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Someone personally asked me this very good question. I thought I would open up a discussion about it. Here is my response. Please note, this is just my personal view. I am not the only person driving the ship here at StayLDS. This how I see StayLDS.com
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Yeah. StayLDS might on the surface look a lot like NOM. I don’t want StayLDS to serve the same purpose though. I really think NOM fills a tremendously valuable service to the faith community. I don’t want to compete head-to-head with NOM. It’s also why I have hesitated to talk about it or advertise it on NOM. This site is very new, and we are slowly working on the structure and mission of the community.
I see NOM as an elevated landing place for people who have fallen of the cliff in a crisis of faith. People fall flat on their face, and it hurts sooooo bad inside. When that bubble bursts, people’s whole meaning just crumbles. It’s terribly traumatic. NOM is a softer landing spot. NOM does that really really good. I have so much respect for the natural community leaders in NOM that soften that blow in post after post. It’s so important that NOM be there for people.
NOM, to me, serves the community of people who don’t believe in the Church anymore, *BUT* have to stay engaged in a positive way with the Mormon community for various reasons (family, job, social, etc.). The bottom line though is that NOM is not a community of believers, not deep down. That’s fine. It’s a real community. I am not judging that position (good/evil), but that is what I see. That is what I experience at NOM. There is an upper limit to religiosity and belief that is embraced and tolerated. There is also a lower limit of anger and vitriol that is tolerated at NOM. Dathon and the crew do a fantastic job of managing that range. But in the end, there is only so much “true belief” that is tolerated and embraced.
My vision of StayLDS is to position it in a place different than NOM in the faith spectrum of Mormonism. StayLDS will be a community of people who have spent a good deal of time being angry and disillusioned perhaps, or maybe they just didn’t get hurt as hard when the bubble burst. There are many possibilities. The most important difference between NOM and StayLDS is that StayLDS will focus on supporting people who want to rebuild a new faith in the LDS Church. It will not be like FAIR – trying to shove people back into the old way. There’s no going backwards, but there’s a growing community of people who are wandering out of the dark night of the soul that decide to re-integrate back into Mormonism in a new way.
NOM = people who want/need to stay positively engaged with the Church, but don’t believe anymore.
StayLDS = people who lost faith, but want to believe again in the LDS Church
I hate to call it a step up, because that implies superiority. Maybe think of it as a left/right spectrum? I don’t know. It is a different community of people.
Why not broaden the tent at NOM and include these people? I don’t think the two communities share the same goal. I also don’t think all the people in the two communities can cohabitate on the internet peacefully and productively. The more believing people on StayLDS will not be comfortable with the fresh and angry people on NOM.
Oh. One last step. It’s my intention to cultivate production of new interviews and essays like at the old MormonStories site
That’s my vision and hope for this site, as well. I know there is a place for those who have been exposed to all of the “issues” but remain faithful anyway, and I want to be able to contribute to that community. I respect what NOM does, and I am so glad it is available, but it’s not for me. At the core, I am a faithful Mormon who wants association with the Church AND deeper understanding of and appreciation for the theology. I want to maintain and develop my testimony in full light of the issues, and I have found my testimony strengthened as I have addressed the issues.
I want that to continue, and I hope this is the place – so to speak.
I agree with Ray’s perspective on this one. I think we can grow stronger as we try to understand all the theology including things we misunderstood previously. Valoel, I agree with your entire post and I think you’ve hit it pretty square on the head. Valoel wrote:
NOM = people who want/need to stay positively engaged with the Church, but don’t believe anymore.StayLDS = people who lost faith, but want to believe again in the LDS Church
A year ago I would not have understood this mission – people who have lost faith that “want to believe again”. I would have thought “they want to fool themselves?” or something similar. I like how you stated “people who want to rebuild a NEW faith in the LDS church.” It’s true, there is no going backwards in life – we cannot rewind the clock. In life we move forward from where we are. I see this “new” faith as personal and unique to each individual. Some may feel they can reintegrate into the LDS community practically as seamlessly as ‘before’. Others may not. I, like you see the common thread through StayLDS as a desire to be CONNECTED to the church in a way that goes beyond physical presence. It includes some sort of personal/spiritual benefit from participation. I think a desire for growth is the key, and the willingness to be open. A few sayings come to mind:
It is better to be good than to be right (so often we want to feel ‘right’, that WE are the ones that KNOW what the truth really is).
Becoming is more important than Doing.
Love IS the law.
Thanks for a great thread, I look forward to more of the structure here coming to light!
I think those missions are well articulated…for me, someone who is on the fence, I’m going to be trying to be a part of both — so my apologies in advance if I don’t toe the line as well as I should. I’m still falling off the cliff, and am not quite sure how I will land.
cjonesy108 wrote:I’m still falling off the cliff, and am not quite sure how I will land.
Welcome cjonesy108! I hope you’ll feel at home around here, and stick around to get a better feel for things as we develop. I appreciate your efforts to co-exist at both communities, I personally think both can be helpful to anyone in a crisis state – the wider you can open your viewfinder at the moment the better off you’ll be in the future.
Please feel free to post away on whatever thoughts or questions are relevant to you at the moment!
People don’t have to chose to be in only one community. I participate a little at NOM too when I have the time. I encourage everyone to pull from any source that helps them build faith and sort out their thoughts. I also encourage everyone to provide help to others when they can. Maybe some days we need to be at NOM or even a place like ExMo or FLAK. Those last two are exceptional places to explore and express hurt and disappointment.
We’re trying to build faith back up here at StayLDS. It’s ok to talk about the Church being divinely inspired even with the flaws here. You probably will not receive as much support for that at other places that are open about the controversies.
Fwiw, I comment at a number of very different sites (no surprise there – *grin*), and I spend more time on one or another sometimes depending on my mood. I want this site to take more and more of my blogging time as it progresses, because I believe deeply in the core mission of dealing with “issues” and remaining faithful and active in the Church. I understand intellectually the emotions that drive much of the discussion on NOM and Open Mormon and FLAK and other sites, but I just don’t get anything out of most of the discussions (I don’t learn anything from them) – and my contributions wouldn’t be appreciated or accepted much due to assumptions about my faithfulness. I understand that, so I spend my commenting capital in places where I feel I can contribute in a meaningful way and also where I can learn from others.
I for one am glad to have you around Ray, I’m excited that you want to help fulfill the mission of StayLDS (SLDS?) I think you are perfectly suited for the position and can be looked to as a role model for many I’m sure. I should say the same goes for the others around here. Valoel, I can see your time and dedication, I’m sure I’m not the only one that appreciates it. So many things are taken for granted in an online community. To all the other contributors/visitors – thanks for reading and posting!
Valoel wrote:NOM = people who want/need to stay positively engaged with the Church, but don’t believe anymore.
StayLDS = people who lost faith, but want to believe again in the LDS Church
Valoel , I can’t afford the therapy to tell the difference between these two motivations for staying
Valoel, I am sorry I missed this thread earlier. It is a good one. I am still torn.
Philosophically I am very well aligned with NOM. But I am a big prude (Sorry. Can’t think of a better way to say it.) to put any Latter-day Saint to shame. I have never in my life really used foul language, and I quit saying shoot and dang in my teens. I am uncomfortable with the glamorous, rude, or shocking avatars at NOM. I would like a NOM that is more, well, family friendly, for lack of a better term.
I have no desire to believe again in the LDS Church. Yes, I feel called to bloom where I am planted. But I don’t envision that including appreciating it anymore than I would appreciate Catholicism if I had decided to convert to it.
I now have a moral compass and a spiritual beacon that are totally independent of the LDS Church. And so “what is it unto thee” if I choose to dwell among them, “yea, perhaps all my days”?
Is it necessary to frame the mission of StayLDS in terms of “believing again in the church”? Could it possibly be something less threatening like:
1. To live with new joy in the church
2. To love the church in a new way
3. To be LDS without fear, anger, or apology
Would any of that be an improvement?
kupord maizzed wrote:Would any of that be an improvement?
It could be. You seem pretty happy about where you are at, so it seems to work for you. I suspect there are as many paths to that happiness and comfort as there are people that seek it. I am curious to find out as more people gather here and share the story of their journey.
Maybe your solution is to not really believe in the Church as an institution — to simply coexist in harmony with the others where “you were planted” and thrive there. I like the ideas in your list.
Valoel wrote:Maybe your solution is to not really believe in the Church as an institution
Well, that’s certainly true!
I would hope that more NOMs would not be slowly on their way peacefully out of the church, but rather seeing a mission and place for themselves in the church. It takes love, but we all have that.
“Father, where shall I work today?”
And, my love flowed warm and free.
Then He pointed out a humble spot and said,
“Tend that for me!”
I answered quickly, “Oh, no, not that!
Why, no one would ever see.
No matter how well my work was done:
Not that little place for me!”
The word He spoke, it was not stern;
He answered me tenderly;
“Ah, little one, search thine heart;
Art thou working for them or Me?
Nazareth was a little place,
And so was Galilee.”
Nice poem! KM, I don’t think you’re as far off our mission as you may think. I like to see one of the fruits of our efforts as learning “not to worry about other people’s definitions.” Maybe people feel good about being in the church and express that as believing IN the church. Maybe others express it as you did “to love the church in a new way.” I really like that phrasing, I have said very similar things myself. I have tended toward “becoming compatible again with full activity” that certainly doesn’t put me back into an absolutist mindset. I always took “believing again” as with the added “in a new way” for granted I guess. I like to think we can rise above the definitions, and just be happy, share love, serve, and everything else you have proposed. Some of us may want to be more “fully” active than others, I don’t see a problem with that. To me the bottom line is cultivating a positive relationship with the church, not wandering “peacefully out of the church” as you so rightly observed. To me that is the main distinction. I think you’re on the right track, it’s the positive spiritual attitude that we like to share around here. It’s okay if some people express it with different words. I try to hear “TBM” words with “translating” ears.
I would like to take this opportunity to bear my testimony of the NOM board. No, wait. Let’s see, how can I say that better? I’d like to take a moment to stand up for the NOM forum in light of the goals of StayLDS. The goals of NOM are actually very close if not identical. The moderators at NOM do accept the option of ending up a Catholic. But they hold as the ideal staying in the church. Rather than helping people out of the church, they seem to realize staying doesn’t work for everybody. And sometimes things boil down to irrational expediencies of life.
Based on what I’m saying, it appears the difference between NOM and StayLDS is that StayLDS aims to stay more idealistic, where NOM seems to be more in the trenches meeting the needy where and when they are hurting. Is that fair?
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