What does the church have to offer you?

Community, in all its flawed glory. I know that people there will rally behind me if I need it, and that they care about my kids.

I think for many it does offer community or as we sometimes refer to it here, a tribe. I probably subscribe to the tribe idea but I can live without the community (as I proved for 10 years). But some people really need that community. Somebody was trying to chastise me for not going to the Memorial Day picnic recently because my reasoning was that I didn’t need the “fellowship,” I had other things I’d rather do, and even if I did want to have a cook out I could do it myself on my own deck (it was a bring your own affair) and have lots more time to do other things. “How about the other people that need fellowshipping?” I was asked. Turns out there were plenty of people there to fellowship them, and I honestly don’t like the majority of the people in my ward anyway and most of the time if I’m talking to someone I’m just trying to be nice and don’t care one whit what they’re talking about. Sorry. :yawn:

My orthodox side tells me the church provides ordinances and I do buy into that to a point. But since I don’t believe the whole authority thing, other churches could provide the same or very similar ordinances (I see little difference in the Catholic communion and our sacrament and in some ways like their ritual better).

That’s really it. I can live without the church and still be a good Christian (despite paragraph 1).

Jeffery R. Holland & Dieter F. Uchtdorf. Good friends, community events. The sacrament is a big one, even for a heritic like me.

For me — nothing really. I was disenfranchised from the community a while ago, they talk about me in leadership meetings in a pejorative way I have been told, they are NEVER there for me when I need them on non-financial, mission critical issues, and in my experience, they treat their volunteers very badly — taking them for granted and fiercely disloyal if they feel you are not with the program of the church. LDS social services is inaccesible due to lack of investment, and our Bprics are not only poorly trained to give professional advice, they are too busy being volunteers to give good service.

Now, for my wife — at times they have provided an important community of friends and a place for meaningful service. My daughter loves the church and it provides her with many spiritual benefits, as well as very loving, caring husband — she also got a very good circle of friends as a youth and a shot at BYU with cheap tuition. She works at the MTC and loves it.

My son — no benefits really — they try now and then but his personality is such that he has little or no interest in the church.

Mixed bag.

At one time I was on the “ask not what the church can do for you, but what you can do for the church”. But when it became a thankless, heartbreaking bottomless pit of demands and experiences that interfered with my mental and physical health, I had to move on with my service hours. Much happier serving in a different organization than I ever was in the church.

Sitting through boring lessons and meetings can wear on you. There are plenty of reasons to endure and keep going to church.

But…

I’ve been thinking…what is it that church really has to offer?

What’s the purpose of church?

Actually, the Church doesn’t offer me much these days, but it was through the Church that I learned about the Gospel, and the Gospel is a very meaningful part of my life. I’m genuinely grateful that I was raised LDS. I believe in the God I was taught to worship and in the Plan of Salvation. I believe those core doctrines. The foundation that was laid in my childhood is strong even now. But “sitting through boring lessons and meetings really can wear on you.” Not to mention the fact that I just don’t feel connected to anybody in my ward and am way, way, way too liberal too be able to relate to the way most Mormons I know think. I’m just a square peg, and I am no longer trying to fit into a round hole.

Sitting through boring lessons and meetings can wear on you. There are plenty of reasons to endure and keep going to church.

But…

I’ve been thinking…what is it that church really has to offer?

What’s the purpose of church?

Actually, the Church doesn’t offer me much these days, but it was through the Church that I learned about the Gospel, and the Gospel is a very meaningful part of my life. I’m genuinely grateful that I was raised LDS. I believe in the God I was taught to worship and in the Plan of Salvation. I believe those core doctrines. The foundation that was laid in my childhood is strong even now. But “sitting through boring lessons and meetings really can wear on you.” Not to mention the fact that I just don’t feel connected to anybody in my ward and am way, way, way too liberal too be able to relate to the way most Mormons I know think. I’m just a square peg, and I am no longer trying to fit into a round hole.

Church reminds me of the lines from the old Longfellow poem – “when she was good, she was very, very good,/But when she was bad she was horrid.”

I love church when it’s good, but almost no one does boredom as well as the LDS do*. I was reminded of this recently in one SM – several excellent speakers… and then someone off the presidency, who paused between words often for two, three, four seconds. He was final speaker and it was like drawing teeth listening to this drawn out sermon. I don’t know if he thought these pauses were profound or something, but at times like that, it is good to have something else to look at. A phone. A kindle. Or even a notebook.

You’re right, boredom was a major factor – the biggest? – in me going inactive for nearly a decade.

* I have been in very boring situations elsewhere. One Buddhist prior gave such a dull talk once to a group of us sitting at a table I had to make an excuse and leave. I never went back.

It’s like a scale where community, support and friends are on one side and on the other is history, doctrine, and organization. After awhile you realize you’re only there to meet and greet and for a church that demands all your time and talents, sooner or later that’s not enough for you or leadership. That’s when you have to make a decision.