6 presentations

I am so excited for the work you are continuing to do. I think your perspective as a convert, a recent Bishop, a parent, and an active member are vital. Sometimes I sit in church and I worry about my ward members who haven’t had a faith transition. I am actually afraid for them if it happens. Like a plague you know is coming, but you can’t stop.

I know what mine has felt like, and I have a hand full of family and close friends who have left the church because of these issues. I don’t mind people leaving. I really do honor and embrace the 11th Article of Faith. What is hard, is the pain the experience is for them. They loved the church, served fully, tirelessly, faithfully and then it hit. Everything crumbled. No hope to be found.

We all leave things, jobs, homes, hobbies, etc. The hardest part is feeling like you have to leave, not that you want to leave. I look forward to the time when our church as a whole understands the words, histories, etc. that cause that feeling. I also have great hope in Mercy and Grace. To have you sharing those thoughts, and prepping the ground with that is encouraging to me.

Keep it up. I hope you get to take the message even farther. The church and families need it, more desperately than they know.

Thanks for sharing. I really appreciate the work you do.

thanks guys and gals for the compliments but know I do not do this for them, but rather to ease the number of people who have a hard time transitioning in their faith.

Bill, it’s wonderful that you were able to do all these presentations without people totally losing it. Broadening members’ views and helping them become kinder and more accepting of those who experience faith transitions is what I pray for since experiencing one myself. It’s also one thing I hope I might play a role in as I continue as a faithful member.

I only wish that my lesson in High Priests last Sunday could have been as successful as your presentations. I decided to teach the part of Elder Uchtdorf’s “Come, Join With Us” talk from October 2013 conference that focuses on those who struggle and I emphasized what we all can do to be more accepting to those going through faith transitions so that they continue to feel welcome in the ward. Without going into details about the correct church history (I certainly don’t want to expose anyone to it – they have to make that choice themselves), I shared part of my own experience about the betrayal I felt from the church upon learning it.

In short, I had a difficult time keeping the lesson focused on the “what we can do to help people like me who go through this” topic. Several of the members were steering the conversations to blaming the victim with the “we are only supposed to read church approved materials” and “everything negative about the church on the Internet is false” arguments. Virtually nobody knew about any of the essays the church had published on lds.org to discuss difficult topics. While I did my best to keep things positive, I felt the lesson made people uncomfortable. Maybe my HP group just isn’t ready for this 😥 but I suppose it has to start somewhere.

Keep up the good work on your end – it’s encouraging to here about successful presentations and talks.

Fwiw, High Priests group can be the hardest place to have a conversation like that, given the average age and sex of the participants. I am fortunate to have a number of men in my group who are more moderate than in some other wards, but, especially if you live in the Mormon corridor, that group can be difficult.

There also is a HUGE conceptual and practical difference between a regular Sunday class and a special presentation sponsored by the stake leadership involving “an expert” (which is defined as anyone who travels more than 50 miles to speak about something and isn’t known personally by those who attend).

Now that I think about it, you should move to Sandusky Ohio

All I know about Sandusky is what I learned from watching Tommy Boy.

Well you already know the tire plant shut down last month. Sandusky also has Cedear Point, which was not featured in the Tommy Boy documentary. 🙂

Amazing. Nothing less!