Rediscovering the Beauty of Testimony Meetings

Several years ago, I invited our next-door neighbors to attend the blessing of our baby. They were close friends, and it was natural to include them, but I felt a little nervous due to the format of fast and testimony meeting. I wanted to prepare my friends, so in a rambling and awkward way, I told them that on the first Sunday of each month, people freely come to the pulpit and share their religious convictions—and with that, a variety of personalities are on display. My description was tinged with embarrassment and I’m guessing that was obvious to my neighbors.

Fast forward many years to when I was working on my master’s thesis on the ‘Latter-day Saint Talk’ in which I argue that there is the potential for creativity and growth in the practice of lay members preaching to one another. My thesis supervisor effectively did his job by pushing back at my work as he repeatedly emphasized the Church’s hierarchical structure and the resulting limits on what speakers could say. During a particularly challenging conversation, I used the less structured nature of testimony meetings to argue that there is freedom within the constraints. I even described it as an open-mic Sunday to emphasize the very aspect of the meeting that had been a source of embarrassment for me years earlier.

So, why the contrast in how I handled these two situations? Why did I apologize in one but defend in the other?

To read the entire article: Public Square Magazine