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i have heard of one instance of one LDS congregation rebuilding a church for a congregation of another denomination after a natural disasterAfter a natural disaster here for 4 weeks our SM consisted of taking the sacrament, getting our work assignments, then going out and cleaning up. I could do that for church every week. I have talked to many other people who feel the same way.
rebeccad wrote:Quote:
i have heard of one instance of one LDS congregation rebuilding a church for a congregation of another denomination after a natural disasterAfter a natural disaster here for 4 weeks our SM consisted of taking the sacrament, getting our work assignments, then going out and cleaning up. I could do that for church every week. I have talked to many other people who feel the same way.
*claps hands* this is the kind of thing I was talking about. The current mandate someone somewhere said(I can’t remember who) “being a Mormon means coming from a meeting, in a meeting, or going to a meeting”.
This is just way to many meetings(talking) instead of action. If its about the meetings then we have silent our time talking and not acting.
silent= spent and the iPhone autocorrect lol. Anyways I have spent my life in serving others both inside and outside the church and wait for the day the church encourages less meetings and more action. Adding more meetings and responsibilites isn’t going to work.
We have to be fluid in our life and less rigid with structure. We need some structure but we have to learn to be more fluid with situations. Life is unpredictable, people’s needs around us form and change at any moment. Being more fluid and flexible with being in the service of god because we are in the service of our fellow man(women).
Example* well I was in the process of going to another meeting but my neighbor or situation around me needs help,support, love at the moment and that would be more beneficial to spend my time in*
We can’t set a ridged structure and only adhere to it or we will lose so many opertunites to serve others.
rebeccad wrote:After a natural disaster here for 4 weeks our SM consisted of taking the sacrament, getting our work assignments, then going out and cleaning up. I could do that for church every week. I have talked to many other people who feel the same way.
Perhaps it can be viewed that natural disasters are needed (although never wished for), to remind us of priorities. This is why I stay LDS. There are good works I see in the church that I want to be apart of. I could do that every week also, rebeccad. It is pure religion and spiritually uplifting.
Quote:James 1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
For several years, I have collected articles and quotes about the fruits of Mormonism, that are in some way significantly outstanding from other churches. Following are a few of the items I have collected: Can Mormons be identified by pictures of their faces
http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2010/12/22/can-mormons-be-distinguished-by-their-faces/ Mormonism good for the body as well as the soulWhat do you get for being a Mormon?http://universe.byu.edu/index.php/2011/08/15/what-do-you-get-for-being-a-mormon/ Only the LDS Church has no professional clergyHugh B Brown tells a story I find inspiring about a bunch of soldiers who demonstrated how their religion inspired them to action in a very meaningful fashion.
Mormonism offers a covenant of caring
Newsweek magazine wrote: “No matter where Mormons live, they find themselves part of a network of mutual concern; in Mormon theology everyone is a minister of a kind, everyone is empowered in some way to do good to others, and to have good done unto them: it is a 21st century covenant of caring.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2005/10/16/the-mormon-odyssey.html In 2003, “Book Magazine “named the
Book of Mormon one of the “20 Books That Changed America.” Service to the sick and distressed.
I am underwhelmed by the quaiity of Home Teaching that passes for service (including my own HT). Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 I had the opportunity to travel with a group of men from our ward and stake who traveled to New Orleans to help shovel out muck from people’s homes. We left Friday afternoon late, would work all day Saturday plus Sunday morning, and then return home. We did this twice, and I read where the church put 30,000 men into New Orleans for 6-8 weeks to help. It was dirty work, but I couldn’t help feeling good about heling those people who were overwhelmed with grunge, stench and chaos. In a home we hauled out all furniture, carpeting, cabinetry that was soaked, and piled it on the curb for city pickup. We then shoveled out the muck and and sheet rock that was soaked, along with all destroyed personal items. Homeowners were crying for gratitude for the help we could provide them so they could see how they might rebuild. I would go do that kind of service again at the drop of a hat.
How about we not worry about outdoing the other guys and just worry about improving ourselves. Quote:How about we not worry about outdoing the other guys and just worry about improving ourselves.
Amen, Cadence. Perfectly said.
Cadence wrote:How about we not worry about outdoing the other guys and just worry about improving ourselves.
Not being a competitive person by nature I find living this way immensely helpful. I agree, well said Cadence.
How we are in relation to another is infinitely less important I believe then where we personally are in relation to our personal potential.
Cadence wrote:How about we not worry about outdoing the other guys and just worry about improving ourselves.
That sounds good and simple enough to execute but if you measure improvement in terms of trying harder to achieve things like 100% home teaching, more temple work, spending more time re-reading scriptures, etc. (I.E. mostly busy work and strict observance of a long list of rituals and rules) then I’m not sure it will make much of positive difference in any tangible results and how we are perceived by outsiders regardless of whether you are trying outdo the other guys or simply accomplish more than you did last year.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:Cadence wrote:How about we not worry about outdoing the other guys and just worry about improving ourselves.
That sounds good and simple enough to execute but if you measure improvement in terms of trying harder to achieve things like 100% home teaching, more temple work, spending more time re-reading scriptures, etc. (I.E. mostly busy work and strict observance of a long list of rituals and rules) then I’m not sure it will make much of positive difference in any tangible results and how we are perceived by outsiders regardless of whether you are trying outdo the other guys or simply accomplish more than you did last year.
Personally I would not equate those things as improving myself. That is mostly busy work to me, and actually detracts from getting any real work done. I think we all can look around us and see what needs to be done. We can not accomplish everything but we can to a few things here and there that may make a difference. I reject the notion that we must be anxiously engaged in work of the church all the time, but it does not hurt to be engaged in improving your community with what resources and time you have.
Whether someone looks at me and says he is a good guy is irrelevant. I am no looking for brownie points. I am looking for inward satisfaction and maybe I can help others along the way.
Cadence wrote:Personally
I would not equate those things as improving myself.That is mostly busy work to me, and actually detracts from getting any real work done. I think we all can look around us and see what needs to be done.We can not accomplish everything but we can to a few things here and there that may make a difference. I reject the notion that we must be anxiously engaged in work of the church all the time, but it does not hurt to be engaged in improving your community with what resources and time you have… Whether someone looks at me and says he is a good guy is irrelevant. I am no looking for brownie points. I am looking for inward satisfactionand maybe I can help others along the way. Sorry, I wasn’t trying to say that you specifically would think doing more of these activities would be a real improvement or that you would be overly concerned with what others think about you or the Church. What I meant when I said “you” was simply that if some hypothetical Church member only hears that we need to improve ourselves because it is not sufficient to focus on all the visible things we should not do but we should also focus on all the good things we can do without being specifically asked (D&C 58:26-29) then he or she could very easily think these familiar rituals and rules represent the highest form of piety and therefore doing even more of the same would supposedly already be a major improvement.
How much has the overall character of most active Church members really improved on average since George Albert Smith originally gave this talk? My guess is not very much; in fact the Church may have actually regressed significantly with some of the more recent changes like correlation and overuse of the “commitment pattern.” I have seen and heard about some truly disgusting behavior by active Church members and it baffles me to see that they will invest so much into things like callings, attending meetings, full-time missions, tithing, and strictly obeying the WoW and other rules but they can’t be bothered to act like decent and respectable human beings in normal everyday situations.
To me this is a shame to see especially when Church members typically put a level of conscious effort into trying to be good and do good that is already way above average. That’s why I think the results we see are not so much an indication of not having significant room for improvement because we’re not that different from everyone else and shouldn’t expect to be or that Church members’ motivation is seriously lacking or flawed as much as a reflection of what exactly the current objectives and priorities the Church focuses on the most are. In other words, it looks like the way the Church currently defines “good” is not good in many cases so members end up trying hard to do a long list of things that are counterproductive or at least not nearly as important as the Church acts like they are to the point that they feel worn out and lose interest in doing very much beyond that.
doug wrote:Heber13 wrote:Honestly, I cannot see the difference, I just like good people and think the LDS church is one of many sources of helping good people produce fruit.
What are your thoughts/experiences?
I can’t either. I see good, bad and in-between wherever I look. This was a huge part of my faith transition. Now, I bristle at the idea that my friends’ Catholicism or Protestantism somehow prevents those friends from being whole.
I know what you mean.Wholeness is really personal – it’s not based on a specific religions portrayed monopoly on “wholeness.”
🙂 I personally find being involved with the church as a convenient way of loving others on a regular basis – a sense of community – helping one another.
I see how most members serve almost too much – but it’s limited to who they’re asked to serve & within their own ward… & too many don’t know how to love themselves (raising hand) nor others outside of their ward (or even sometimes within their ward, but who they are not asked to serve).
My experience with most “non-members” is that they may not serve as regularly, but when they do they don’t judge who they serve.
Not all, but more nonmembers than members seem to have a better sense of self-awareness & therefore have a deeper capacity to empathize & love others.
Of course, these are generalizations.
Cadence wrote:How about we not worry about outdoing the other guys and just worry about improving ourselves.
Easier said than done, IMO.It’s the ideal… but in reality – we are compared with each other – in a family, in interviewing for jobs, in dating, in sports etc.
Others make comparisons either involving us or others.
We know this & it seems (at least for me) difficult to turn off the comparison mentality.
It’s so dang simple, but so hard to internalize: the kingdom of God is within… not without!
I struggle with this a lot – “lookin’ for love (& acceptance) in all the wrong places.”
All it takes is one time of being really hurt by a comparison, to be somewhat obsessed with “outdoing the other guys.”
I see this a lot between siblings – even as they get older.
Deep down, they believed because a parent seemed to favor one over the other, they feel “less than” & obligated to prove their worth.
Maybe Mormon’s history of being ridiculed as a “peculiar people” developed a bit of an inferiority complex that insists on being better than others.
Or it could just be part of “team spirit” – especially when viewed as,
“All the world’s a stage & all the men & women merely players.”
😯 :problem: :silent: :ugeek: :shifty: 👿 :angel: 
:clap: (Great performance – so believable!!)Quote:Maybe Mormon’s history of being ridiculed as a “peculiar people” developed a bit of an inferiority complex that insists on being better than others.
Good observation, Featherina. I think there’s a lot of communal truth in that. “We’ll show them we really are special” is a powerful (and dangerous) motivation.
cwald wrote Quote:I think his premise is that we should be BETTER than our Christian neighbors.
Cwald I agree. Through my observations of others, and world religions, I realize that the Mormon arrogance is brought down by Catholics, Buddhists, and Evangelicals who outshine us in how they live, and their attitudes toward life.
In watching a documentary called Buddha and the Bodhi Tree, a Catholic priest acknowledges his failure to live as generously and graciously as the Buddhists he is supposed to convert. (He resides in South East Asia) He struggles with the fact that he perceives the Buddhists as more Christian than he is.
Further, I know of many people in other faith traditions that are far better at living the gospel than I am. For these reasons I don’t see why missionary work is important to convert such. I would rather turn my attention to someone struggling more than me, so what I had to offer them would be more relevant to their state of being. Yes, I am out done by my Buddhist friends, yet at the same time they realize that we are all human and prone to mistakes.
No man is infallible as the gospel he claims to follow. Even Howard W. Hunter said something like I put my pants on one leg at a time acknowledging that he is as human as anyone else.
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