Stay in the Boat: How to respond

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

Most will drink the Kook Aid and take a faithful explanation and then move forward entrenched in their faith. I think there will be more sympathy for questions or doubts in the church. I see it happening. Because truth cannot be dismissed, it only gets painted and dressed up by our different perspectives on it.

Assuming this is a typo, I might be bad for liking it.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

Mrs. SuperChicken wrote:

I have actually seen a little bit of a change in the ward since then. It helped me to have a small glimmer of hope.

I think there is a slow and little bit of change also, MSC. I think it is because some things are inevitable. I know many church members that are smart (including family). The issues that are arising (historicicty, BOA, and other essay topics) will not go away, and people will learn, even from a faithful perspective or apologetic way, they are real issues to make sense of. Most will drink the Kook Aid and take a faithful explanation and then move forward entrenched in their faith. I think there will be more sympathy for questions or doubts in the church. I see it happening. Because truth cannot be dismissed, it only gets painted and dressed up by our different perspectives on it.

I agree. It will be a slow process but I have a lot of hope for this. It’s already like this in several YSA Wards in the US East Coast, in my experience; not a perfectly inclusive environment but much more sympathetic to those who have doubts.

[Anonymous]

Ann wrote:

This quote meant a lot to me when I found it a couple of years ago and might come in handy:

Quote:

We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction. — Otto Neurath

I looked at the boat as my own personal faith vessel, but if the boat is the church it still applies, I think.

Great quote Ann! I think at one point my boat burned to a crisp and I found myself floating / drowning. Rebuilding it little by little.

In response to the OP, everyone is at a different level and a gentle reminder of that to your quorum members that Christ was inclusive and not judgemental is possibly difficult to do tactfully. The main thing is inclusivity.

[Anonymous]

Follow-Up:

We had this discussion yesterday in HPG. We started out reading the few beginning paragraphs and then we started to get into a discussion about why people might leave. I raised my hand a shared a few different thoughts I had:

-I have siblings who have left the church and they are happy, happier than they were being Mormon. They are good husbands and fathers and care about their communities. So I find some of the generalizations that Elder Ballard makes in here to not line up with my own lived experience.

– Out of my group of friends from BYU when I was an undergrad, maybe 40% of us are active, 40% have left, 20% have resigned. The reasons they have left are varied – many of them have dealt with historical issues, theological issues, moral issues that they are wrestling with. And many of them feel like there is no place for them here. They aren’t allowed to ask questions, they aren’t allowed to express doubt and they feel like they don’t have space.

-Some of them have left and made good decisions, some have not. It’s been a mixed bag, but so it is within any group.

A brother followed my comments by talking about how he has a simple faith, there are some couples in his ward who have become inactive because they started thinking about things logically, and that doesn’t make sense to him. But at the same time in his own family he has members who have left and the only way to maintain a relationship is to not judge them, and just love them. (You had to be there but it was fantastic!)

The facilitator share some personal stories that really shook his faith and he basically said he was barely holding on, he’s white knuckling it. It was so raw and authentic and so powerful. (Honestly, I could feel the love for him grow in my heart and I felt it in the room as well. Personally I think people are craving authenticity, to have a space where they can be themselves, but that is just my opinion. But i get that sense a lot).

There were some of the usual comments as well from more Orthodox members (prophets can’t lead us astray, just have to pray and read scriptures).

We finished by reading the last paragraph about ministering and finding those who have left the boat. I commented and asked if we are ready for that? Can we handle that? Can we handle having people there with different levels of faith trying to work out their concerns? I said I don’t we are there yet, I think we can get there, I think many of my friends would still be attending if they felt there was a space for them, but they don’t feel it, not yet.

A friend of mine closed with sharing Elder Uchtdorf’s comments about their not being any stipulations on the size of people’s testimonies. It was a nice way to close. I went and gave the brother who was leading the discussion a hug and let him know I was glad he was there.

Overall, I think it went well. I was talking with friend later that evening (who shared the E.U quote) and he thought I may have touched a few nerves, but that it was a good discussion. It went further than surface level and people need to be stretched and to hear the things I was saying. So who knows, but I felt good for attempting to speak in some small way for those of us who sometimes don’t feel like they can’t. I don’t know if I helped uplift or not, but I felt good in my heart and sometimes that is all we have to go on.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like you had a good, productive lesson.

:thumbup:

[Anonymous]

I am teaching in HPG in a few weeks. I am really thinking of a combination of the “stay in the boat” and “your testimony doesn’t have to be this tall” along with a bit of “what can we tolerate as differences” – which is just about what your experience was this Sunday.

You have motivated me to get busy preparing.

[Anonymous]

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

Our HPG lesson yesterday was Pres. Uchtdorf’s Saturday morning talk in which he made the statement about not having a minimum testimony height requirement, and the brother who led the discussion is new to the ward. He talked about times in his life when he has struggled and how he never really “got” the temple and had been going just to go – and how he had a neat experience this month that made him see that sometimes we have to do something over and over even when it’s kind of boring in order to be there for that one stunning moment when the heavens open and we learn something profound.

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