I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go

I noticed that you didn’t say anything about having any close friends. The big thing that helped me was having a few close

friends that I could call on & talk to. This includes friends that are inside & outside the church. In order for this to work,

(for me), I make it clear that they can call on me as well. Everything we talk about remains confidential.

Sites like StayLDS are good when you want to remain anonymous. When you want or need a more personal contact, you (we)

must do it face to face. IMO

Interesting you pointed this out MM, and thanks for doing so. I think I’m much like Hazy and trying to figure out what my church status is at the moment from my point of view. Much of what Hazy said is true for me as well, except I haven’t been attending. But Hazy’s reasons are more or less why – SM is generally not uplifting (although sometimes it can be) and I have little interest in SS/PH or the temple. But your response caused a light to come on. I don’t have anyone I consider a very close friend at church that I could confide in. Even though I have been a member of this same ward for over 30 years and there are others here I’ve known all that time, I don’t really consider any of them close friends. I do have one guy who I consider a friend, but frankly he’s an idiot and not a deep thinker – therefore he more or less blindly follows and there’s not room for me to discuss anything I’d like to discuss. Truth is I don’t have any close friends outside the church either, so I’m pretty much lost.

Several years back I experimented with attending other religion’s services once per month on our fast and testimony Sunday. I got the least out of F&T meetings so I decided to use that Sunday as an opportunity for self discovery.

It sounds like you might enjoy F&T meetings more than the average SM. That might be an experiment worth trying, only attending RS and F&T meetings for a while to see how it goes. Maybe also attending choir practice if your ward has that.

From time to time I have to remind myself that while it may feel uncomfortable, it’s okay to be lost. No one else in the entire course of human history seems to have figured things out, it would be unfair to expect myself to solve that riddle once and for all.

I can also echo the importance of having a close friend at church. I haven’t had one of those for a long time and subsequently feel no connection at all to my ward.

A sticking point for me was when I realized that the only time people at church approached me was out of assignment or when they needed me to do an assignment. That’s not an indictment, just an observation that the relationships I had with people at church weren’t as deep as I needed them to be… and I realize establishing close friendships requires effort on both ends.

I think that’s one of the precious things we lost when we scaled back social aspects of church, opportunities to interact with one another outside of structured church meetings. Historically I liked to blame church policy for that change, where every activity had to have a gospel purpose, but the church probably adapted to changes that were already taking place in society. People are busy, church activities are just one more thing demanding attention in an already demanding life, people have moved more toward virtual sources for sociability.

Where does the social community component of church fit into people’s lives today? I’ve long said the church should be a community where people might pick up principles that will help them be better versions of themselves but church feels more like a center of indoctrination where people might develop a community in spite of the more important goal of growing the organization.

Where does the social community component of church fit into people’s lives today? I’ve long said the church should be a community where people might pick up principles that will help them be better versions of themselves but church feels more like a center of indoctrination where people might develop a community in spite of the more important goal of growing the organization.

Our sense of community as humans is changing as we study the past and draw clues what previous communities were really like from a scientific perspective and create non-local-interest-based communities in real time (mostly online). The local based communities (churches, government entities like museums, libraries, school-based functions, other activities) are tending towards losing people so losing money sources and volunteers and “momentum” for lack of a better word to “internet/social media/video game” communities.

Community development depends on acceptance and diversity (expanding the pool of individuals involved) and organizational growth depended on administration and conformity (one-size-fits-all organizational expenses are cheaper, it’s like buying in bulk). Building a community is a “ministry” for lack of a better word that is at-odds with the impersonal administration side of things. A side problem of correlation and “being outside of the world” is that individuals are finding different “ministries” and different “communities” of individuals to spend their time in (employment being one of them), so what is left is the administration side of things (the 100 billion ish war chest) and the unintended “echo-like chamber” of remaining community members that “indoctrinates” as a side benefit of the fear of becoming an irrelevant organization that lost market share to other organizations.

NOTE: I think that this is a pragmatic reason that women were taught not to work outside the home – the loyalty and resources of women were being spent outside the home (and extension the church) in service of other (more competitive) organizations.

I think that the irrelevance factor is coming from the tension between values and a final cost-benefit analysis. If you don’t have to stick with a resource expensive, local-based community organization that runs a low positive/negative cost benefit analysis to you as individual, you don’t stay. The values of “better entertainment elsewhere”, “Honesty”, “Integrity”, “Representation”, and “Inclusion” are huge factors in that benefit analysis. I have not heard of a single individual who voluntarily and completely happily stayed committed to an organization that they felt did not include/value them, represent them, was dishonest/inconsistent in dealing with the individual, and/or lacked integrity in dealing with the individual.

Thanks for the responses, everyone. It’s helpful to remind myself that I don’t have to figure things out right away and I can take time to wander. I’m not sure who I could talk to IRL about this. Maybe my sister. I was planning on discussing it with my brother, until he mentioned that our other brother leaving the church last year was basically his worst nightmare come true. I also have a very close friend, but he’s not so good to talk about church things with. He’ll listen to a degree, but his go-to response is suggesting that I talk to the bishop about it.

Hazy, this sounds like a good start. Now there is the follow through. By that I mean, to develop the friendships to the point where you feel

comfortable talking openly without judgement by either side. I know members in my circle of friends that feel the way your brother does.

My brother & sister have very open discussions. They are not in the church & maybe that is why we are so open.

You described your brother as follows:

…I was planning on discussing it with my brother, until he mentioned that our other brother leaving the church last year was basically his worst nightmare come true.

To me, this is a great opening. My personal response would be: is there anything else you could imagine that’s worse?

You can imagine what my list would be.

You can ask the question without being judgmental or argumentative.

IMO, the purpose of this life is to have experiences that we could not experience in our previous life, make inspired choices for ourselves,

live the consequences of those choices, make corrections along the way and answer to Jesus Christ when we’re done. The other part of this

is to allow others the same privilege.

To make all this happen, I need friends that I talk to, bounce ideas off of, receive insight & wisdom (that I don’t have). I wish that I could say

that prayer does that for me. It usually doesn’t. For me, answers to prayer are rare or it comes through conversations with close friends.

One of the hymns my ward sang yesterday was “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go.” I’ve never been missionary-minded or liked the song, but this week the title has taken on a new meaning as I’ve been working out where I should be in relation to the church. For the past few years my involvement has had 2 sides: Go to church regularly and participate in most things (exceptions are temple and tithing), and go online to discuss or vent about the things that are difficult. And, for the most part, it worked for me. There were (are) a lot of things that are painful or I think need to change, but there was still enough value in participating in the church that I felt it was the right place for me to be at the time.

And now… I don’t know. I feel lost again. I don’t know where I should be. Over the past few months it’s been exhausting trying to find value in my church meetings, and I’m exhausted by online criticisms too. There are still a few things I like about attending church that I don’t want to lose. My ward has many lovely, good people. I love singing hymns together, even if I don’t always like the song choices. Fast & testimony meetings are usually sincere and heartfelt. Relief Society meetings are usually safe places for vulnerable and meaningful discussions. But most sacrament meeting talks fall flat for me, I haven’t attended Sunday School in a couple months and don’t miss it at all, and the patriarchal structure of the church is suffocating. This past General Conference left me agonized for weeks.

I don’t know if I need a hard break from church for a while or if I should continue to attend but in a more limited way – maybe only attend Relief Society and the occasional sacrament meeting? I’ve been thinking a lot about it, praying for guidance, and trying a couple things out, but so far I haven’t landed on how to go forward.

At the very least, limiting my involvement in online spaces is easier than figuring out whether I should continue attending church and how involved I should be. I still like this forum, still listen to a couple podcasts on the rare occasion, and still follow a handful of instagram pages, but overall I’ve cut back a lot and it has helped.

My experiences in life are perhaps somewhat different than others. One of my experiences was an obligation in the army during the Vietnam era. I did not like the military and felt that many of those in charge were incompetent. It was difficult for me to learn to carry out orders that were flawed. But I did learn that even when orders are flawed it is better to work together and to carry out orders to the best of my ability (often with others that I did not like at all) than it is to complain and cause contention.

I lost some that I learned to live with in harmony (friends) in combat – this was somewhat difficult, but it was more difficult for me to come home and deal with those that have no concept of what it is like to spend years of one’s life in great discomfort thinking to benefit others only to find that I was hated and despised for it.

For me, I was able to get much more from the experience than what I gave and at this point of my life, I honestly believe that everyone should spend time in the military in a time of war. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was perhaps my greatest resource during this time in the military and returning home. For me, church was and still is a much appreciated oases in a most unforgiving landscape – even attending with Vietnamese that I once thought was my greatest threat in life.