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I was reading tonight at the gym in “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business.” It was talking about the importance of community in how people change.
Quote:Change occurs among other people. It seems real when you can see it in other people’s eyes.
This is one of the most important reasons that AA is so effective.
Quote:When people join groups where change seems possible, the potential for that change to occur becomes more real. For most people who overhaul their lives, there are no seminal moments or life-altering disasters. There are simply communities–sometimes of just one other person–who make change believable.
This is one reason people join our church, to make positive changes in their lives by joining a community of people who make them believe that change to something better is possible. So why is it that church is sometimes not this kind of community for people? Why is it that instead they turn to new online communities that fill a void their wards have not? The book talks about the Colts who kept slipping up under pressure:
Quote:Players were afraid of making mistakes or so eager to get past the final Super Bowl hurdle that they lost track of where they were supposed to be focusing. They stopped relying on their habits and started thinking too much.
This performance anxiety resonated for me as similar to how many talk about their wards. If people in our wards never show vulnerability, they don’t make it easy to believe we can change; they make it seem that change is only necessary for the weak, not for the shiny happy people. The illusion of perfection and unwillingness to share vulnerability is not only uncharitable, but it erodes belief, and without belief, there is no change. In the book “belief” refers to the belief that we can change our lives (in NT terms, this is more akin to “hope” than “faith”). To put it in AA terms, AA would not change lives if everyone stood up and said they never had a temptation to drink alcohol like those horrible alcoholics do. It’s precisely because they share vulnerability that they help change lives. To the extent our meetings don’t have that vulnerability, they are broken in terms of usefulness in changing lives, which is the point of church after all.Online communities unfortunately often are just as bad. They may move the Overton Window on what is acceptable to say, but unless they really involve open sharing and vulnerability, they won’t truly help people change their lives for the better. They’ll just bolster a sense of being right and create an alternate tribe, a different “us” to fight “them.”
Anyway, these were just some thoughts I had when I read this tonight.
Hawkgrrrl, very interesting. I believe that there is a lot the church can learn from the AA program. AA has many slogans. When I first started going to meeting, I despised them. Now I try to live my life
by them. One of them is:
Quote:Fake it until you make it.
The meaning is: we can never live a perfect life. Don’t let your imperfections stop you from coming back to the program. Go through the motions, if you have to, and look for improvements
in your life over time.
In the church, we expect perfection (whatever that is). We have little tolerance for anything less. First, in ourselves. Then,
everyone else. A example is the WoW. This principle (complete abstinence) was introduced over one or more generations. The membership didn’t live it perfectly. Now, if you have a new convert, they are expected to live it within the 6 or 8 weeks. The expectation is: converts learn the lessons, get baptised & live it perfectly to the end.
The principle of complete perfection in this life is an unrealistic expectation for all of us.
It would be breath of fresh air to hear anyone in a leadership role bare his testimony to that fact.
Quote:I’ve fallen & had a difficult time coming back.
Maybe someone has. I can’t remember one. If there is, please tell me.Quote:In the church, we expect perfection (whatever that is). We have little tolerance for anything less. First, in ourselves. Then,
everyone else.
This succinctly expresses my greatest concern with the Church. If we have the “truth”, why
aren’twe more tolerant with ourselves and with others? I see this in my wife who struggles constantly with guilt because she works outside the home. I see it in my children trying to find their place in an often unforgiving LDS world. I see it in myself. I was on Temple Square yesterday and I was struck by how clean and scrubbed everything looked. No litter, grass perfectly trimmed, buildings immaculately kept. Missionaries and workers uniformly nice. I went to a sealing at the SLC temple later and had to take off my shoes before going to the sealing room and thought “why do we have to do this?” Oh yes, to keep the carpet looking as scrupulously clean as the walls, the doors and the windows. It’s as if the grounds and the buildings all whisper at us “be ye therefore perfect….even as I am.” It’s an impossibly high standard. Sometimes, I long for a little raggedness, a little dirt, a little grime, an unweeded flower bed in these places to reflect my own ragged, dirty, grimy, unweeded state.
I’ve been thinking of this a lot Hawkgrrrl. I recently got a new job, moved, and started in a new community with new friends, new ward, and new job.
I am AMAZED at how good the community is at my new work. The culture and environment and co workers are all SO much healthier and advanced. I slipped up and was late to a meeting yesterday (got my schedules mixed up) and was ready for a lashing, but this new environment was understanding and covered for me. My old job would have been public humiliation and shaming! The amazing thing is that with less browbeating, the new job is fast paced and exhausting…but in such a good way because everyone is focused on doing the right things, not constantly looking over our shoulders wondering if the leadership will beat us down or shoot down our ideas or not tolerate risk-taking because they need perfection.
Quote:Players were afraid of making mistakes or so eager to get past the final Super Bowl hurdle that they lost track of where they were supposed to be focusing. They stopped relying on their habits and started thinking too much.
This was exactly the way I felt in my last job. Thinking and calculating and politicizing everything, managing stakeholders and influencing in the office to keep from things blowing up. …and with all that extra work…who was focused on the customers? No one. We were too internally focused as a company trying to stay alive and our heads from being put on chopping blocks for worry about customers.
That is different here. We run fast, we correct swiftly when mistakes are made, we look to the vision of our future and focus on our customers who we interact with closely. The healthy leadership team tells me to go home on Friday at 4:30 because they WANT me to have a balanced home life, so I am more productive at work (which I am).
It is truly fascinating to see the difference between the communities. And, because we need paychecks, we don’t easily move from one to the other.
I’ve been in stake callings where I go and see in fairly similar geographic areas, how different wards can be. Because the church is divided geographically, we don’t really get to choose one community or the other.
Sometimes it is leadership. These change as the leaders rotate (which is good). You can wait out the bad.
Sometiems it is patterns and history of the way the ward members always have settled for. This takes a strong leader with a vision and people skills to change a culture in the ward, which is not easy to do. But I’ve seen it. And it makes the world of difference in the lives of people in the area.
Good communities and bad communities are fascinating to me how drastically it changes our experience.
Minyan Man wrote:
Quote:I’ve fallen & had a difficult time coming back.
Maybe someone has. I can’t remember one. If there is, please tell me.Good point! It’s pretty rare for somebody to stand up and admit their faults publicly, especially a high ranking leaders. The biggest fault they’ll usually admit to is typically along the lines of missing a home teaching appointment, or not being perfect at keeping a journal, or some little minor thing like that. This only adds to the perception that they’re perfect, even though they might not come out and make that claim. The one leader who I can think of who was more than willing to admit his faults was J Golden Kimball. I wish he was around these days. When we hear his name, people smile, but nobody quotes him unless they’re telling some funny story about something inappropriate that he did. But, I think one of the reasons that people like to hear stories about him is because he DID have faults, and he openly admitted it. But, he wasn’t just a clown who got up and cussed like a sailor. He threw out the occasional curse word, but he really had a lot of deep meaningful things to say, and he knew how to get people to listen to him because they could view him as being just like the rest of them, rather than being above them. Wish we had more of that…
I’ve admitted stuff about myself here on this online community and on other communities unrelated to spirituality — the reaction you get from people has a huge impact on your propensity to change and turn to the community for support. Here it’s normally unconditional although at times I feel kind of stupid or perhaps less respected because I admitted the problem. But that is my problem. I content myself into believing others likely have their own silly moments and flaws they don’t admit. At church, there is no way you can admit the stuff you can admit here. The most respected people are those who are leaders with temple marriages, kids who served missions and married in the temple. If you stood up and said in Sarament meeting you were a convicted felon, had substance abuse problems, multiple sexual partners and a string of unhappy marriages and divorces, then turned your life around, that would likely not gain you much respect in the community unless you could fit the textbook for a long period of time.
I know my weaknesses in the gospel — high expectations from others and the church that I don’t hold for others in non-church organizations. High expectations borne of the claims the church makes about itself (only true church, Christ at the head, a prophet who talks to God). In our face to face community, I can’t talk about it because I’ll be quoted the standard mormon answers.
Good news is that I don’t care anymore. I am doing what I am doing and everyone else can sit by and watch.
SilentDawning wrote:At church, there is no way you can admit the stuff you can admit here. The most respected people are those who are leaders with temple marriages, kids who served missions and married in the temple. If you stood up and said in Sarament meeting you were a convicted felon, had substance abuse problems, multiple sexual partners and a string of unhappy marriages and divorces, then turned your life around, that would likely not gain you much respect in the community unless you could fit the textbook for a long period of time.
I have noticed that the evangelical churches around me are MUCH quicker to “rejoice in a sinner that has come to God”. It can only be a year or so and if they seem sincere, they are idolized. There was an ex-porn star guy talking in churches around here not too long ago. He talked about his multi-decade experience in the porn industry and his conversion. He drew in crowds.I have heard quite a few people admit shortcomings and mistakes at church, and I do it quite regularly in classes. Maybe I have heard others say it more than many partly because they have heard me say it.
Just something to consider.
Old-Timer wrote:I have heard quite a few people admit shortcomings and mistakes at church, and I do it quite regularly in classes.
Maybe I have heard others say it more than many partly because they have heard me say it.
Just something to consider.
I have heard counciled more than once that we are NOT to share past sins or shortcomings with others. I never understood why, and this thread shows why it may actually be a good thing!
I have never heard that we should not share shortcomings with others, but I have heard that we should not confess sins to anyone other than God and a Bishop or Stake President. I think we are over-sensitive to “easy grace” and feeling like people can gain forgiveness through nothing but confession with no effort or real change. I don’t like either of those ideas, but I don’t like the other extreme, either.
As usual, I have more of a middle ground, moderation, balance view.
The fear of easy grace is a clear way to put it. Thanks Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Old-Timer wrote:I have never heard that we should not share shortcomings with others, but I have heard that we should not confess sins to anyone other than God and a Bishop or Stake President.
As missionaries, it is not uncommon to be told that if someone asks us if we ever did such and such sin that we could truthfully answer that we had not because the atonement had “erased” any such event. Unless the spirit indicated that sharing a particular past transgression might help a particular investigator. (I was told this on my mission and DW was told this same thing on her mission)
I remember in a non-LDS church the youth pastor doing a talk/demonstration for the congregation of letting go of the baggage and labels of his sin. Two of these labels were porn and masturbation. At the time I was impressed and surprised that an individual that works specifically with the youth could come out and say that he currently struggles/had struggled with sexual indiscretion and still keep his position.
And yet I have seen this taken to an opposite extreme as well.
I saw a presentation by one pastor about his conversion story. He had been a pastor’s kid in a small conservative community but behind the smiling wholesome exterior lay a “porn addict”. It seemed to me that to maximize the miraculous effect of the ultimate “glory to God” triumph – he also had to overly demonize his youthful struggles. I asked him afterwards about his use of the word “addict” because it seemed that despite his semi-occasional use of porn he was quite accomplished – getting good grades in school, being socially popular, etc. He told me that he felt bad about his porn use and tried repeatedly to stop but would always succumb and that fit his definition of addiction (though he admitted that it probably would not qualify in the clinical sense). I just found it interesting that in this case being a lifelong clean cut church going guy was somewhat of a disadvantage and a troubled past had to be somewhat exaggerated IMO.
Roy, that’s a very interesting observation. I agree that some like to exaggerate their sins for effect, and others like to minimize them to prevent being a bad example. It seems to me that both those approaches are dishonest and have unintended consequences.
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