The Church isn't perfect?


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18 hours ago, clbent04 said:

This is so true. "The church" is a living, breathing organization that, while inspired of God, is entrusted to be run by his valiant, yet imperfect servants. Trusting man with anything always leaves room for error.  The Gospel, however, is static. It is was it is. It does not change. The gospel is eternal truth, unwavering in its principles

But the gospel, while revealed by God, is revealed through His valiant, yet imperfect servants. So where does that place the gospel on the error-perfection scale?

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31 minutes ago, mordorbund said:

But the gospel, while revealed by God, is revealed through His valiant, yet imperfect servants. So where does that place the gospel on the error-perfection scale?

Good point. Allow me to throw an asterisk in there: The gospel is perfect*

*as far as it is translated and interpreted correctly as revealed to his servants (whose to say prophets and apostles don't make mistakes?). I think the gospel is pretty spot on though. Even if something is revealed and not received exactly the way God intended, the First Presidency and Apostles are diligently listening to the will of God to direct this church as He would if here in person

Edited by clbent04
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3 hours ago, clbent04 said:

Good point. Allow me to throw an asterisk in there: The gospel is perfect*

*as far as it is translated and interpreted correctly as revealed to his servants (whose to say prophets and apostles don't make mistakes?). I think the gospel is pretty spot on though. Even if something is revealed and not received exactly the way God intended, the First Presidency and Apostles are diligently listening to the will of God to direct this church as He would if here in person

Just to keep pressing the issue: Can't the same be said of the Church? If the organization, doctrine, and policies are revealed and not received exactly the way God intended, the First Presidency and Apostles are diligently listening to the will of God to direct this church as He would if here in person.

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27 minutes ago, mordorbund said:

Just to keep pressing the issue: Can't the same be said of the Church? If the organization, doctrine, and policies are revealed and not received exactly the way God intended, the First Presidency and Apostles are diligently listening to the will of God to direct this church as He would if here in person.

The more cooks you have in a kitchen, the more chance you have for error.  The church is operated by millions of people, from the First Presidency all the way down to members with ward callings.  The margin of error is much greater when it comes to everyone executing church operations as the Lord intends.  The gospel is much more perfect considering it has come to us by means of revelation received by a few, select men.  Only one cook is in that kitchen at any given time, the prophet.  Only the prophet can receive revelation for the body of the church.  The Lord has quality control for the gospel on lock down.  It's a sigma level 7+ rating, whereas the execution of all church operations might be at a level 4.

https://www.isixsigma.com/new-to-six-sigma/sigma-level/sigma-performance-levels-one-six-sigma/

Sigma Performance Levels – One to Six Sigma
Sigma Level Defects Per Million Opportunities (DPMO)
1 690,000
2 308,537
3 66,807
4 6,210
5 233
6 3.4

What Would This Look Like In The Real World?

It’s one thing to see the numbers and it’s a whole other thing to see how it would apply to your daily life.

Real-world Performance Levels
Situation/Example In 1 Sigma World In 3 Sigma World In 6 Sigma World
Pieces of your mail lost per year [1,600 opportunities per year] 1,106 107 Less than 1
Number of empty coffee pots at work (who didn’t fill the coffee pot again?) [680 opportunities per year] 470 45 Less than 1
Number of telephone disconnections [7,000 talk minutes] 4,839 467 0.02
Erroneous business orders [250,000 opportunities per year] 172,924 16,694 0.9

 

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12 hours ago, clbent04 said:
Real-world Performance Levels
Situation/Example In 1 Sigma World In 3 Sigma World In 6 Sigma World
Pieces of your mail lost per year [1,600 opportunities per year] 1,106 107 Less than 1
Number of empty coffee pots at work (who didn’t fill the coffee pot again?) [680 opportunities per year] 470 45 Less than 1
Number of telephone disconnections [7,000 talk minutes] 4,839 467 0.02
Erroneous business orders [250,000 opportunities per year] 172,924 16,694 0.9

 

In my world:

Mail: About a 4.5

Coffee Pots: I believe about a 3.  Obviously, I'm not as acutely aware of this statistic as others.  However, we now have a single serve machine.  So, it will essentially go down to zero events.

Telephone: I'm at about a 3.  I have Republic.

Business orders: 6.  Actually, I've never had an erroneous order for any business product.

Edited by Guest
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  • 3 months later...

I just feel like the author shifted definitions.

we say:

“the people aren’t perfect, but the church is”. By this we mean that the teachings and places The church will take you is perfect, the people in it are not.

Author argues:

”The church isn’t perfect, the gospel is.”

author is essentially meaning the same thing.

I get concerned when people try to seperate the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Church. They are one in the same. I have a friend that believes this whole heartedly, the church is just a tool to get us to God. I have heard him say “The church is just YOUR way of getting to God. We all need to find our own way of getting to God and the church just doesn’t work for me”

This of course is false

Edited by Fether
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  • 2 weeks later...

You know, I'm LDS and have even been in a few leadership positions and know that I and the folks I served with were not perfect, but I think the OP has an interesting point and that is "definitions". I do not think "The Church" defines its own structure as "perfect"  where "perfect" means to be absolutely without fault. This ideas of "being 100% without fault" is one of those things the antis jump on us about every time a misspelled word or misused grammatical phrase is found in the BoM or General Conference talk. For me, the way the term "perfect" is used by the church means "the very best we have right now" otherwise the basic organization of the church would never have changed since April 6, 1830. One of the best things about "The Church's" basic structure is its openness to change and flexibility. This linked article in the Trib is a tiny example of LDS structural flexibility that ignores the hidebound implications of a word like "perfect".

For me, the structure of "The Church" is as "perfect" as it possibly can be, but should a better option come along or if the Lord tells us to change, then we will change to that "more perfect" (what a beautiful oxymoron) form.

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  • 5 months later...
13 hours ago, pwrfrk said:

To me, no matter how impure and sinful the people may become, I'm not worshiping them, I'm not going to church for them, I am for God and Jesus.  To me, the church is perfect. 

Do you personally define the Church as God and/or Jesus?

M.

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This is just an off-the-top of my head thought. One occasionally used definition of perfect is whole or complete. If the fullness of the gospel has been revealed, then this would add to the likelihood that the church is perfect. if the fulness has not yet been revealed, then perhaps the best we could say that at the moment, there is a limit to the degree of perfection that the church can attain.

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