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I was trying to really think about what my issues with the church are specifically. I do think there is a bit of the totality of evidence against the truth claims, but I thought about it for a few days. I was having a bit of a hard time really listing this out explicitly. I then had a thought about reversing the question and ask, “What would make you gung-ho about the church and want to be in full fellowship?” I thought it might be an interesting questions to ask here. I would have to believe that JS was a prophet and not just a charismatic leader and that missionary, genealogy and temple work were necessary. By anyone viewing me from the outside, I am fully active up to and including teaching GD since I can teach Christian and moral truths without bearing testimony that it’s a historical document. If push comes to shove on any of those, I’ll sit farther in the back. And here is my list when I tried to pair it down to just the most important and basic. 1. The top leaders to show some honesty and humility – They would apologize for past issues (blacks and the priesthood and temple ban, admit there is some real skeletons in the closet, had it wrong on gays for decades, not as sure on everything as they say they are) and start attempting to listen more to the members of the church instead of top down only.
2. Make church more fulfilling. Neuter the correlation committee and get some professionals that can create interesting and thought provoking lessons that are more stimulating than playing solitaire for a few hours. Reduce the 3 hour block and instead have more social events to allow members to really get to know one another – including service opportunities to people other than members without it being a missionary effort.
This would not solve all my issues with the church, but I would be excited to do as DFU said and “Come Join with Us (them)”
GBSmith wrote:I would have to believe that JS was a prophet and not just a charismatic leader and that missionary, genealogy and temple work were necessary. By anyone viewing me from the outside, I am fully active up to and including teaching GD since I can teach Christian and moral truths without bearing testimony that it’s a historical document. If push comes to shove on any of those, I’ll sit farther in the back.
Interesting. You will see from my my post I was thinking what the CHURCH (or actually the leaders) could do.If I take the angle you were using, it would be some reasonably strong spiritual confirmation that This was THE place God wanted me to put all my energy into. I have been trying for a few years and it is kind of exhausting me.
Good question LH. I’m not sure I know the answer for me, either. I will say I am very much like GBSmith, I focus all that I do at/with/for church on the gospel. I do agree that I’d like the top leadership to be more forthright and honest. I’d like them to stop parroting. I’d like them to admit that they are only human, that the receive revelation/inspiration/etc. the exact same way the rest of us do and that they see through the same glass as darkly as the rest of us. And I’d like them to differentiate between doctrine, policy, and tradition.
Correlation is a love/hate thing for me. I like it because I recognize its noble purpose – uniformity of doctrine. Unfortunately to achieve that they sometimes have to be heavy handed. Nevertheless, I see things like removing Nelson’s statement that the November policy was revelation from seminary materials as doing what they’re supposed to do and am therefore grateful for correlation. I don’t think correlation is responsible for making the lessons the way they are, I agree they need professionals preparing lesson materials.
I would very much like to see shorter church and more service to the community.
I would also like to see fewer requirements in many areas, making church less of a job and more of something I want to do because I enjoy it.
Door prizes and doughnuts every Sunday. But seriously.
DarkJedi wrote:I would also like to see fewer requirements in many areas, making church less of a job and more of something I want to do because I enjoy it.
That’s mine but the devil is in the details. How would the church achieve this? I feel like there are so many programs at church that don’t really accomplish anything, it’s just busy work. Everyone will have different things that they respond to but I feel like the culture has set up the expectation that everyone should like everything. This may require more growth at the individual level than the institutional level but I think there’s some happiness to be found in saying, “No thanks, I don’t find that interesting.” and then walking away not feeling guilt or like you’re a lesser saint. That’s all internal. The external piece may be to not treat people like they should feel guilt or like they are second class saints for opting out of things that don’t interest them.
I typed up this huge list of complaints then realized I wasn’t answering the question, I was just venting. Oops. All the complaints boiled down to one thing, more variety. More variety in lesson material (looking to the collective wisdom of the whole world, not just a small group of people living in a narrow window of time – inbred much?), variety in programs, variety in buildings. Find a way to surprise me… while teaching about an unchanging god. Should be easy, get to it!
🙂 nibbler wrote:That’s mine but the devil is in the details. How would the church achieve this? I feel like there are so many programs at church that don’t really accomplish anything, it’s just busy work. Everyone will have different things that they respond to but I feel like the culture has set up the expectation that everyone should like everything. This may require more growth at the individual level than the institutional level but I think there’s some happiness to be found in saying, “No thanks, I don’t find that interesting.” and then walking away not feeling guilt or like you’re a lesser saint. That’s all internal. The external piece may be to not treat people like they should feel guilt or like they are second class saints for opting out of things that don’t interest them.
I agree, Nibbler. I think for me that’s part of the problem, there are too many programs. Too many programs means people are needed to staff/run them. So if there were going to be fewer programs, what goes? Sure we could do away with Scouts, but I think youth programs are important so we’d still need people. Relief Society? Lots of women find joy and friendship in their associations there and doing away with it would also take away some of the little voice that women have. Home and visiting teaching? It’s got my vote to go, but it’s purpose is good and how do we take care of the needy without it? It would need another program to replace it, but perhaps it could be done in a way less taxing to (human) resources.
Recently in a council meeting we were discussing the lack of attendance at single adult activities (not to be confused with YSA activities). There are several SAs in my ward and I brought up that for these sisters and brothers their needs are already being met – they have friends, callings, family associations, lives, etc. You would have thought I was a heretic (which I admit I sometimes am, but not at that moment). The first response was, “Well then they should be concerned about the needs of others and be bringing them to activities.” This next part only went on in my head, but seriously they should go to something they don’t want to go to and bring someone else who probably doesn’t want to go either? Why? Maybe the answer is fewer or more relevant activities as opposed to trying to guilt people into things they don’t want or need. Maybe the expectation should be only for a few to attend – those who want/need what is being offered.
Lastly, I think the idea that everybody has to have a calling is ingrained in the culture. I look around at other churches and see happy devoted members who do nothing besides attend Sunday services (1.5 hours max) and perhaps give a donation. Some people probably do need a responsibility to keep them coming back, some people only have friends at church, and some people get nourishment from the good word of God at church – I prefer mine home cooked of late (lots less processed).
I would get gung ho is… 1) Lessons and sermons and doctrine were mind blowing and energizing and applicable to my life so I talked about them outside church with family and friends;
2) fewer requirements so I could enjoy my time with family without competing obligations and guilt;
3) Some really really cool people were in my ward that loved to do such fun things together we were all good friends and church was hanging out with these close friends.
I think that would do it for me.
nibbler wrote:I typed up this huge list of complaints then realized I wasn’t answering the question, I was just venting.
That is what I kept doing when trying to distill it down to the core issues.Fewer roaches in the ice-cream (to quote a great man)… Seriously, I would agree that more humility from the leaders would help. I think inspiring local leaders would also help. Ones that have the time to really care about their membership in a transformational way. Callings that align with people’s passions. Kindness all around from various members. Had one lady be really rude to me when I made a faux pas…two rudes don’t make a polite. When people act out of incivility it really saps my enthusiasm.
Less monotony. Although I feel I am trying to address that.
I don’t think I could ever be as gung-ho as I once was though. I have seen too much of the dark side of the church, and I am doing all I can just to stay active.
LookingHard wrote:And here is my list when I tried to pair it down to just the most important and basic…Make church more fulfilling. Neuter the correlation committee and get some professionals that can
create interesting and thought provoking lessons that are more stimulating than playing solitaire for a few hours. Reduce the 3 hour block and instead have more social events to allow members to really get to know one another – including service opportunities to people other than members without it being a missionary effort…This would not solve all my issues with the church, but I would be excited to do as DFU said and “Come Join with Us (them)” Personally I could live with the Church preaching some false doctrines and having so much embarrassing history surrounding it if being an active Mormon didn’t still seem like such a pointless pain and hassle. Basically for me to feel good about supporting the Church I would have to feel like it was a worthwhile use of my time compared to sleeping in and watching football on Sunday or whatever else I could do instead. Your suggestions of making the lessons more interesting, shortening the meetings, and focusing more on the potential social/community benefits would go a long way towards that along with maybe making the callings easier and less time-consuming.
At the very least I think some basic changes like this would prevent quite so many members from falling away in the first place even if many disaffected members and ex-Mormons are probably never going to return no matter what they do at this point. Personally I think they should move away from the “one true church” mindset and overbearing expectations that members should be obligated to simply believe and do exactly what they are told without resistance to more of a case of being just another church where the people that are there really want to be there and to me it looks like trying to maintain the current system at all costs is essentially a classic example of kicking the can down the road for others to have to deal with eventually anyway.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:… to me it looks like trying to maintain the current system at all costs is essentially a classic example of kicking the can down the road for others to have to deal with eventually anyway.
I don’t feel that is all in the future. The leaders today are dealing with some cans kicked into the future by previous leaders where they didn’t see how the Internet would change access to information.Making church more convenient or entertaining may help with attendance for the short run but it’s conversion to something that makes people stay. Whether it’s being committed to Christ or your friends or your bishop, it has to be to something otherwise you’ll never put up with noisy sacrament meetings, boring lessons, or being willing to spend two hours in the nursery with a bunch of snot nosed ankle biters. Sorry to say it but good churches are for believers, not tourists, which for me is the dilemma as I’m not so much one and don’t care to be the other. First off there is no more gung ho for me. I am agnostic about the truth claims and not particularly motivated to act for that particular carrot/stick. However I believe that there are a few easy things the church could do to make the experience better for people like me. (without alienating the gung ho types)
1) Appeal to my kids. I am just not into forcing my kids to attend classes that they strongly dislike. We participate in a number of community churches and my kids like the LDS one the least. When we attend the LDS church my son would prefer to sit with us in our adult class and read rather than go to primary. My son enjoys scouts and my daughter enjoys activity days. I am hopeful that as my kids become teenagers the YM/YW program will offer more to interest them than the primary currently does. (my kids do enjoy going to some other churches so I know that I am not asking the impossible.)
2) More activities and opportunity to socialize. 2 words – “pot” & “luck” the church could provide hamburger/hotdog and ask everyone to bring a side. We also have 3 wards where I live. They could do a tri-ward church picnic every 4 months and have a different ward be in charge of the hamburgers/hotdogs. This way each ward would only need to plan it once a year.
3) Make it user friendly to find out about the activities. Father & Son campout is a good example of this. I did not know about it for years. It was on the stake calendar that I did not have access to. There was no ward carpool or caravan. I think that the people in the know assume that everyone else knows. Everyone is on their own to get there and set up camp. This strikes me as the perfect type of activity to interest investigators or the less active. Why not get the word out and make it easier to attend? We have a weekly program (the little tri-fold program from SM) that does not include any of activities. There is no bulletin board with this information. There is no website. Most of these things are shared during priesthood meeting announcements. If you do not attend priesthood then you are mostly out of luck.
For a church that focuses so much effort on the missionary effort, it is surprising to me little we seem to put forward in terms of making the experience somewhat attractive for people that might be sitting on the fence of activity.
GBSmith wrote:Making church more convenient or entertaining may help with attendance for the short run but it’s conversion to something that makes people stay.Whether it’s being committed to Christ or your friends or your bishop, it has to be to something otherwise you’ll never put up with noisy sacrament meetings, boring lessons, or being willing to spend two hours in the nursery with a bunch of snot nosed ankle biters. Sorry to say it but good churches are for believers, not tourists, which for me is the dilemma as I’m not so much one and don’t care to be the other. I don’t know about that, even if that’s how the Church typically works now that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the best or only possible way to operate. Why couldn’t people be converted to a decent experience and/or cause that they would have less of a reason to question the validity of in the first place? Personally I think this is actually half the problem with the Church at this point, namely that it depends so much on a sense of obligation based on converting people to belief in a dubious set of narratives that can be so quickly and easily discredited with a minimal amount of research.
Look at it this way, going to the dentist was never my favorite thing to do but I still do it anyway mostly because I think it is worthwhile and for a long time I put up with the Church for similar reasons basically because I thought it was what I was supposed to do. So it doesn’t necessarily need to be especially enjoyable as long as there is a worthwhile reason for it, but if believing in the restoration story, BoM, etc. is the only reason then that can quickly go away and then some people are probably going to need other reasons to do things they wouldn’t otherwise or else it’s simply not going to happen in many cases. Of course, there are already other possible reasons people go along with the Church such as mostly for the sake of their families and members could also say no to things like callings, temple recommends, etc. on an individual basis without leaving the Church behind altogether.
Also, this whole discussion reminds me of the South Park episode were the Mormon kid was saying something to the effect that maybe Joseph Smith made it all up but I have great life thanks to the Book of Mormon. That’s the real level of belief that many members are actually converted to, basically the Church works well enough for them at this point, but I think the Church could get many more members to stay this way by focusing on the actual everyday experience and trying to make that as positive as possible instead of trying to make it all about whether specific doctrines are true or not, strict obedience, etc.
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