 years time and regret making a life-changing decision in a matter of a few weeks or months.
So I started going back through it all a second time. If I was going to rebuild my house of faith I wanted to test each brick before adding it back in or discarding it.
I joined a few boards and blogs towards the end of 2012. MormonDialogue was a rough ride, but immensely useful for testing my conclusions. They keep you honest. It made me reference and back-up every conclusion I was reaching.
Staylds was another essential forum. It helped me realise I was not alone. That there were 1000s of Mormons who were just like me. Trying to work through the confusion while also staying active. I started a thread where we collected 100s of scriptures and quotes that showed a more universal, inclusive face of Mormonism.
There were a few other websites that were useful places to continue the exploration and debate from many angles.
And so… Here I am today. My house of faith is still a building project. I’m not sure it will ever be finished and it could still change in shape.
Some of the bricks of past perspectives can still be seen, intermingled with new ones I’ve added. It looks very different from what I had 2 years ago. But it suits me. It works. I like it.
I believe God is the greatest educator. I believe he designs, for each of his children, a personalised curriculum. We still have the agency to accept, adapt or entirely reject it.
I believe that my faith transition, or faith reconstruction has been guided and assisted by God. I believe I remain on the path to godliness.
I recognise that the mode of transport for travelling that path has changed. But I don’t believe that matters. It is, for me, the direction of travel that is important.
I embrace and celebrate the diversity of perspectives available to the multi-faceted human race. With seven billion individuals it’s not possible to have a “one size fits all” paradigm or framework. But I believe it is possible to have a “seven billion sizes fits each one of us.”
Although there are many aspects of Mormon doctrine, origin and perspective that I didn’t add back into my house of faith, I believe my personalised paradigm still fits in an LDS community.
I appreciate LDS leaders who, past and present, have preached the principles of diversity, independence and individual accountability.
I press forward, hoping to embrace and continue adding to that diversity.
http://manyotherhands.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/the-long-and-winding-road-with-plenty.html You might want to share a few of the quotes in your quote section here with the missionary who flinched. It might be a wonderful education opportunity for him. Old-Timer wrote:You might want to share a few of the quotes in your quote section here with the missionary who flinched. It might be a wonderful education opportunity for him.
Good idea. I think I might print them out and have my “little black book” of quotes and scriptures.
mackay11 wrote:If I’m completely honest, I see this as a litmus test. It’s one thing to sit in sacrament/classes making occasional thought provoking comments while blogging about “where I’m 1/2/3 years on” but it’s something else to really put those beliefs to the test.
I’m not actually sure that I really belief the “house of faith” I’ve reconstructed is a well-built as I think it is. I wonder whether it is really made of bricks or of straw. I’m a little worried that in 6 months time this will have been the thing that leads to me leaving completely. I hope that I find that what I claim to believe is really what I believe. I hope that my house of faith is strongly built and I hope that my house of faith can still sit comfortably in the Mormon village.
I don’t know that this would be a good fit for me. I consider our fellow poster “church” and his experience being in the HC. I can just imagine being given somewhat of a platform to push for change from the inside, to widen the assumed boundaries of our Mormon tent. In the process I would be a life saver to some and a rabble rouser to others. My unorthodox views would be somewhat exposed. Then I get released.
I can no longer speak authoritively. The people I might have helped fade into the woodwork but the people that consider me dangerious remain. My comments in SS seem to almost automatically be regarded with suspicion and defensiveness.
end hypothetical scenario
I’m not saying that this won’t go well for you. I’m just saying that I could see how this could go badly for me.
mackay11 wrote:I embrace and celebrate the diversity of perspectives available to the multi-faceted human race. With seven billion individuals it’s not possible to have a “one size fits all” paradigm or framework. But I believe it is possible to have a “seven billion sizes fits each one of us.”
Although there are many aspects of Mormon doctrine, origin and perspective that I didn’t add back into my house of faith, I believe my personalised paradigm still fits in an LDS community.
I appreciate LDS leaders who, past and present, have preached the principles of diversity, independence and individual accountability.
My spiritual house doesn’t look exactly like yours, but that might just be the point. My house might not meet your needs like it does mine. That doesn’t mean that we can’t still be brothers.
Roy wrote:I don’t know that this would be a good fit for me. I consider our fellow poster “church” and his experience being in the HC. I can just imagine being given somewhat of a platform to push for change from the inside, to widen the assumed boundaries of our Mormon tent. In the process I would be a life saver to some and a rabble rouser to others. My unorthodox views would be somewhat exposed. Then I get released.
I can no longer speak authoritively. The people I might have helped fade into the woodwork but the people that consider me dangerious remain. My comments in SS seem to almost automatically be regarded with suspicion and defensiveness.
end hypothetical scenario
I’m not saying that this won’t go well for you. I’m just saying that I could see how this could go badly for me.
Very good points. I’ve been saying for a while that there is a place for people like us in the church, that we don’t have to sit quiet in the corner and bight our tongue.
Your example of church0333 is certainly pertinent. I don’t know how it will pan out. But I want to try. Otherwise I’ll never know. Given how generous spirited my BP is, I feel like it’s a place where I’ve a good chance of making it work.
Quote:
mackay11 wrote:I embrace and celebrate the diversity of perspectives available to the multi-faceted human race. With seven billion individuals it’s not possible to have a “one size fits all” paradigm or framework. But I believe it is possible to have a “seven billion sizes fits each one of us.”
Although there are many aspects of Mormon doctrine, origin and perspective that I didn’t add back into my house of faith, I believe my personalised paradigm still fits in an LDS community.
I appreciate LDS leaders who, past and present, have preached the principles of diversity, independence and individual accountability.
My spiritual house doesn’t look exactly like yours, but that might just be the point. My house might not meet your needs like it does mine. That doesn’t mean that we can’t still be brothers.
I completely agree and appreciate your words.
Personally built houses. 7 billion of them.
mackay11 wrote:Very good points. I’ve been saying for a while that there is a place for people like us in the church, that we don’t have to sit quiet in the corner and bight our tongue.
Your example of church0333 is certainly pertinent. I don’t know how it will pan out. But I want to try. Otherwise I’ll never know. Given how generous spirited my BP is, I feel like it’s a place where I’ve a good chance of making it work.
I don’t mean to be a naysayer Mackay and I know very little about church0333’s post calling experience, I am just trying to apply everything unto myself.
In some ways I’m terrified to come out of my own “corner.” Most members likely think that I’m just a busy guy that has to jet off to work after SM. It is for me an uneasy truce but one that allows me to maintain a certain safety in mystery. I have no enemies, or stated positions. In just a few weeks, I will baptize our first born child.
I admire and benefit from people that are willing to take some risks in order to make their corner of the world into a better place. I completely support you….I’m just not ready to come out of my safety corner just yet.
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