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I have said how much I love my last ward and what I have experienced in my new ward thus far, so it is important for me to share an incredibly bad experience today – even if only to say publicly that I am not immune to disappointment and frustration at church. The talks in Sacrament meeting were given by a husband and wife. The topics were “Love and Marriage” and “Sexual Purity”. They each pushed just about every button I have with regard to those topics. I’m not kidding. Complaining about same-sex marriage; not realizing the messages they were sending about divorced members, single parents, and LGBTQ+ people; using old-fashioned stereotypes; saying all unauthorized sexual activity is next to murder in seriousness; calling homosexuality one of the gravest sins possible; quoting explicitly from “For the Strength of Youth” about what people shouldn’t do (with young children and youth sitting next to parents and grandparents); etc. It was beyond awkward and into horrifying. I believe it was completely inappropriate for Sacrament Meeting – what is supposed to be a worship service.
I leaned forward, closed my eyes, forced a neutral expression, practiced dep breathing, and almost walked out of the chapel more than once. The only thing that kept me in my seat was the desire to keep a degree of social capital in my new ward and stake (the Stake President was visiting today), especially since I want to talk with the Bishop at some point about my concerns with both talks. He is a very good man, and I didn’t want to embarrass him in any way.
Maybe the bright side for all of you: When you have a rough meeting, picture me and realize your experience probably isn’t what I just experienced.
😈 
😯 :silent: Most of us have those kinds of Sundays from time to time, even in the “best” of wards. Some have them regularly. My heart always goes out to those who tell these stories and the others who endured. I don’t think any of us can assume our experiences are worse than someone else because it appears there is always a bigger fish, always a worse horror story. Thanks for your example Curt. I do think that sometimes our safety plans have to include walking out, but you indicated you used other safety techniques that worked as well. I admit I was surprised when I saw the author after seeing the title of the post. I missed church today. Felt like i had some stuff to deal with. Im so glad for your example curt.
I am so glad you shared this. Not because you deserved it, but even wards we love can get stuck. Ours was really lovely, but in January we went through a month of horrific. Ours were more geared to “people leaving the church” or “who had been offended”. I can’t even find words. I finally mentioned it to a RS councilor. I don’t know if my mention made a difference but we haven’t had those in a while. On your note of “staying” – this past week a woman in my ward asked me to grab a milkshake with her. We’ve talked about it on and off, but never really did it. I don’t Visiting Teach or Minister to her. I just chat with her on Sunday. This week she made sure we went. The reason she needed the one on one – her daughter is gay.
For months the mom has been struggling with the fear of if people find out. Her daughter even quit coming home for a few nights. Adding to the panic. The mom has come to terms with her daughter, but is painfully aware of the life impact and church connection impact her daughter will feel. The daughter has been wrestling with it for 5 years.
I needed that night as a personal boost to hang in there when there are Sunday’s like you had. That mom needed someone she could talk to. Someone who could be her safety net.
Hey Curt: I can relate , l have had Sunday meetings like that . Keep in mind that eventually the church will be changing , it must to survive !!! They will not be able to keep preaching the whitewashed version of has too change and will but in our favor we must just hang onto what we know is right until the church catches up. God Bless. Talks like this seem to go against the image & position the Church has tried to portray within recent memory. Meaning more tolerance, more empathy & understanding. Does a Bishop or Counselor ever get up and say:
“this is not the position of the Church” (or something more diplomatic?) At the very least they should IMO talk
to members who are assigned to talk & give some kind of counsel.
I try to put myself in the position of aninvestigator or new member & ask How would I react to the talk I’m about to give?
The Church at large puts a great deal of effort & resources into the Missionary program. Talks like this could cause a great deal of
damage on the local level.
There is an advantage in being old & hard of hearing. This is one of those times.
Curt I commend your patience.
This is one side benefit when wards don’t ask a “couple” to speak on the same day. At least you can dilute the crazy. They aren’t supposed to do that because it’s insensitive to people who aren’t married (I thought), but my current ward also asks couples to speak on the same day. I think it’s a bad practice. What?!?!? No licked cupcake analogy??? Seriously, one can get away with saying a lot of bad things as long as those bad things are directed at those perceived as outsiders and in defense of the in group. That is changing slightly and the edge is coming off but it is still acceptable to demonize and denigrate the “them” in pursuit of lifting up the “us”.
In our ward we had a young man speak before his returned Missionary brother. He told us that he was assigned to to talk for 10 minutes but only wrote out his introduction so he would be going off script from there. His talk was long, I mean very long, like 25 minutes long. Every time he would finish a story and I thought for sure that he was about to wrap it up he would segway by saying “another part of my talk is about”. I was incredulous! How many parts of his talk could there possibly be? DW and I watched the bishopric’s expressions for signs that they might cut the young mans speech short. Finally, after over 20 minutes, he said “the last part of my talk is about”. He STILL wasn’t done but at least he had signaled that he was getting there. This young man’s fresh off the airplane RM brother gave a 5 minute talk to close out the meeting.
I personally loved the whole thing. Sometimes our habit of assigning novice speakers to talk in out worship service yields … unexpected results.
😆 😆 😆 hawkgrrrl wrote:
This is one side benefit when wards don’t ask a “couple” to speak on the same day. At least you can dilute the crazy. They aren’t supposed to do that because it’s insensitive to people who aren’t married (I thought), but my current ward also asks couples to speak on the same day. I think it’s a bad practice.
This is a relatively new development in my ward, I think since a new counselor was called. I agree it’s bad practice.
My Sunday was not great, either, but not as bad as Curt’s so I wasn’t going to bring it up. The talks were so-so at best, but the second speaker (female, not the spouse of the first speaker) kind of did what Roy’s did – she kept going on with story after story. She said her assigned topic was forgiveness but it quickly devolved into offense, more particularly taking offense (and of course the one taking offense needs to forgive, hence the tie in). She had a good 20 minutes to speak, went over and clearly wasn’t “done” with all of her stories. But again, it wasn’t as bad as Curt’s, I’ve been to worse, and I used my tablet to distract myself (which I also did in priesthood with our lecturer). Mine wasn’t extremely rough, it was average rough.
The roughest sacrament meeting I ever sat through was several years ago now. The talk covered three bases: 1) Complaining about critics and doubters.
2) The 14 fundamentals.
3) A story about a gay friend that felt like they received revelation that gay marriage was okay and the speaker telling that friend that their revelation was from Satan.
All in one talk. There may have been more but I didn’t have the patience of Curt. I got up and left after the revelation from Satan comment.
Minyan Man wrote:Does a Bishop or Counselor ever get up and say: “this is not the position of the Church” (or something more diplomatic?)
Now I have a mental image of Elder Oaks’ bishop tapping him on the shoulder mid-talk during general conference.
:angel: One of our favorites that we still laugh about was a high council speaker who brought a “downtrodden” guy in as a prop. He wanted to illustrate just how bad your life can get without the gospel. He had this guy tell some “facts” about his life, and the guy just drawled through this list of prior mistakes: “I been with whores. I done drugs. I had my best friend die in my arms.” It was the best of talks, it was the worst of talks. Thank you for sharing that experience Curt, it helps me realize I need to try harder to “grin and bear it”. Especially considering the speaker volume in the foyer, there’s no escape except for leaving the building for a cool down lap. 😎 Before our current bishopric was put in place, going on five years now, our soon to be first counsellor gave a talk on tithing and I was doing my best to hide my facial expressions exposing my thoughts until he exclaimed that once you become a full tithe payer everything will be fine. I couldn’t take any more and got up, probably too abruptly, and exited. Nothing was ever said to me by DW or anybody else but I’m sure I used up some of my social capitol there. (I’ve just about used it all up since then).Old Timer wrote:
I leaned forward, closed my eyes, forced a neutral expression, practiced dep breathing
I may have to do some of this myself. Whenever I get up to give myself some mental relief by walking the halls, there always seem to be the same brother in our ward (who I actively try to avoid) out in the halls/foyer at the same. Finding some sense of sanity while staying in the chapel would save me from being “invited” to come back to sacrament meeting or to the second hour class coming up.
🙄 I know this is an old thread but I wanted to contribute my experience.. It is comforting that sometimes others experience unfortunate remarks and testimonies during sacrament meetings. I have made it a policy to not attend a Fast and Testimony meeting unless I can’t help it for this very reason. Some members say insensitive things, sometimes things they don’t mean because they are nervous. I appreciate testimonies, but standing up in front of 150 people with unprepared remarks is a recipe for disaster.
I quit attending any LDS church services for a year and a half because of someone’s talk. A lady was talking about marriage and was especially hammering that marriage through God’s eyes was between a man and a woman. Her tone was not of love and compassion but more of a Str8 Edge TBM type. I noticed multiple people leave during her talk, including a young woman who left crying. I noticed her later after the 2nd hour sitting by herself. As a middle aged man, I didn’t feel comfortable talking to her, all I could do is pray for her in the car.
I returned to that Ward just last month and will go again this Sunday. If this happens again, I will not let someone like that keep me away. The speaker may have forgotten about her talk after it was done, but her words stayed with me all this time. Knowing that this is “common” helps. Thanks for sharing!
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