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There used to be a return and report thread for items like this but I couldn’t find it. There is a positive things at church thread — but mine is a mix, so feel free to move this if you want… I am loving 2 hour church. I can handle an hour of sacrament meeting if I know there is only an hour of lesson afterwards.
It was a testimony meeting, which isn’t my fave…one person made a statement “The person who repents the most is the happiest”.
I had trouble with that one as behavior change is often hard and fraught with lack of success. And of course, happiness research indicates there are many sources of happiness — savoring memorable experiences, forgiving others, and many more. Check out the How of Happiness which is a great book on sources of happiness. I accepted the idea that successfully improving oneself is a source of happiness, but not the statement as presented (as much as I really respect the person who said it).
I also had a problem with how everyone was beating up on people in society who gain influence due to their ideas — self-help authors, social media influencers, etcetera. They lumped those people in with false prophets. I didn’t want to disagree, but I did give Bruce R McConkie’s definition of a prophet — someone who receives revelation for a stewardship. To me, if the person isn’t claiming to have revelation from God FOR A PARTICULAR STEWARDSHIP, they are not a prophet. They are simply a philospher or or someone who claims to have had insight from God. It’s when they claim to have directions from God that apply to people in a given stewardship that they become a false prophet — IMHO. I didn’t say this as the class seemed pretty sold on “anyone who isnt’ a Mormon prophet is a false prophet”, which to me, was overly simplistic. And it might cause people to stop looking for expert self-help books when they need it.
Sunday school was about prayer. There was one part of it I thought was great. Last week there was a long-winded participant. Afterwards, I spoke to the teacher and he asked me how to handle it. I suggested moving toward the person purposefully and then finding something in what they said that worthy of summarizing, and then moving on.
This time, the long-winded person was sitting behind me, and when he started meandering, the teacher looked at me, I winked and nodded my head. The teacher walked toward the person purposefully, summarized a point the class member had just made, and then moved on. It was artful — I didn’t even realize the teacher had interrupted the long-winded member.
That was probably the most rewarding part of my day — to see a class improve because I helped someone. Afterwards, I gave the teacher kudos for a well-handled situation, and he indicated he had to think back to our conversation last week about to handle it. And then handled the situation accordingly.
Mixed bag, but glad I went this time. Two hours is just long enough…
We had stake conference (local, no GA/AA). Our SP gave a great talk on missing the mark and focusing on simple core truths of the gospel. That was the highlight, other than a very moving choir rendition of “Come Thou Fount” (yes, I cry, and yes, I did). The rest was a mixed bag of “read the Book of Mormon everyday,” the MP and TP and their wives’ “testimonies” (I played Hungry Shark during that time, especially during the matron’s very long testimony – longer than the SP’s talk) , our youth speaker (who didn’t play football at the well-known university stadium on Sunday and has been so unbelievably blessed for it), the new convert who was OK at first but babbled on at the end, and the mom telling everyone how to do scripture study. Ours was ward calling shuffle today. I can’t get a read on if it will be a good shuffle or not. I am in a malaise time with things. We had two men weeping over “having a living prophet.” I just really couldn’t do much but shrug. I realized that faith transition has totally removed the “divine design” story off my shelf. I did enjoy the hymns and the references to service.
It was F&T meeting. Four people gave their testimonies, two small children, a member of the BPric and someone that came up after the time had run out. Three others gave full on talks, one lasting about 5 minutes, another about 7 minutes and one (I was surprised no one from the BPric cut them short) went for 10 minutes. 😯 Que será…
I’m reaching for some motivation these days. The two hour block is nice, it makes the decision to stay far easier, but over the last two weeks I feel myself slipping back into last year’s one hour block plan.
SS and PH feel like too much of a walled garden with right and wrong thought. It’s hard to create the desire to attend either.
Strange day at church – two families independently turned up after years away. One of them had moved to another ward, and the other has gone inactive. I got friendly reactions off some family members and lukewarm ones off others.
I spent the afternoon helping transcribe Scandinavian records for someone off a small cellphone screen.
One man who comes to church regularly with his wife bore his testimony. You might think nothing of this, but it’s the first time I’ve seen him do it in ten years and it even surprised his wife (who regularly takes the stand).
Testimony meeting was interesting. As usual we had the usual half dozen “testimony bingo” people. I pay particular attention now when people say “I Know…” as they elaborate their testimonies. I find this fascinating now, as I attempt to dissect how they can “know” particular things. No children testimonies this week. It was a good day in that I wasn’t triggered much. That is the main goal I have with sacrament meeting these days. Some are much easier than others. I like that this meeting is shorter than it used to be. The good news is that our regulars on fast meeting recognize this and are necessarily brief. I enjoy the socialization I get at church, and I have been working harder at being more outgoing with people. This has been more fun for me and gives me something to look forward to each week. Our special needs sunday school class was postponed for two weeks due to most of the class not showing up (I believe most were out of town). The rest of us looked at each other and decided that the discussion would be too intimate for scary topics (the only way it could have been more intimate is if we studied as individual couples with the bishop
😯 ). .To that end we adjourned to regular sunday school. Big Mistake. I lasted two minutes before I fled the class and found some busy work to magnify my administrative calling. Reading scripture after scripture followed by shallow canned discussion was brutal. This has to be fixed. I don’t know how people stand regular sunday school. Even though I have issues with my special needs class, it is vastly superior to the alternative.
Quote:Reading scripture after scripture followed by shallow canned discussion was brutal. This has to be fixed. I don’t know how people stand regular sunday school.
I am with you. I was standing just outside the door when some eager beaver sister said there were seats on the front row. I declined.
In my ward I am a bit hopeful, they changed teachers. I may pop in next time just to see how it goes.
My sister knows someone who was on the “creative team” for the manual. According to them, no one told them about the 2 hour church change until after the new manuals were written. This person told my sister they are already altering the next years manual in the hopes of improving the key issues. I didn’t tell my sister, that my suggestion would be to just dump the class.
I have trouble with churchumonies (prounded church-you-mowney). A churchumony is when people get up and carry on about how great the church is. I am glad the experience works for them, but it reminds me that not all church experiences are created equal.
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