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bridget_night wrote:
Well, we attended our second Sunday RS and PT. We had sincerely prayed before we went for the Lord to guide us. Not one person greeted or said hello to my husband in the high priest group. They never even asked him to introduce himself and acted like he wasn’t even there. It was a business meeting on home teaching and they were complaining that the bishop never gives them the information they need. My husband used to be hp group leader and so he asked if there wasn’t a members clerk that would give them that info. They said they did not know. My husband said it was one of the most awkward dysfuntional meetings he had ever attended.
RS was fine and a lesson on preparedness. The teacher read the whole lesson with little discussion. The old RS president who I knew, just glanced at me and said, “Oh, your back?” and then took off. The singing was lackluster with no enthusiasum. So, not the best of signs, but we will go a few more times and give it a chance.
Three words of advice Bridget… BE THE CHANGE!
Sing enthusiastically.
Comment regularly about how the gospel has made a difference in your life.
Offer solutions where others only complain.
You may be just what this ward needs!
I so wish you guys could visit my ward. Even our slow Sundays are pretty good and there is a real spirit of Christlike community. I’ve been in wards that were dysfunctional and I can remember not wanting to attend church. And I remember how much that sucked the life out of me, how my spirituality (not religiosity) waned. I want to reach through the internet, grab you guys and bring you here for a couple of weeks. There is so much life in a ward that functions as it should and in which members are loving, non-judgmental, and mature.
Old-Timer wrote:Bridget, please read the following post. I thought of it when I read about your experience today:
“Someone Needs You Every Single Day” (
http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2009/12/someone-needs-you-every-single-day.html My only advice is to change the reason for your attendance at church to match what my friend shared in the post above – no matter what church you attend. I’d like you to try it in the LDS Church first, obviously
That is excellent Ray. Thank you for sharing that link and reminding me of what’s most important.
Quote:Three words of advice Bridget… BE THE CHANGE!
Sing enthusiastically.
Comment regularly about how the gospel has made a difference in your life.
Offer solutions where others only complain.
You may be just what this ward needs!
Just what I needed to hear tonight!! Thank you.
Last night I told my husband about your replies in regards to us being the ‘change’ and going with a different attitude. He totally agreed that this was correct advice. He and I are generally that type of people. He is a humanatarian and we both like to help. I do think this is how God wants us to be. Ok, move up to this morning; my husband said that he really does not want to go back to the lds church again. He said that the lds church is set up too much like a business or corporation with employees. You are expected to do this or go here, otherwise alot of guilt is laid on you. Eventually, the pressure to have a testimony is there and if you question too much and don’t have a testimony you are a bad influence on the other members. My husband said that it is just too difficult to be a ‘middle ground’ Mormon in the lds church. So unless, God gives him some big revelation to go back to church he doesn’t want to go back.
How should I reply to him?
bridget_night wrote:Last night I told my husband about your replies in regards to us being the ‘change’ and going with a different attitude. He totally agreed that this was correct advice. He and I are generally that type of people. He is a humanatarian and we both like to help. I do think this is how God wants us to be.
Ok, move up to this morning; my husband said that he really does not want to go back to the lds church again. He said that the lds church is set up too much like a business or corporation with employees. You are expected to do this or go here, otherwise alot of guilt is laid on you. Eventually, the pressure to have a testimony is there and if you question too much and don’t have a testimony you are a bad influence on the other members. My husband said that it is just too difficult to be a ‘middle ground’ Mormon in the lds church. So unless, God gives him some big revelation to go back to church he doesn’t want to go back.
How should I reply to him?
Out of the blue last night, my thoughts were turned to an essay written years ago by Eugene England. I looked it up online and skimmed through it and for some reason I’m starting to think I read it for you, Bridget.
http://www.eugeneengland.org/why-the-church-is-as-true-as-the-gospel I love how he contextualizes the fact that the church’s greatest problems are also its greatest assets in terms of fostering an environment in which we can grow.
That corporate nature of the church – well it can be a pain! – but it also allows us to send wheelchairs and glasses to Africa, food to Haiti, and school equipment to Asia in unimaginable quantities while other local churches are selling barbeque dinners on Friday nights just to buy a few hundred pounds of food for the local food bank or to pay for an add-on to their church buildings.
Let me know what you think after you read it
Much love,
Cate
Hi Cate, Thanks so much for your reply. I started reading it, but it is very long so will get back to you. Sounds interesting and help. Part of the problem for my husband is that he tried for so long to get a testimony and do Moroni’s promise and never got an answer. The other was bad experiences with giving Priesthood blessings when he did think he was inspired. He also got so frustrated with people not doing their callings and the lack of enthusiastum from people who claimed huge testimonies. And lasting, the church callings took so much of his time that he negelited his children and family and almost lost us. So, he does not want to go there again; thus, unless he gets a bold clear answer to go back, he won’t. bridget_night wrote:Hi Cate, Thanks so much for your reply. I started reading it, but it is very long so will get back to you. Sounds interesting and help. Part of the problem for my husband is that he tried for so long to get a testimony and do Moroni’s promise and never got an answer. The other was bad experiences with giving Priesthood blessings when he did think he was inspired. He also got so frustrated with people not doing their callings and the lack of enthusiastum from people who claimed huge testimonies. And lasting, the church callings took so much of his time that he negelited his children and family and almost lost us. So, he does not want to go there again; thus, unless he gets a bold clear answer to go back, he won’t.
That struggle for a testimony is actually addressed in England’s essay! Now I know I read it for you
His issues are real, he just has to be the one who changes rather than letting the church change him. If it helps, the church seems to be moving in his direction. In recent years, general leaders have made it clear that there are to be fewer demands on family and that the church exists to help families and individuals not the other way round. When the new handbooks were introduced in the leadership broadcast, this was stated explicitly.
It sounds like your husband and I have had some of the same issues in our church experience.
Cate, I was just reading some more of the article you suggested. I quote here: “I HAVE COME to an overwhelming witness of the divinity of the Book of Mormon, such that the Spirit moves me, even to tears, whenever I read any part of it, and I came there by teaching it at church. I am convinced that book provides the most comprehensive “Christology”—or doctrine of how Christ saves us from sin—available to us on earth and that the internal evidences for the divinity of the book entirely overwhelm the evidences and arguments against it, however troubling.”
After 11 years of praying and fasting many days to get a testimony of the Book of Mormon with no success, our bishop asked my husband to be a stake missionary. When my husband told him that he did not have a testimony of the Book of Mormon, he promised him that if he accepted the calling he would get that witness while teaching. My husband was open to giving it a try as he really wanted a testimony. After 3 months he asked to be released as he never got a witness while trying to testify. It reminds me of Packer saying you get a testimony in the bearing of it, even if you do not believe it. In the latest survey done by John Dehlin on why people leave the church, many never get that witness and they are earnst and sincere. I just don’t have the answers to life questions anymore Cate. I used to be so sure of things, but feel so unsure of alot of things right now. But, I will continue reading the article and do appreciate your input.
Thank you. Bridget
bridget_night wrote:I just don’t have the answers to life questions anymore Cate. I used to be so sure of things, but feel so unsure of alot of things right now.
Bridget, I think that’s the key to being able to make true progress. Why search if you already have all the answers?I also think it’s entirely possible for Brother England to “know” that the BoM is one thing, for your husband and countless other honest seekers of truth to come to a different conclusion, and yet for them all to be “right”. In fact, I don’t see how it could be any other way.
Hi Doug, Thanks for your reply. Please explain a little more about why ‘everyone’ could be right? The bishops and leaders my husband tried to talk to about his struggle for a testimony always looked flabergasted. It was always that something must be wrong with him, because there is only one right answer. Maybe “the Lord maketh no such thing known unto (your husband)” – and he needs to accept that and not worry if others don’t get it. Bottom line, it’s his choice. Don’t fight him about it, even if it means you attend two churches for a while.
Thanks Ray. You always do a good job in bringing the emotional back to the rational. Bridget, I owe you a HUGE apology! The Eugene England essay is the wrong talk. I read so much last night that I must have blurred it with another talk. I posted using my memory instead of my good sense.
The talk I was thinking of discussed hearing an apostle/prophet describe trying Moroni’s promise in hopes of an overwhelming and undeniable response but not getting one only to realize years later that the fruit of the gospel in his life had been the evidence he sought.
Since I got home from work and read your post, I have literally been going line by line through my search history trying to find the talk.
I hate my aging brain…
Cate
PS If anyone knows the talk I am referencing, could you, um, help a sista out?
Your human, like the rest of us. I still appreciate the care and concern you always show. Bridget
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