article in Mormon Light


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So, I'm reading, If You Thought Last General Conference Was Exhilarating, Buckle Up!, in Mormon Light. It discusses the author's impressions from various people that there are going to be major changes announced in October.  Possibilities he put forth were:

  •  reducing church meetings to two hours (actually, my bishop's wife said the same thing to me and that they were testing it in some wards)
  • getting rid of the primary program
  • dissolving singles wards 

All very interesting.  Assuming that the Church is going to continue to move with changes such as ministering, what do you guys think might be announced in October?

For me, I'd like to see a relaxation in ward boundaries. This is purely personal - either my son or I would like to move to the next town over. We're talking adding another 8 minutes or so to the drive to church. I feel I can't move outside my current ward because all my friends are there. Yeah, maybe I could make new friends, but maybe not. I think it would be different if I were moving out of the area. I get that I can't commute 4 hours to go to church. But living 8 minutes away, I'd see my former wardmates at the bank, at the grocery, we'd end up talking for a couple of minutes and then moving on. Very sad. I've seen it. 😞 

Also, though my son isn't a member, he isn't against the church (he's even received priesthood blessings). He might be able to come to church with me a few times, but if he began to investigate, if he moved and I didn't, eventually he'd have to go to the other ward. This ward shares our building. My son and I would be like ships in the night, passing each other between services instead of sharing experiences at church. I am perhaps being dramatic, but you get my point.

So, what changes would you like to see?

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I feel like expressing (or, frankly, even thinking about) what I want is the wrong path to be down. I want what God wants. I suppose to be totally honest I should say I choose to want what God wants. When God reveals it, I'll choose to want it. Sure, there's a chance I won't understand or see the value of something directly and might need some spiritual guidance/revelation/experience to get it. But I'll support it and get behind it.

Putting my interests into the mix prior to the Lord revealing His will just seems like a recipe for problems.

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I feel like every general conference there is some group of people somewhere that think something big is ganna happen.

One March while serving my mission, there were spread rumors that something big was coming in the April General Conference. Apparently Elder Christofferson has said something to our mission president on his recent visit or something.

What happened?? A lot of talks about keeping the Sabbath day holy ;)

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8 hours ago, Vort said:

I would like to see changes that would move us toward Christ and a Zion society. But I don't know what those changes might be. Copout? Maybe, but those are my honest feelings.

I echo this.  It seems like most of the "guesses" or "hopes" seem to be geared toward lessening the time we are worshiping or doing Christ's work.  They want less time in church, remove studies, relaxation of church organization, etc.  I want those things strengthened.  I'd love to see stronger study sessions, supported by structured at home lessons.  I'd hate to see my Gospel Principles class go away.  I'd love to see more community activities supported by the church.  My ward does well, but we can always do better.  

Beyond that, I'd love to see changes that strengthen our church and move us forward, not weaken it or water it down to assist the members who have a heavy focus on worldly activities.

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11 hours ago, Fether said:

I feel like every general conference there is some group of people somewhere that think something big is ganna happen.

One March while serving my mission, there were spread rumors that something big was coming in the April General Conference. Apparently Elder Christofferson has said something to our mission president on his recent visit or something.

What happened?? A lot of talks about keeping the Sabbath day holy ;)

Well - you are usually right.  However, there are large groups pretty much everywhere that believes it this time.  This is not because one apostle said something it's because many of them have, along with other general authorities.  I think change is the new norm.  

The people I heard stuff from last year that were right seem to have the same info this time.  Last time I was told the change would be priesthood and the final session.  This time around it's sounding like every session will have something.    Where will you be when 2 hour church is announced?  😆

 

 

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5 minutes ago, e-eye said:

Where will you be when 2 hour church is announced

Protesting it the whole way! I may be the next Sam Young if that happens. Anyone want to preemptively join me before any announcements are made?

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8 minutes ago, e-eye said:

there are large groups pretty much everywhere that believes it this time.  This is not because one apostle said something it's because many of them have, along with other general authorities.  I think change is the new norm.  

 The people I heard stuff from last year that were right seem to have the same info this time.  Last time I was told the change would be priesthood and the final session.  This time around it's sounding like every session will have something.    

Now I’m curious of your sources. Do you have any?

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25 minutes ago, Fether said:

Now I’m curious of your sources. Do you have any?

My friend at work (M) says she talked to another of our friends at work (I) who has a relative (X) in the Logan UT area who says that his ward (X's ward) is part of a pilot program trying out the 2-hour block.  They didn't get rid of any meeting, they shortened them (exactly how is unclear).  Sounds worse to me than getting rid of one of them - 20 minute Sunday School?

Anywho, that's as authoritative as I've heard.  What they do, they do, and we support it, but if we chop everything short, it's gonna look to me more like when Moses broke the first set of tablets than like when Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount.

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25 minutes ago, zil said:

Anywho, that's as authoritative as I've heard.  What they do, they do, and we support it, but if we chop everything short, it's gonna look to me more like when Moses broke the first set of tablets than like when Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount.

 

25 minutes ago, Vort said:

This.

Whereas I do see that sort of thing as a lowest-common-denominator thing...that may not be totally fair.

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19 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Whereas I do see that sort of thing as a lowest-common-denominator thing...that may not be totally fair.

It may not be - what do I know?  I'm just some idiot on the internet.  One thing I am absolutely certain of is that if this happens, it will happen because the Lord said to make it happen (or at least said it was OK to make it happen).  Thus, what comes comes, and we support it regardless of whether it looks like the Lord giving us something better or letting us have what we wanted.  I'm not sure it'll make that much difference in the end.

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12 minutes ago, zil said:

It may not be - what do I know?  I'm just some idiot on the internet.  One thing I am absolutely certain of is that if this happens, it will happen because the Lord said to make it happen (or at least said it was OK to make it happen).  Thus, what comes comes, and we support it regardless of whether it looks like the Lord giving us something better or letting us have what we wanted.  I'm not sure it'll make that much difference in the end.

Right.

I should clarify why I'm saying that: The church has grown beyond a homogeneous group of individuals like the Israelites or the early pioneers. Way beyond that. So thinking of the church as if we're all one big group that's all growing or failing together simply doesn't work. The Saints in Utah may, overall, be more faithful and ready for a higher way (or the opposite), but the Saints in the Philippines or Indonesia or India may really be struggling with long standing policies that have worked well in Utah but do not in the different world setting(s) there. More realistically...the Saints in one ward may, majority-wise, be on a higher plane, and the next ward over they may really be struggling.

So even if there is some of giving the people a king because they clamored for one in any given change -- that doesn't mean it's fair to view that as the overall scope of the matter. With the organization growing so large and diverse, things are simply more complicated than that. So yes, we trust the Lord either way...but I think we should be careful, in our own assessments, to even attempt fully defining the why of it all. The ones saying church is going to be shorter because we're so busy are probably wrong. The ones saying that if church is shorter its because the people were too weak to handle what they should have been able to handle are probably wrong. There may be some truth in both ideas...but there's probably more to whatever change occurs than we can really understand.

Edit: I should clarify that my initial "Right" wasn't a response to "I'm just some idiot...", but to the idea of trusting the Lord, etc. ;)

Edited by The Folk Prophet
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I agree with your post, @The Folk Prophet; but it’s probably also worth noting that we didn’t start out as homogenous. We started out as a polyglot of regional antebellum Americans and various Western European peoples and cultures and languages, all of whom made a conscious decision to merge into a common culture.  There always needs to be a balance between institutionally accommodating what can’t realistically be changed, while also letting people know that “this is just who I am” only gets you so much mileage in a gospel of repentance.

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1 hour ago, Fether said:

Now I’m curious of your sources. Do you have any?

It's all 3rd hand.  I followed the rumors close last go around - there was 2 hour church chatter but I gave it a 10% chance because nobody had a good source and it seemed like more people just wanted it.  This go around I am now up to 80% it's going to happen.  Multiple people saying they know someone in the know that says it's coming.  Then you get comments like President Eyring gave on Saturday about members needing personal revelation to understand the Lord changes how the church does things.  I am 100% on board there will be changes announced- more so than last time.  A would be surprised if 2 hour church didn't happen.  

I'm not watching conference for the changes though as that really takes away from the messages.  The changes announced will be a great opportunity to learn the Lords will together.  

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1 hour ago, Fether said:

Protesting it the whole way! I may be the next Sam Young if that happens. Anyone want to preemptively join me before any announcements are made?

Good luck with that!

I think 2 hour church sounds great but I think it will also come with us being asked to do more on our own studying with our family.

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34 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I agree with your post, @The Folk Prophet; but it’s probably also worth noting that we didn’t start out as homogenous. We started out as a polyglot of regional antebellum Americans and various Western European peoples and cultures and languages, all of whom made a conscious decision to merge into a common culture.  There always needs to be a balance between institutionally accommodating what can’t realistically be changed, while also letting people know that “this is just who I am” only gets you so much mileage in a gospel of repentance.

Hmm...I may be struggling to be clear on my thoughts. Actually I'm not even sure my thoughts are clear. It's more of a sense on the matter that a "this is the why of it" is probably not fair. It is easy enough to see, in general, that a policy, for example, about how often people need to physically be at church might work well in a place where there's a church on every corner, and not so well in a place where there's one church for 100 or more miles. That sort of thing should be obvious I think. There are a million things like that, methinks, the world over. God sees them all.

So maybe the term homogeneous wasn't the right one. But hopefully my general idea comes through anyhow.

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1 hour ago, Sunday21 said:

We are more and more a church of converts. The 3 hour block is hard on those, like me, who have nonmormon relatives to service. 3 hours on Sunday may be ok if your family is lds. I wonder if we are now a majority of converts world wide? The PEW research is USA based.

My family isn't LDS.  I'm a convert.  I converted BECAUSE of the truthfulness of the doctrine and the "we serve God regardless what public opinion is".  If I'd wanted watered down religion there are plenty closer to my house that I could choose from.  That said, I'm not getting worked up about "what ifs" and I trust the Prophet has a plan from God that will make perfect sense to me if and when it's rolled out.

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@Just_A_Guy, I should add to that: I find it particularly problematic when a theoretical "you don't have to be at the church so much" policy gets implemented related to how few churches there are available in all the other-world places and the theoretical Utahn-with-a-church-right-across-the-street exclaims, "Finally! I really needed that!"

Edited by The Folk Prophet
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2 hours ago, Sunday21 said:

We are more and more a church of converts. The 3 hour block is hard on those, like me, who have nonmormon relatives to service. 3 hours on Sunday may be ok if your family is lds. I wonder if we are now a majority of converts world wide? The PEW research is USA based.

Agree. If they dropped an hour it might be easier for some of us to start going to church again. Some of us don't because of family obligations to non-LDS family members. 

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I think we will see changes to the Sunday School program.

 

At some point I expect to see a 2 hour block (there are wards that are currently trying this out) and marriages removed from the temple in the US like most other countries.

 

Glock is already the official firearm for the church, so no new news there.

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1 minute ago, MormonGator said:

Agree. If they dropped an hour it might be easier for some of us to start going to church again. Some of us don't because of family obligations to non-LDS family members. 

In all fairness, I don't believe if you aren't going now you'll start going if it's shorter.  People just come up with new excuses to justify what they know to be wrong.  There are three hours every Sunday the Church asks you to participate.  Nobody locks the doors.  People come late and leave early every Sunday.

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