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This is a great piece. She hits the nail on the head. Substitute Mormon cliches and you’ve got the message. There are some good points here, and like you said, mom3, it’s interesting how easy it is to transpose this to mormonism. However, I would just like to add that I feel icky every time I read millenials talking about how awesome they are and how if the rest of the world would just be like them, it would be so much better.
Quote:We are the first generation to grow up in the age of information technology…
Man, how’d the world muddle through the dark ages before the millenials arrived?Quote:We can engage with Biblical scholars on Facebook and Twitter
snicker.Quote:We millennials may be a bit narcissistic
Ya think?Is it time for me to make facetious remarks about attention spans? Status update: Time for my selfie. OMG I’m so like precious sometimes. Recovering from a nasty dose of affluenza y’all. ROTFL
She says: When I returned to church, it wasn’t because of great programs, alluring events or a really cool “café” set up in the foyer. I went back not because of what the church was doing, but rather in spite of it.I went back because I needed community, and because, thanks to a steady dose of medication and therapy, I was finally well enough to root through the cliché to find it. I know this is true for me, but I don’t enjoy feeling afraid in my own community. Seems like what we all have now – millenials and oldsters alike – is more freedom to choose or even create our community.
My experience over the last decade with many youth callings is that MilleniaIs have many things in common with people of all ages. They want to be noticed, loved, and genuinely cared about. They want us to be honest with them and not patronize them. And they want to not be bored. Roadrunner wrote:And they want to not be bored.
That’s the problem though Roadrunner. They have all the impatience of youth (over all the ages) coupled with an almost institutionalized form of ADD through various forms of media.
On this, I must agree with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who once wrote – “God himself has ordained that the young be foolish.”
Part of the reason this jumped out at me were some of the very quibbles listed in the comments. I am not a millenial – and yet I tire of being bored at church. If not bored, frustrated. I have a church that I want Mormonism to be. It may even be a well thought out idea of mine – but guess what I’m not in charge. Yet I read and we complain about this and that and say “if the church did this – then I’d be happy.” The technology comment – well, it seems like technology has been the watershed for many faith crisis, whether it was a podcast, google, bloggenacle, etc. Stuff came out of the wood work that we can’t put back, which leads us to dissatisfaction and back to problem #1.
Twitter and Facebook – Well let’s see we have Jared Anderson’s Sunday School Class, we have church lessons and talks on the bloggernacle, we use candy crush to get through the boring/pointless meetings we allow ourselves to attend in the name of religion. I don’t know makes me wonder.
Last of all Narcissism – this goes back to my first point, as I watch all the faith transitions – even the still practicing believers – everyone is creating their own Mormonism. This isn’t bad, but is it self-centered, are we so driven by our version that we can’t imagine or comprehend anothers.
I mean this respectfully. If I read it wrong, please let me know, but it sounded to me like she was asking in her vernacular, the very same thing we non-millenials are asking of our religion. Please respond, I would love to see if I am missing something.
There is definitely a boredom problem in our church… which goes beyond the attention span problem I mentioned. Some of our speakers and teachers are just boring. I’m glad correlation is going out of the window – it made church so bland. After reading the thread I was left with some thoughts. If there are excellent talks and lessons on line, why go to SS? Will that be an attitude that takes over in the future? nibbler can’t teach. Hugh Nibbler is more interesting, I’ll stay home and listen to the podcast. :ugeek: Boredom in church – I think part of it is the lesson manuals that and lots and lots of:
1) Define principle
2) State blessings through obedience
3) State punishments for disobedience
4) Class ends
Very little discussion about the principle itself because it’s black and white right there on the page. Any questioning could be seen as disobedience. Very little discussion about how to incorporate the principle in our lives or how the principle can fit in with the nuances of our particular circumstances. Just define, obey, scare away from.
You can only hear the 3 steps above but so many times before it gets very, very stale.
I alluded to this in another thread… perhaps the church block could benefit from one of the things that SNL should do. Drop at least one of the two musical guest performances, they always stink and everyone knows that it’s commercial break, someone singing with a bad sound setup, then more commercials. Time to go to bed because we aren’t getting back to the skits for like 12 minutes minimum. Cut out all the stupid skits, tighten up the ones that stay, drop one musical performance and you can trim that 90 minutes down to a more entertaining and manageable 60.
Following my own advice – make church shorter. Maybe lessons get boring because given the group and the material there’s only 25 minutes of interesting things to say that get streeeetched out to fill 50 minutes. The extra 15 minutes is filler to wait out the clock. I’m one that doesn’t feel bad if I’m done presenting what I prepared and there are still 10 minutes on the clock. Also, don’t take my comments about the musical guests on SNL as applying to musical numbers. Music, hymns, and participating in the choir were the only things keeping me around for the longest time. Hymns are about the only thing that speak to me now.
Maybe I have a short attention span these days.
😳 Still I think church could probably be cut down by 30 minutes and people wouldn’t miss out on much.How about longer gaps between classes? “The Bible clearly says…”I think we can substitute the name of a high ranking General Authority for the Bible in Mormonism.
“God will never give you more than you can handle”This one needs no Mormonizing.
Black and white quantifiers of faith, such as “Believer, Unbeliever, Backsliding”
Mormonized — Active, Semi-Active, Less Active (which we all know means inactive)
“God is in control . . . has a plan . . . works in mysterious ways”The D&C clearly says God is not pleased when we do not acknowledge his hand in all things. (I’m joking with the first four words of this sentence).
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1) I’m definitely not a millennial, but I think this article speaks to what I’m so longing for: to go to church and feel the love of God and the love of others, and have a chance to love others in return. For me, church gets in the way of the Gospel. I think I might start keeping track of how many times Christ is mentioned at church. 2) On boredom
:yawn: : 2 thoughts – A. We have teachers who have no idea how to teach and B. We hear the exact same material over and over and over……..again. Not sure what can be done about a. but looking forward to changes in b. someday (or as has been said, do away with SS altogether.):clap: writer63 wrote:1) I’m definitely not a millennial, but I think this article speaks to what I’m so longing for: to go to church and feel the love of God and the love of others, and have a chance to love others in return. For me, church gets in the way of the Gospel. I think I might start keeping track of how many times Christ is mentioned at church.
2) On boredom
:yawn: : 2 thoughts – A. We have teachers who have no idea how to teach and B. We hear the exact same material over and over and over……..again. Not sure what can be done about a. but looking forward to changes in b. someday (or as has been said, do away with SS altogether.):clap: It is basically how I feel. One of the last things I felt with in therapy was to list all the things I found good. I had a habit of telling myself and others how great it was but when asked directly what the positives things I was learning I couldn’t put a finger on it. I was stumped as values, family and morality were already instilled from other sources independently of church so I was unsure. In response the therapist asked me to keep tract of the lessons and key words at church so I would know.
For the last year and half I kept track of the lessons and keywords used and put a Roman numeral each time it was used again.
I was surprised at how little Christ was talked about, mostly in support for a church position or program
Being talked about but rarely about his ministry.
Top keyword in the last year and a half.
#1-obedience- mentioned 637 times
#2-temple ordinances
#3 tithing
#4 covenants (take a look at how any times in the young women’s GC how many times it’s mentioned)to church responsibilities
#5 prophet
#6 priesthood -priesthood responsibilities
#7salvation
#8 Christ
#9 redemption
What I thought I was learning isn’t what the facts are pointing out.
I wonder what other peoples charts would read.
Anyone want to keep tract of lesson and key words used and the numbers for a period if time?
I’m definitely interested in seeing a broader perspective.
I wouldn’t be interested in the top repeated words in church– those aren’t charity or positive aspects to dwell on. Hope they change.
SamBee wrote:How about longer gaps between classes?
And make the already too long three hour block longer? Actually our ward tried this once because people didn’t feel like they were getting enough time to socialize. The bishop made it 15 minutes between meetings instead of 10. It only went on a few weeks because the SP (who was actually in our ward) told him he needed to stick to three hours. Now they do the “linger longer” once a month. After three hours of meetings, the last thing I want to do is linger longer (even with free food).Personally I think priesthood + Sunday School could be compressed into 1/2 hr each or even alternated… a two hour block with a fifteen minute break is
not so formidable as a three hour block with almost no breaks.
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