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I’m glad sacrament meeting is only 60 minutes. I rarely attend the second hour anyway, except for the occasional sunday school with my wife. I would rather get shot with a Taser than sit through 50 minutes of mind-numbing Elders quorum. My good mother is a saint and means well, but she can be a little too extreme for me. An ordinary discussion eventually turns into a Gospel Doctrine class so I avoid it sometimes. I recently brought a sugar-free Monster energy drink to a dinner at my parennt’s home. I was lectured and practically raked over the coals for consuming such an abomination. I’m fit, eat healthy, 8% bodyfat, workout and pretty much avoid junk food. I brought up the fact that there’s many obese, unhealthy members of the church who are feeding their faces full of junk, sugar, fast food, but I get dinged for drinking an occassional energy drink. Holy crap! The point is this: there’s so many more harmful things a person can put in thier bodies than caffeine. If you’ve ever worked in a jail or prison for a career like I do, then it’s very understandable to believe that this is Hell. It’s simply mind-boggling how “children of God” can behave like animals and do such sick and heinous things to others. It’s no wonder the Lord has to burn the Earth prior to the Second Coming…….it’s basically FUBAR. From what I understand, Hell is a literal place where the truly wicked go to suffer for their own sins prior to entering spirit prison. This is for people who have victimized others in very sinful ways (sex offenders, murderers, etc.).
nibbler wrote:
When I want metrics, performance reviews, opportunities for career advancement, loads of stress, deadlines, and a thankless job to do I go to work… or I guess I could also attend church. Where do I go if I want spiritual experiences?
Exactly how I feel. I work in a very demanding job dealing with the most difficult people in society (criminals, drug addicts, sex offenders, etc.). We have to abide by policies and procedures and get evaluated based upon our work performance, etc. I don’t need this sort of stuff from leaders in my ward and stake.
I personally don’t do home teaching, not because I don’t think it’s wrong, but on my days off I’m pretty burned out from dealing with difficult people at work. The last thing I want to do is go to a neighbor’s home, put on a happy face, and pretend I want to be there. I’m actually an introvert by nature and it is a real challenge for me to put forth effort to get outside myself and socialize. I come home from work drained and mentally fatigued. Extroverts, on the other hand, tend to feed off of interacting with others and get a natural high from it. I don’t. I feel like the church is taking me, a triangle, and trying to push me to fit into their circle shape. It’s not a one-size-fits-all life and our leaders need to take into consideration that we are all different and not just drones and robots here to accumulate stats and numbers. Unless I’m fully committed to a principle or an idea I refuse to do it. I never just go through the motions.
Genuine service is never compulsory or done out of duty. It’s done from the heart and by our own agency. I believe it’s more Christlike to take the time to pull over and help push someone’s stalled vehicle out of an intersection, help your wife with housework, or buy a homeless person a fast food meal than it is to do compulsory home teaching just to appease ward and stake leaders with numbers. Why is it they don’t ask about true service done in our daily lives as we go about our travels?
We are friends with another couple in our ward. She’s my wife’s best friend and her husband and I got along well until he was made Elder’s Quorum 1st counselor. Now, despite my efforts, the only time he communicates with me is to ask about home teaching stats. I tend to avoid him now and don’t care much to socialize with them.
Stayforthedip wrote:Some of the best advice I ever heard was when my spouse was extended a stake calling and the counselor said to him, “Be careful not to sacrifice your family on the alter of service.”
This is what my parents have chosen to do and as a result their relationships with their children and grandchildren have really suffered. I feel bad for them because they feel they that in giving their life in the service of the church they really will be blessed. But as for right now, they have lost much more than I think they will ever gain.
So very true. What gets me about a lot of service/missionary work lessons is that we always talk about doing it outside the home, with strangers, home teaching, etc. etc. Very rarely does the instructor or members of the class bring up that the most important service and missionary work we can do is in our own home with our spouse and children. I personally know of some men in the church who do their home teaching, go set up chairs, hold a calling, but are horrible when it comes to helping their wife in the home. A lot of members don’t get this and think they have to have a challenging calling or do 100% home teaching to feel fulfilled and put God first. I believe by putting my family first and serving them, I’m putting God first since the family is the fundamental unit of His plan and church.
QuestionAbound wrote:So – my son was denied admission to BYU Provo.
Okay, that’s fine. He wasn’t totally on board with going there anyway, but it got me thinking…
BYU – Idaho accepts 99% of their applicants.
For my son, Idaho is his backup to his backup.
He has great test scores, quite a number of college credits already, great kid, etc. so there was no way he wouldn’t get in to Idaho, but this post isn’t about Idaho. I bring it up because one of the stipulations for Idaho becoming a 4-year school was that they needed to be as inclusive as possible…hence the low admission requirements and the track system.
We fund church schools with our tithing money (at least, in part).
So, we’ve (my family) been paying into these church schools all of our lives through tithing.
And now my son is denied admission to Provo.
And I am just not sure how I feel about that.
:think: Why can’t Provo be as inclusive as Idaho? I mean, it’s a church school, meant for church members, funded (in part) by church members (yes, even those who live in Zimbabwe), but not all church applicants are allowed in.
Why does this rub me the wrong way?
It really isn’t like he has been dreaming about Provo his whole life, it’s more like he applied as a “why not?” kind of deal, so I promise we aren’t heartbroken, but this tithing thing/admission thing is really bothering me.
The same thing happened with my daughter a few days ago as well and the same thoughts crossed my mind.
Reuben wrote:SilentDawning wrote:In the end, I guess I don’t care. What I post here won’t change anything, but I think having a paid Bishop would be a good thing, and a paid SP. So often things don’t happen that should, and could really bless the lives of members if only the Bishops had time to devote to their callings.
And I wish, more than anything, that we had better access to the services of LDS Social services for counseling and other stuff to help us. Church experience is light on practical advice and long on general concepts and values. Counseling could have really helped me years ago when I suffered leadership abuse.
One of the things I’ve identified as a major contributing factor in local unethical behavior is the fact that local leaders are both counselors and judges. This can put them in a position where they have to aid spiritual healing while feeling like they have to render judgment. When they assume the wrong role too much, bad things happen. Members with big problems will avoid local leaders because they’re afraid of that.
I have an idea that might fix that problem, the problem of local leaders not having enough time, and the problem of members not getting professional help: create a paid position of spiritual counselor. It would be full-time, part-time, ward-level, or stake-level depending on need. Let’s call the person in the position a “pastor.” Having a faith crisis? Being abused? LGBT? Can’t kick porn? Can’t get rid of guilt? Don’t think you’re worthy of a temple recommend? See the pastor. The bishop and stake president could refer people to the pastor, too, with referrals under some circumstances required by policy. As well as being trained to provide spiritual support, they’d be trained to recognize abuse and mental illness. Require and enforce as much confidentiality as allowed by law.
At the moment, this is just a half-formed, ill-considered pipe dream.
I like this idea. In fact, at the jail where I work we have a paid chaplain who provides spiritual guidance and counseling for not only inmates, but for staff as well. He has a degree in counseling and is trained to deal with crisis situations. Honestly, because of his experience and education I would be more inclined to go to him rather than Bishop so-and-so who may work as a plumber and who might have no clue how to talk with and counsel members. I look at the position of Bishop more as an administrator rather than a counselor or spiritual leader. I’ve had a couple bishops who were utter a**holes and lost respect for them.
While I am not opposed to the church giving the General Authorities funds for basic living expenses, etc, $120,000 does seem like a lot to me. I’ve worked in law enforcement for almost twenty years and I barely scrape by on my measly income, which is half of what they get paid. I’d love to be a full-time General Authority. This would be a HUGE pay raise for me!
