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I just spent the last 3 months studying employee engagement. I think it would be interesting to apply one definition of engagement — vigor, absorption, and dedication — to your church experience. This is what each of the subscales of engagement mean: Absorption: When involved in church experiences, the time passes quickly. You look up and you wonder where the time has gone.
Dedication: You have a sense of pride in the church experience. You feel that the church experience is significant and challenging.
Vigor: You work at it with a lot of energy, persisting through obstacles to achieve the goals you are seeking.
Where do you stand on each of these components of engagement as far as it relates to your church experience? Let 10 mean strong on the element, 1 means weak on the element.
Absorption: 9 Dedication: 9
Vigor: 9
I rarely give 10s, because I can always think there is a more I can do.
I also am not sure I’m using your engagement correctly. I’m very engaged to mormonism on a personal level in my life. But you’ll often find me planning other things on Sunday rather than attending church, unless I need to be there. I don’t know how leaders would rate my engagement.
I would give myself two different scales. One on my engagement with the church, and the other for my engagement with the gospel, because I personally see them as very different things. Church engagement: Absorption – 4 (most of this would come from time spent on this site and teaching Primary, so my level of absorption is high than it would be if I didn’t have these commitments)
Dedication – 1 (my Primary class and my family are the only reasons I’m in church each week)
Vigor – 8 (based on your definition, I do have to spend a lot of energy on being LDS, but mostly just mentally talking myself into staying)
Gospel engagement: Absorption – 9 (I spend a lot of time studying, reading, and practicing the gospel of Jesus Christ)
Dedication – 9 (I’m very dedicated to the basic gospel teachings of love, peace, forgiveness, service)
Vigor – 9 (I actively set goals to always try to become a better person, and better humanitarian)
I like the split between church and gospel. I also have a different rating on what “church” item is in question. If it is some useless meeting, much smaller number on absorption. Something more like a service project, much higher on absorption.
LookingHard wrote:I like the split between church and gospel.
I also have a different rating on what “church” item is in question. If it is some useless meeting, much smaller number on absorption. Something more like a service project, much higher on absorption.
So do I. If I was to rate my situation it would be like this:
Church
1. Absorption: 2: I have to engage my mind in other things when at church to get through it. I do get engaged when there is a good speaker or teacher, or when they share moving stories they explain well.
2. Dedication: 2: What I have experienced in the church has left me sort of ashamed of the way members and leaders treat the members. I don’t find it challenging in a good way — almost fruitless when it comes to home teaching and certain programs that never seem to produce results.
3. Vigor: 2: I would like to get involved with my son, but the boys in our Ward are a bad influence. Beyond that, i have little energy for church stuff at this moment in time. I am willing to home teach one family who wants me if I ever get up the energy to tell my HPGL.
Gospel:
Ratings are about the same. I do have a reviving vigor to wear garments (on my own terms), make donations at some level, and perhaps attend my own Ward on Sunday because it’s close. I don’t feel much interest in studying the gospel any longer.
Years ago, I wrote a couple mock chapters of scripture. Not claiming it was scripture — just to see what it was like, and if I could do it. It had the same style of font, chapter headings, chapter summaries, and verse numbers. I threw a couple footnotes in it as well to other BoM Verses.
I wrote about a prince who was talented, but arrogant and uncharitable to his people, and then underwent a transformation after he learned what his people really thought of him — including his parents who he overhead talking about him. Then he went through his own transformation and started acting with charity and kindness.
I felt the spirit as I read it a few months later when I focused on certain passages that described his newly found righteous desires and his change of heart — and his newfound good works. I had a couple pithy phrases that I thought might be quotable to someone with low standards of literature
I have since destroyed it and don’t know where it is. I am not a prophet, and make no claims to any kind of special divine connection. And the experiment was not part of a new movement in religion — it was just an experiment to see the impact of writing something that looked like scripture, that was not.
That experience influences my interest in the gospel, although of all scripture, I enjoy reading the Book of Mormon the most.
But my scripture-writing experiment influenced my absorption in the gospel. I don’t find it interesting to study any more, that is for sure.
LookingHard wrote:I like the split between church and gospel.
I also have a different rating on what “church” item is in question. If it is some useless meeting, much smaller number on absorption. Something more like a service project, much higher on absorption.
So do I. If I was to rate my situation it would be like this:
Church
1. Absorption: 2: I have to engage my mind in other things when at church to get through it. I do get engaged when there is a good speaker or teacher, or when they share moving stories they explain well.
2. Dedication: 2: What I have experienced in the church has left me sort of ashamed of the way members and leaders treat the members. I don’t find it challenging in a good way — almost fruitless when it comes to home teaching and certain programs that never seem to produce results.
3. Vigor: 2: I would like to get involved with my son, but the boys in our Ward are a bad influence. Beyond that, i have little energy for church stuff at this moment in time. I am willing to home teach one family who wants me if I ever get up the energy to tell my HPGL.
Gospel:
Ratings are about the same. I do have a reviving vigor to wear garments (on my own terms), make donations at some level, and perhaps attend my own Ward on Sunday because it’s close. I don’t feel much interest in studying the gospel any longer.
Years ago, I wrote a couple mock chapters of scripture. Not claiming it was scripture — just to see what it was like, and if I could do it. It had the same style of font, chapter headings, chapter summaries, and verse numbers. I threw a couple footnotes in it as well to other BoM Verses.
I wrote about a prince who was talented, but arrogant and uncharitable to his people, and then underwent a transformation after he learned what his people really thought of him — including his parents who he overhead talking about him. Then he went through his own transformation and started acting with charity and kindness.
I felt the spirit as I read it a few months later when I focused on certain passages that described his newly found righteous desires and his change of heart — and his newfound good works. I had a couple pithy phrases that I thought might be quotable to someone with low standards of literature
I have since destroyed it and don’t know where it is. I am not a prophet, and make no claims to any kind of special divine connection. And the experiment was not part of a new movement in religion — it was just an experiment to see the impact of writing something that looked like scripture, that was not.
That experience influences my interest in the gospel, although of all scripture, I enjoy reading the Book of Mormon the most.
But my scripture-writing experiment influenced my absorption in the gospel. I don’t find it interesting to study any more, that is for sure. Further, I’ve heard it to so much at the basic level, I find it tedious to revisit it.
But alas, I hope that will change at some point.
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