- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
These “out there” I’m a Mormon profiles bother me. It is because we all know this is NOT the typical Mormon, and the “brethren” would not put up with a church full of people like these. What the church PR dept. is trying to show is that the church is full of women that have PHDs, and are MDs. Men that are dancers and surfers and artists and rock band singers. That is not what is in my ward. We have white, middle aged women with 5 kids. We have men with 8 to 5 jobs. Would the church ever put a billboard up that had a somewhat harried looking woman with a kid in her arm, and one around her feet, and say “I married at 19, have 4 kids, and never see my husband because he is an Elders Quorum President. I’m a Mormon!”
Honestly, Sheldon, I love the profiles – more for what they tell the traditionalist members than for what they tell non-members. The existence of this sort of member is a message that needs to be told, and I’m glad it’s being told. bridget_night wrote:Gosh, I love this quote by JS. It makes me very emotional as this sounds more like the church I grew up in and is so different from that in the last 20-30 years. There was a time in the early 90’s that I left the lds church and investigated the 7th Day Adventist church for two years because the Spirit actually told me to in an lds fast and testimony meeting. 3 times the spirit spoke to me in that meeting after praying and said, “Why don’t you go visit that 7th day adventist church around the corner. I learned some powerful truths there that were answers to prayers. They had something called “Love Circles’ there which met once a week where the sisters shared each others problems and really prayed for each other. When I came back to the lds church after two years because the Lord told me to go back, I was sharing with our stake president about how wonderful these prayer circles were and how we should incorporate them into the wards. He looked at me so angry and said in a hateful voice, “I don’t ever want to hear anything about the 7th day adventist church or any other church again. We have the full truth and they don’t.”
Too bad. What if your stake president had said that formally instituting love circles was not his plan right now, but then he listened to your experience? (I know they’re horribly busy.) To my mind, visiting teaching
isa love circle. What if he encouraged you to reach out in love and pray with other sisters through a means we already have established? What if he hadn’t been just so abrupt and arrogant? If you’re going to be short, be nice and short. A dismissive, but kind, “That’s interesting” would have been better. Old-Timer wrote:Honestly, Sheldon, I love the profiles – more for what they tell the traditionalist members than for what they tell non-members. The existence of this sort of member is a message that needs to be told, and I’m glad it’s being told.
Ray,
When the “I’m a Mormon” campaign first started, they put up in the Mormon corridor these large billboards with photos of people, and a few catchy phrases. There was one with a women dressed in medical garb, with the words to some affect that she was a nurse, and a Mormon.
A stay at home mom that had given up her goal to be a nurse so that she could “follow the prophets” and stay home with her children, saw that billboard and broke down into tears. How do you comfort this sister if you are her bishop?
(BTW I agree with you 100%, the members need to see these and take them to heart)
I disagree with Sheldon on this one, although I do get exactly what he’s saying. Personally, I think we need the rock stars and surfers and female biologists far more than we need the obedient SAHM who followed the prophet’s general advice to all against her better instincts about what her own needs were. We need living fish who swim upstream, not dead fish who float downstream. Here’s why I think it’s brilliant. As a missionary church, we have to pay attention to how we are portrayed in the media. For the last few years, anytime anything a member or bishop does goes viral and makes us look bad, the church distances itself from that person’s actions. It’s the only way to survive. This absolutely did not used to happen before we were in the public eye. The church cares a lot about what the world thinks of us. Sometimes they just don’t know that they look ridiculous until it’s pointed out. This campaign gets it. If we show the median member, we only reach those who are just like them – boring white people with milquetoast lives. The church then stagnates and doesn’t grow. If we show the borders of the tent and how broad it is, we enliven the church. We attract people who aren’t just like the average member. Certainly that’s better for all of us. Showing these outliers tells me that the church understands (or those who vet these at least) a few things: 1) that we have a problem with diversity, 2) that we have a problem with authenticity / conformity, and 3) that we have maxed out on converting people who don’t have a problem with 1+2.
Quote:How do you comfort this sister if you are her bishop?
By listening, empathizing, letting her cry – and then talking about on-going revelation or changing societies or anything else that can be comforting to her. If nothing else can comfort her, by shutting up and just supporting her in any way possible.
Last summer, Jacob wrote a very short, incredibly powerful post on By Common Consent about a different but related situation. I will provide the link in a new post, so it doesn’t derail this thread.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.