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bridget_night wrote:
I love what you wrote DA. You are so brillant to me. I also wish the church would have a Sunday School class for ‘doubters.’ Maybe use the video by John Dehlin on Why people leave as discussion base. There has never been a place in the church for those who struggle with serious questions or doubts. They consider us trouble makers or apostates I guess.
Thanks Bridget, it helps me feel better to sort out my thoughts sometimes so I like to have a place where I can express these ideas. Having a separate class for unorthodox members sounds like a good idea to me too. The Catholic Church has all kinds of sub-groups to try to cater to followers with different interests so I don’t know why the LDS Church couldn’t do something similar to try to make people feel more at home in the Church.
Quote:Having a separate class for unorthodox members sounds like a good idea to me too.
Fwiw, I lived in a ward once that tried that exact approach. It was a disaster, mostly because it almost insitutionalized the “us” vs. “them” mentality that already existed in the ward – and it was stronger among the unorthodox members than it was among the orthodox members, interestingly. The more orthodox members generally were more than willing to listen to the unorthodox members, but the unorthodox memebrs really looked down on and didn’t want to have to put up with “those ignorant, blind” orthodox members – and the lessons often spiraled into not much more than criticism sessions.
Really, it was a total failure and was discontinued after only a few months.
Old-Timer wrote:Quote:Having a separate class for unorthodox members sounds like a good idea to me too.
Fwiw, I lived in a ward once that tried that exact approach. It was a disaster, mostly because it almost insitutionalized the “us” vs. “them” mentality that already existed in the ward – and it was stronger among the unorthodox members than it was among the orthodox members, interestingly. The more orthodox members generally were more than willing to listen to the unorthodox members, but the unorthodox memebrs really looked down on and didn’t want to have to put up with “those ignorant, blind” orthodox members – and the lessons often spiraled into not much more than criticism sessions.
Really, it was a total failure and was discontinued after only a few months.
That is interesting Ray. And, I can believe that. I see that happening between the pro-gays and ex-gays as well. Unless, both sides really do reflective listeining and are tolerant with each other, it doesn’t work. Doesn’t seem to work politically either between Republicans and democrats. I started a yahoo group called ‘Family Reconcilation’ once for lds gay families on boths sides of this issue. Everybody just got too offended and left the group. It’s actually a miracle that it worked between the guy I wrote my book with. Staylds seems to do this better than anyone else it seems so I am thankful for this group.
I don’t think doing anything differently would have prevented me from coming to disbelief in the church’s truth claims. Once you learn the complications of the church’s actual history, and some of the specific [strike]problems[/strike] challenges, you can’t go back. The legitimacy and integrity of the organization are called into question. Even though I’m long past being bothered by, say, the Kinderhook Plates episode, I have very little confidence in the narrative about Joseph Smith that the church propounds as a result of learning about the Kinderhook episode and others like it.
Thus, no longer having confidence in the church’s claims of authority and integrity, I no longer accept every choice made by the hierarchy as being inspired. So things that maybe would have seemed strange or wrong-headed to me which I would have immediately put on the shelf when I was a more traditional believer are now subject to scrutiny.
Maybe… Having a faith crisis during the transition from a ‘YSA’ to ‘Family’ ward has resulted in my becoming less-active. Had I not been in a YSA ward and already established in a family ward, things may have turned out differently.
Cadence wrote:My point being it was not a matter of better programs or more fellowshipping that would have kept me a faithful member. The church is pretty good at that stuff. It was simply that the church has no answers to the big questions …
What broke me is a similar flavor of what Cadence described. I actually think the Church is pretty darn effective at many of its programs, and at fellowshipping and including. At least that was my personal experience growing up, and I was a challenging person to like (for traditional, orthodox folk).
The thing that ultimately broke my conditioning all relates to the “big questions” of life. Really, I was not all that bothered by the implosion of the correlated religious narrative. I sort of shrugged and said to my self “go figure! pretty much just like everything else in life — not what I thought it was.” I know this is VERY traumatic for other people, but it wasn’t for me so much.
What broke me is I feel the Church left me seriously unprepared to deal with the realities of life. During the period of my life where I was making the most important and long-lasting decisions of my life, I was also trying to be the most “normal” as a member. I was seriously trying to do it all. I had served a mission. I was taught to get married right away and start a big family. I was supposed to do all this on FAITH, even making very poor decisions based on my resources, but that FAITH and following “God’s plan” would lead to blessings. I seriously thought that God would take care of me and bless me if I did all these things.
So after falling flat on my face over and over and over and over again, I finally broke. I realized it wasn’t my lack of faith, or lack of God loving me, my lack of worthiness or not obeying enough commandments.
I WAS MAKING POOR DECISIONS!!!!!!and suffering the natural consequences. God wasn’t going to save me (aka “bless me”). A 20-something guy with no education, no money, no skills should not get married, have a stay-at-home wife with no education, and start popping out babies every other year… DUH!!!! If I wanted my life to work, I was going to have to friggin’ do it myself thank you very much God/Church. So I’ve spent the last 20+ years digging my way out of that by my boot straps.
I did everything in my young adult life in the WRONG order — the order I was raised to believe, that the Church taught me.
Brian Johnston wrote:…I did everything in my young adult life in the WRONG order — the order I was raised to believe, that the Church taught me.
That is actually profound. Very profound. The implications are jarring.
My children are all inactive. The girls (except my youngest who is 10):They couldn’t take the YW program anymore. My oldest daughter completely lost interest. She wants to study the hard sciences, have a career, and doesn’t particularly want to have any children (at the moment, that’s fine with me, she’s 18).
They didn’t seem to make much room for that in YW. It wan’t anything overt, or that she was told this was wrong. But the vast majority of the lessons were basically about how to stay a pure and virtious virgin, learning homemaking / nurturing skills, and someday a worthy priesthood holder will choose them to go to the temple. THE END…
At the time when she stopped going, the last comment she made was “Dad! I don’t even want to get married. And I am only 15 years old, it’s creepy!” What do you say to your daughter after that to rebutt?
:problem: My sons (except the youngest who is
:They just didn’t want to play basketball every Wed night, which was usually the default when nobody really put any effort into planning real scouting / youth activities with ZERO budget.
They don’t like sports.
Both YW and YM: No budget = a very lame youth “ministry” / youth program. I hate to throw The Mall issue out there, but how many future tithing payers are they losing via lame programs with no funding? Hopefully the Return on Investment in that property nets a financial profit … enough to make up for all the souls they lose connection with.
I’m with Brian on that one. Personally, I’ve only seen the programs work well in one Ward. It was a ward full of doctors, lawyers, and self-employed business people. I saw how it’s SUPPOSED to work, and it was great — full blown scouting program, Bishopric involvement with the youth (I was expected to be at all youth activities as a Bishopric member), well-rounded activities. It was phenomenal. Budget was committed heavily to the youth program. So when everyone says the programs are good, and the fellowshipping is good — that has not been my experience. In fact, I would add that to my list of things that would keep me active — really good programs. I don’t mind helping either — I’ve done it a few times as YM President and Stake YM President.
For me, when the Church advertises we have all this good, and then I show up and the activities are poorly run, leaders are uncommitted, and things don’t work very well, it’s a real let-down. You’ve got me thinking that my kids need to be involved in professional organizations where there is consistent quality. I have not seen that in the Wards I’ve lived in as a member at large all these years, except once.
Quote:Both YW and YM: No budget = a very lame youth “ministry” / youth program. I hate to throw The Mall issue out there, but how many future tithing payers are they losing via lame programs with no funding? Hopefully the Return on Investment in that property nets a financial profit … enough to make up for all the souls they lose connection with.
This rings true with my own thinking. Picture a restaurant where you show up to buy a hamburger, and they never have hamburgers. Or if they do, they are not well-prepared. How long would your customers keep coming? I feel that’s where I am right now with programs.
Now, I’m sure people will think this is a case of Serve Me Syndrome, but at some point the organization needs to take responsibility for ensuring they have the right people in place, with the right level of quality in their programs. And it’s not as if they don’t have the financial resources do to it either.
My biggest concern for years has been how the YM & YW programs generally are run. There is SO much potential in the ideal that is in writing, but it gets butchered SO much more often than it gets done the right way.
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