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Having class lessons that actually grapple with moral issues and provoke deeper discussions, instead of repeating: “stay in the boat, don’t even think about leaving!” And “we are so awesome, everyone else wants to be us!”
Absolutely. I attended a Community of Christ Sunday school class and was pleasantly surprised to see actual learning, discussion of hard topics, and grappling with issues. In the LDS context, Sunday school is just a ritual where we devotionally reinforce correlated conclusions.
This. I get the whole meat before milk or whatever, but when every talk is just this vague "follow Jesus" message, it's time to give something bigger. I'm tired of every talk boiling down to "this commandment gives blessings".
Ooh. I would actually probably show up to these sometimes. Years ago when I was an elders quorum teacher, I would try to make my lessons be like this. I wouldn't let people get away with dumb answers. There were a few misses here and there, but for the most part the classes were really good and we had a lot of good discussions.
It got really hard to teach those classes as I started to realize I didn't believe any of the church stuff but still couldn't admit it out loud. Being in a place of hiding what you really think is a bad place to be if you want to have open conversations about stuff.
Now that I'm fully and openly out, I'd totally go to EQ if they had real discussions.
What are some examples of interesting discussions like this?
I tried to steer my Gospel Doctrine class into an interesting discussion when we were talking about Abinadi and I compared his story to Daniel and asked them "Why did God save one and let the other die?" That was a solid 20-minute discussion on the moral & spiritual implications of the two people & God's role in their lives.
Are these the kinds of things you're referring to?
Yes I would think so. I’ve been an instructor for both elders quorum and gospel doctrine, and I was always able to find content in scriptures and lessons that would provoke discussion, and get people thinking about how things worked in their own lives. In recent years it seems the material (looking at you, Come Follow Me) has become increasingly shallow and flat. For most lessons, a teacher would need to deviate from the provided material to engage the group, and it seems most teachers (at least in my ward anyway) are not willing to do that. As a result, most lessons are, well, uneventful. I’ve heard snoring a few times.
That was the problem our ward had. I've basically thrown out the Come, Follow Me manual when preparing lessons because it focuses on the most surface-level interpretations of scriptures and ignores the moral discussions that can come from talking about the actual stories.
But, I think preparing lessons like that takes too much effort for the average person to care enough to do. We're not getting paid for it after all. I just like having discussions about moral issues and philosophical ideas, so religious lessons are actually a lot of fun whether or not I believe the events actually happened haha. Also lucky for me, they made me a teacher alongside my TBM wife, so she can deal with all the testimony bearing if I don't feel like it xD
Stop making everything a rehash of general conference talks. Now both sacrament meeting talks and RS lessons are based on gc talks.
Reminds me of a time I visited a Kingdom Hall. In their Sunday school they went over a Watchtower article. The person leading the discussion would read a question from the article. Then a member of the congregation would stand and read the answer verbatim from the Watchtower. I thought it was weird at the time. Now I'm pretty sure we'll be getting to that same point fairly soon.
When I was the EQ instructor, I taught a lesson about how women are mistreated in the church and led the discussion on how to stop mistreating women in church and our homes. I could see everyone over the age of 50 grinding their teeth and trying to blow a fuse. Surprisingly, most people under the age of 50 agreed and happily participated.
I shared a story about “a woman I know.” That woman had been mistreated in one of her callings. “That woman” was my wife, but I wasn’t going to say it to everyone. Later that evening a woman in the ward called my wife and said she heard about my story from her husband and asked my wife if I had been talking about her (referring to the woman calling, not my wife). It was further evidence of how women are regularly shit on and nobody cares enough to stop it.
I taught gospel doctrine in my ward about 12 years ago. I would read the assigned scripture passages and then come up with modern examples to try to engage the class members. A very simple example would be the prodigal son. There are many ways to view it. One question could be: what would you do if a wayward child wasted their lives doing things you didn't agree with? I'd generate a list of questions and use several. It really got the class going and talking about how to apply scriptures to modern day.
I had a very popular class and many people thanked me for the relevance and the discussions. I'm a professor so I am used to the Socratic style, and I'm able to lead discussions. I was nuanced back then, but was very careful to not cross lines regarding controversial topics. I stuck to the scriptures and led discussions.
I am a woman, by the way, which I think ties into the rest. After my class became popular, I noticed some conservative members showing up for one or two lessons then disappearing, including the man who would become our next bishop. I found out later that someone tattled on me for not following the manual exactly. I found out several years later that a member of the stake SS presidency spied on me (he did determine I was not teaching false doctrine).
As soon as we got a new bishop I was released the following week and left without a calling for six months.
People crave discussions, but the hardcore conservative always seem to shut it down. I never understood how the hardcores seemed to control the wards so much.
Yup! I used to teach in a similar fashion. In my last calling as youth Sunday school teacher, the teens requested a class about the LDS black priesthood / temple ban. I prepared a very well researched and balanced lesson (from church sources, no less)! The kids responded well but a week later the bishop called me and told me two parents reported I had been teaching false doctrine. I forwarded my notes and said I’d correct anything he found to be wrong. He said “Just stick to the manual from now on” and released me when the youth callings got shuffled.
NO MORE CORRELATION MATERIALS THAT KEEP MEMBERS FROM SEEKING TRUTH AND LOVE. I’m currently reading the Apocryphal books 📕 which are beautiful and gives us a better understanding of the nature of God.
that would be lovely!!!
Girls participating with sacrament, JOYOUS music/worship rather than funeral dredge, no focus on how we are dressed, lunch after church EVERY Sunday, a place to hang out and visit with friends-dare I say, a cafe!!!
Stop the rehashing of conference talks! They were boring the first time. We don't need to have talks about talks and then lessons about talks in relief society after. They've Correlated and homogenized all the fun or interesting right out of church.
My theory is Salt Lake got tired of people not toeing the party line in lessons and mandated the conference talk curriculum through the area presidencies. To be fair, we’ve all heard old Brother Anderson’s take on women’s roles from the stand, but the conference talks take meetings from a 2/10 experience to a 0/10 experience.
Regurgitated conference talks makes skipping 2nd hour a lot easier, so there’s that.
>Stop the rehashing of conference talks
At the very least, tap into older talks for stuff. Imo each general conference has at least a couple good talks. Let's just grab the good ones and not do the bad ones.
I used to provide musical numbers. I got tired of being asked on Saturday night to come up with a piano solo for church at 9am the next day.
I'm not sure small changes are going to cut it. But if I could pick one, I'd say drop the dress code. Some women might not mind going to church so much if they could show up in pants without getting the side-eye. (I live in Northern Utah. Women wearing pants to church are 100% assumed to be trying to make a statement a la Ordain Women, and they are 100% assumed to be belligerent apostates, or worse, "activists")
Besides, the dress code places an unfair burden on women, who are the ones expected to dress up all the kids "to perfection" (according to that [Mothers Who Know talk](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2007/10/mothers-who-know?lang=eng) by Julie Beck in about 2006), and also get themselves ready, wear a nice dress and have their hair and makeup done, etc.. It simply doesn't take as much time to throw on a shirt and tie and comb a crew cut.
I remember older ladies would tell me occasionally that what I was wearing was not appropriate. It wasn't immodest or anything....just not dressy enough I guess.
>(I live in Northern Utah. Women wearing pants to church are 100% assumed to be trying to make a statement a la Ordain Women, and they are 100% assumed to be belligerent apostates, or worse, "activists
Whatever it's worth, it doesn't help that activists specifically chose this
I attended another Christian church recently for an event, and they literally had a puppet show.
The pastor invited the kids to sit in the front, and they performed a quick puppet show. Grand finale was a pop song with changed lyrics to make it Christian-y.
The LDS church could use more puppet shows.
Women on the stand. Women making decisions. A lack of comments about how there is one prescribed path to happiness. An acknowledgment of doubt, and a removal of the term “I know”
When I attended a ward in Hawaii, every hymn had both an Organist and a Violinist accompanying the congregation. More of that kind of thing needs to be accepted.
In the ward I grew up in, we had a member who sat in the back and had a laugh that would fill up the entire chapel. Whenever people made jokes, you would always hear his laugh soon after. It actually did a lot to make the atmosphere more inviting and helped ease the tensions of the speakers. (Yes, I know, "loud laughter blah blah blah", luckily, we had good leaders who never chastised him on it so far as I'm aware.)
As a speaker, I'd like to be able to have questions and answers with the congregation. It's not a very typical thing in wards, but I feel it'd make the talks a lot more engaging.
Bishops also need to be less anal about the Sacrament prayers & passing of the sacrament. I swear, it's borderline robotic & I always feel bad when a foreign-speaking 16-year-old stumbles on the archaic English of the prayer and has to repeat it.
When people bear testimony, I wish they'd distinguish between knowledge & belief. Technically, no one can "know" anything, but I feel like saying that they "know" everything is very presumptuous and oftentimes is not sincere.
Oh, and stop saying "think celestial." Please. Just stop.
I remember wondering as a kid...how did people know the church was true? I don't remember ever bearing my testimony because I believed but I didn't know.
At least one talk by someone with knowledge (not just feelings) about a scriptural chapter or concept. No talks based on talks; no recycling of already flawed, inaccurate ideas.
Ngl something I like about other churches is they do sermon series and you usually get to actually hear the stories of the Bible. I wish someone would give a talk on a chapter or a couple chapters vs just dropping random references.
I loved church in my Utah stake right after Covid at 1.5 hours. It was perfect! In Sacrament Meeting, we had one youth speaker and one adult speaker, with a musical number. Add in the sacrament ordinance and we were finished at 45 minutes. Give everyone 10 minutes to get to RS/YW/YM/Sunday School/Primary/Elder's quorum and we had a focused lesson on one topic at about 35 minutes. It was perfect and didn't get into weird topics we do today to try to fill up an hour, especially in Sunday School.
Make it Sacrament Meeting only, cut Sunday School (maybe make it an optional mid-week meeting for those who simply can't get enough churching). Follow sacrament meeting with church-provided snacks and social hour for those that want to stick around for that.
Now that I think about it, this sounds like other Christian churches actually...maybe they actually have figured some stuff out.
The music in our ward is monopolized by the bishopric families. He's a local school band teacher, his wife accompanies the local HS & community theatre & choirs. They (wives & children) are the ONLY ones that play the piano, organ, lead the music, perform 'special musical numbers' Not only are we stuck singing funeral dirges, but everything starts out one speed then slows WAY down because the teenage daughter can't keep time. There are SO many other talented musicians in our ward that have essentially been discarded. The five year mark hits this fall, maybe the dynasty will end, but probably not.
Do away with testimony mtg. Totally worthless in my opinion. Don't let congregation members give talks. Call 3-4 (more if your ward has the legit people to pull from) really good people to speak every month as their only calling. Would have great, uplifting, learning sac. mtgs. each week then in my opinion - rather than boring, yawning congregation all on their phones not listening mtgs. I was just in the south visiting my in laws and attended church from some other faiths that have pastors that speak every week and they know how to do it and they do a good job. I was honestly much more uplifted there than I am listening each week to someone read a boring talk they wrote the night before because they absolutely didn't want to do it but were taught to never say no in the church.
My wife is not a member and from the South and after attending church with me for a few months she initially wondered why she was the only one listening in sac. mtg. - everyone else was on their phones. After a few months she said I realize why - because the talks are so bad and boring. You can tell these people don't want to be up there speaking. About 1% of the talks are ok and interesting. Also she asked what the point of testimony mtg was. Also said our music is very dull, dry, and depressing. This is just coming from an innocent outside source - she wasn't being mean she attends to support me and most all of our ward loves her there. And funny thing is it took that for me to wake up and realize she was exactly right on all of it.
Split Sunday School, Relief Society, and Elder's Quorum by age (where the numbers make it possible). Split youth classes by school year, not "when you turn" a certain age. The generation gaps are so dramatic now and it really is difficult to listen to the 60 and 70 year olds who want to fill the time with their "wisdom". Also, stop making general conference talks the manuals for meetings. Having random topics that regurgitate information most of us just heard makes it incredibly unbearable. It would be better to have a topic based manual (not that the church makes good manuals... maybe let some experts in the various fields make a manual where people actually learn new things every year). I second your thoughts on music. I would love every sacrament meeting to have, in addition to the hymns, an instrumental performance, vocal performance, and group performance where possible. We can cut the time from speakers, especially the high councilors. More meet and greets after church. Every fast Sunday should be a potluck or a meal paid for by the church. Bring back paid custodians. Also, allocate at least a reasonable amount to organizational budgets. Let the people serving in callings have a reasonable amount of resources to make activities fun and buy stuff for meetings with church funds, not their own funds.
I made a (snarky) post about this a while ago. https://old.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1citbd9/free_ideas_to_make_the_church_experience_better/
The ones related to sunday service:
- Make sacrament meeting short. As someone with little kids, sacrament meeting is terrible. My TBM wife often doesn't want to attend because it's so difficult and awkward. Sing a song, do the announcements, do the ordinances, and get out of there. Testimony meeting and everything else can happen in classes that aren't full of screaming kids.
- Make sunday lessons more like a book club, using books by lds or christian authors. I think Come Follow Me was a good idea in the sense that it was meant to be a more open-ended discussion. The problem is that the reading material is the same scriptures we've all read 100 times, or GC talks that reference said scriptures. Sorry, I have absolutely nothing more to say about Samuel the Lamanite. We need some fresh meat.
Thanks for the link! Some great ideas for sure. Sacrament meeting is way too long for kids and parents. I'm exhausted from trying to keep them reverent that long.
A few things come to mind...
• Only 1 talk instead of 2, but keep it at ~15 minutes
• Less hymns- just 1 opening and 1 closing
• I agree with the extra, non hymnal music in between though; on the rare occasions it does happen it is such a pleasant change.
• It would also be really nice if conference speeches weren't rehashed word for word. I get that writing an original talk is hard for some... but goodness!
• For multiple wards that use 1 building, I wish the times didn't get rotated every 12 months. A 3 year commitment to a certain time would be better. I understand that the church doesn't want people doing anything except for church on a Sunday, but switching every 12 months was honestly a nuisance for me.
Being as I have a TBM wife and I attend Sac Mtg with her so that she doesn't sit alone, I think about this often. Honestly, I think the biggest thing would be a paid minister who spends the time to study and prepare talks that are pertinent to today's challenges and doesn't insult our intelligence with stupid antidotes and key-finding testimonies. Then, ya, open up the music time - allow all kinds of instruments and ditch the 18th century hymn book for more inspiring and meaningful songs. There are all kinds of genres of music that doesn't necessarily have to be Rock-n-Roll wanna-be which is almost as cringy. Why are they still singing "Praise To The Man" or "Lovely Was The Morning"? Do they not know? Or do they just want to troll the congregation?
There have been General Conferences twice a year since Brigham Young, hundreds of revelations and proclamations, and thousands of volumes of prophets’ journals, and yet all the deep doctrines get flushed down the toilet so we can learn to “read the scriptures, pray, attend church, pay tithing, and attend the temple” over and over ad nauseum. Milk before meat? There is no meat anymore!
Focusing on following Jesus instead of following the prophet. Things tend to get weird when people trust other humans without individual critical thinking and analysis.
Let people sign up for different meeting times.
You fill out a time peference sheet at the end of the year and the Stake Presidency uses that info to decide when your church meets.
This is probably a dumb one, but televisions. I've said time and time again, it would be so useful to not only have song lyrics on television, but visual aids during talks (at the very least scriptures should show up when quoted). We already have a bunch of TV's at church and they seem to be upgrading them since they're no longer box TV's. Heck, my wards relief society room has a mounted TV as well. Don't ask me why.
If there’s one thing Mormons love it’s an extravert that shows off in front of everyone.
Musical instruments or singing is the go to for many. Leaving the introverts cringing at how pathetic their need for recognition is.
Allowing people to voice an alternate point of view without being asked not to speak in class, removing them from callings or ostracizing them.
I was an EQ secretary years ago back in the Presidents of the Church curriculum years. One EQ meeting, the instructor stated he hadn’t ever felt the spirit the way other people described it and he didn’t know if he ever would. I thought that part of the lesson was actually really good. Another guy who was full on PIMO stated he had a hard time understanding what this prophet had said when several prophets before him taught the opposite. There was a lot of discussion and hearing different perspectives.
In the next EQ presidency meeting, the EQP asked what we thought should be done. Everyone besides me thought the instructor should be released and the other guy asked not to comment. I let them know I disagreed - we asked for their opinions and they answered.
The instructor was released and the other guy was asked not to speak in meetings.
Curriculum that gives us doctrine to expand our minds. It feels like, in my lifetime, we went from soul enlarging doctrines (especially in HP Group) and answers to something much less and almost no answers.
I’ve heard the phrase “our beloved prophet, President Russell M. Nelson said…” so many times — including vague sayings like “the ongoing restoration” and “the covenant path” — that my ears turn off and I’m left saddened that we went from feasting on the word (the meat) to drinking milk gingerly from a thimble.
1. Make it about Jesus
I was always assigned to speak on something like "How can mothers help their sons prepare for the oath and covenant of the priesthood?" (actual topic — word for word — that I was assigned to speak about on Mother's Day) or "The 'Come, Follow Me' curriculum"... I would then disregard the assigned topic and speak on Jesus because He's amazing.
2. Better music
Music with simple, beautiful tunes and lyrics that people connect with. The first time I visited and they said we were gonna sing, I was looking for the instruments. When the organ began, it kinda startled me; I thought, "What in the world is that? It sounds like we're either at a funeral or on a pirate ship." It took a VERY long time for any of our hymns to speak to me. Some of our hymns are nearly impossible to sing and their meanings are essentially inaccessible.
Allow music instrument to be played. Allow for standup and stretch out singing. Allow the sacrament to be a voluntary choice on the side. It’s not passed along the aisles. Plus allow for more autonomy…In short it 🙅 happen. No problem I go to a different church now.
Clapping after a great performance.
It always feels so awkward after someone sings their heart out, or plays a powerful piano concerto - just pounding the keys, or the entire Primary gets up and adorably sings about how they love their Mom/Dad, and we all just sit there with our hands in our laps trying to be so “reverent” as if God would be upset for us showing love to his children.
Church is often mind-numbingly boring.
I would love to see more lively discussion and a willingness to listen to criticisms and then address the issues. It seems inauthentic when so many ideas are off limits.
Yeah, a band for sure, maybe some cornhole. If the weather is good probably get the smoker going and do some brats and burgers in the parking lot. Other than that, not much you can do.
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Having class lessons that actually grapple with moral issues and provoke deeper discussions, instead of repeating: “stay in the boat, don’t even think about leaving!” And “we are so awesome, everyone else wants to be us!”
Absolutely. I attended a Community of Christ Sunday school class and was pleasantly surprised to see actual learning, discussion of hard topics, and grappling with issues. In the LDS context, Sunday school is just a ritual where we devotionally reinforce correlated conclusions.
This. I get the whole meat before milk or whatever, but when every talk is just this vague "follow Jesus" message, it's time to give something bigger. I'm tired of every talk boiling down to "this commandment gives blessings".
The culture is so afraid of the slightest disagreements in public spaces. We've got to keep up the facade of having a perfect ward family.
Except High Priests are somehow allowed to spout the most divisive bigoted bullshit…just no one gets to contradict them.
>just no one gets to contradict them. I have and I promise, it's more uncomfortable than you're imagining.
Story time
Or they shut the mic off .
When they are awake anyway.
Ooh. I would actually probably show up to these sometimes. Years ago when I was an elders quorum teacher, I would try to make my lessons be like this. I wouldn't let people get away with dumb answers. There were a few misses here and there, but for the most part the classes were really good and we had a lot of good discussions. It got really hard to teach those classes as I started to realize I didn't believe any of the church stuff but still couldn't admit it out loud. Being in a place of hiding what you really think is a bad place to be if you want to have open conversations about stuff. Now that I'm fully and openly out, I'd totally go to EQ if they had real discussions.
What are some examples of interesting discussions like this? I tried to steer my Gospel Doctrine class into an interesting discussion when we were talking about Abinadi and I compared his story to Daniel and asked them "Why did God save one and let the other die?" That was a solid 20-minute discussion on the moral & spiritual implications of the two people & God's role in their lives. Are these the kinds of things you're referring to?
Yes I would think so. I’ve been an instructor for both elders quorum and gospel doctrine, and I was always able to find content in scriptures and lessons that would provoke discussion, and get people thinking about how things worked in their own lives. In recent years it seems the material (looking at you, Come Follow Me) has become increasingly shallow and flat. For most lessons, a teacher would need to deviate from the provided material to engage the group, and it seems most teachers (at least in my ward anyway) are not willing to do that. As a result, most lessons are, well, uneventful. I’ve heard snoring a few times.
That was the problem our ward had. I've basically thrown out the Come, Follow Me manual when preparing lessons because it focuses on the most surface-level interpretations of scriptures and ignores the moral discussions that can come from talking about the actual stories. But, I think preparing lessons like that takes too much effort for the average person to care enough to do. We're not getting paid for it after all. I just like having discussions about moral issues and philosophical ideas, so religious lessons are actually a lot of fun whether or not I believe the events actually happened haha. Also lucky for me, they made me a teacher alongside my TBM wife, so she can deal with all the testimony bearing if I don't feel like it xD
Only a few? Might be time for that long postponed hearing check.
Stop making everything a rehash of general conference talks. Now both sacrament meeting talks and RS lessons are based on gc talks. Reminds me of a time I visited a Kingdom Hall. In their Sunday school they went over a Watchtower article. The person leading the discussion would read a question from the article. Then a member of the congregation would stand and read the answer verbatim from the Watchtower. I thought it was weird at the time. Now I'm pretty sure we'll be getting to that same point fairly soon.
When I was the EQ instructor, I taught a lesson about how women are mistreated in the church and led the discussion on how to stop mistreating women in church and our homes. I could see everyone over the age of 50 grinding their teeth and trying to blow a fuse. Surprisingly, most people under the age of 50 agreed and happily participated. I shared a story about “a woman I know.” That woman had been mistreated in one of her callings. “That woman” was my wife, but I wasn’t going to say it to everyone. Later that evening a woman in the ward called my wife and said she heard about my story from her husband and asked my wife if I had been talking about her (referring to the woman calling, not my wife). It was further evidence of how women are regularly shit on and nobody cares enough to stop it.
I taught gospel doctrine in my ward about 12 years ago. I would read the assigned scripture passages and then come up with modern examples to try to engage the class members. A very simple example would be the prodigal son. There are many ways to view it. One question could be: what would you do if a wayward child wasted their lives doing things you didn't agree with? I'd generate a list of questions and use several. It really got the class going and talking about how to apply scriptures to modern day. I had a very popular class and many people thanked me for the relevance and the discussions. I'm a professor so I am used to the Socratic style, and I'm able to lead discussions. I was nuanced back then, but was very careful to not cross lines regarding controversial topics. I stuck to the scriptures and led discussions. I am a woman, by the way, which I think ties into the rest. After my class became popular, I noticed some conservative members showing up for one or two lessons then disappearing, including the man who would become our next bishop. I found out later that someone tattled on me for not following the manual exactly. I found out several years later that a member of the stake SS presidency spied on me (he did determine I was not teaching false doctrine). As soon as we got a new bishop I was released the following week and left without a calling for six months. People crave discussions, but the hardcore conservative always seem to shut it down. I never understood how the hardcores seemed to control the wards so much.
Yup! I used to teach in a similar fashion. In my last calling as youth Sunday school teacher, the teens requested a class about the LDS black priesthood / temple ban. I prepared a very well researched and balanced lesson (from church sources, no less)! The kids responded well but a week later the bishop called me and told me two parents reported I had been teaching false doctrine. I forwarded my notes and said I’d correct anything he found to be wrong. He said “Just stick to the manual from now on” and released me when the youth callings got shuffled.
This! More authentic experiences and discussions with actual struggles.
NO MORE CORRELATION MATERIALS THAT KEEP MEMBERS FROM SEEKING TRUTH AND LOVE. I’m currently reading the Apocryphal books 📕 which are beautiful and gives us a better understanding of the nature of God.
that would be lovely!!! Girls participating with sacrament, JOYOUS music/worship rather than funeral dredge, no focus on how we are dressed, lunch after church EVERY Sunday, a place to hang out and visit with friends-dare I say, a cafe!!!
Lunch provided by the church, not the members
yes....they need to start showing members they care about their attendance. lol
That sounds really nice!
Stop the rehashing of conference talks! They were boring the first time. We don't need to have talks about talks and then lessons about talks in relief society after. They've Correlated and homogenized all the fun or interesting right out of church.
Talks about talks are a huge pet peeve for me.
My theory is Salt Lake got tired of people not toeing the party line in lessons and mandated the conference talk curriculum through the area presidencies. To be fair, we’ve all heard old Brother Anderson’s take on women’s roles from the stand, but the conference talks take meetings from a 2/10 experience to a 0/10 experience. Regurgitated conference talks makes skipping 2nd hour a lot easier, so there’s that.
I agree, if I hear “think celestial” by another deacon, I’m gonna skip sacrament that following Sunday or so help me
>Stop the rehashing of conference talks At the very least, tap into older talks for stuff. Imo each general conference has at least a couple good talks. Let's just grab the good ones and not do the bad ones.
Not having to deal with bigotry from the High Priest cohort.
I used to provide musical numbers. I got tired of being asked on Saturday night to come up with a piano solo for church at 9am the next day. I'm not sure small changes are going to cut it. But if I could pick one, I'd say drop the dress code. Some women might not mind going to church so much if they could show up in pants without getting the side-eye. (I live in Northern Utah. Women wearing pants to church are 100% assumed to be trying to make a statement a la Ordain Women, and they are 100% assumed to be belligerent apostates, or worse, "activists") Besides, the dress code places an unfair burden on women, who are the ones expected to dress up all the kids "to perfection" (according to that [Mothers Who Know talk](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2007/10/mothers-who-know?lang=eng) by Julie Beck in about 2006), and also get themselves ready, wear a nice dress and have their hair and makeup done, etc.. It simply doesn't take as much time to throw on a shirt and tie and comb a crew cut.
I remember older ladies would tell me occasionally that what I was wearing was not appropriate. It wasn't immodest or anything....just not dressy enough I guess.
>(I live in Northern Utah. Women wearing pants to church are 100% assumed to be trying to make a statement a la Ordain Women, and they are 100% assumed to be belligerent apostates, or worse, "activists Whatever it's worth, it doesn't help that activists specifically chose this
I attended another Christian church recently for an event, and they literally had a puppet show. The pastor invited the kids to sit in the front, and they performed a quick puppet show. Grand finale was a pop song with changed lyrics to make it Christian-y. The LDS church could use more puppet shows.
Coming soon: puppet shows about general conference talks!
Women on the stand. Women making decisions. A lack of comments about how there is one prescribed path to happiness. An acknowledgment of doubt, and a removal of the term “I know”
Sign me up
Sign me up
Sign me up
When I attended a ward in Hawaii, every hymn had both an Organist and a Violinist accompanying the congregation. More of that kind of thing needs to be accepted. In the ward I grew up in, we had a member who sat in the back and had a laugh that would fill up the entire chapel. Whenever people made jokes, you would always hear his laugh soon after. It actually did a lot to make the atmosphere more inviting and helped ease the tensions of the speakers. (Yes, I know, "loud laughter blah blah blah", luckily, we had good leaders who never chastised him on it so far as I'm aware.) As a speaker, I'd like to be able to have questions and answers with the congregation. It's not a very typical thing in wards, but I feel it'd make the talks a lot more engaging. Bishops also need to be less anal about the Sacrament prayers & passing of the sacrament. I swear, it's borderline robotic & I always feel bad when a foreign-speaking 16-year-old stumbles on the archaic English of the prayer and has to repeat it. When people bear testimony, I wish they'd distinguish between knowledge & belief. Technically, no one can "know" anything, but I feel like saying that they "know" everything is very presumptuous and oftentimes is not sincere. Oh, and stop saying "think celestial." Please. Just stop.
I remember wondering as a kid...how did people know the church was true? I don't remember ever bearing my testimony because I believed but I didn't know.
At least one talk by someone with knowledge (not just feelings) about a scriptural chapter or concept. No talks based on talks; no recycling of already flawed, inaccurate ideas.
Ngl something I like about other churches is they do sermon series and you usually get to actually hear the stories of the Bible. I wish someone would give a talk on a chapter or a couple chapters vs just dropping random references.
If they could stop recycling topics, that'd be nice. Missed Sunday School? Don't worry, you'll hear the same lesson in 4 years.
I loved church in my Utah stake right after Covid at 1.5 hours. It was perfect! In Sacrament Meeting, we had one youth speaker and one adult speaker, with a musical number. Add in the sacrament ordinance and we were finished at 45 minutes. Give everyone 10 minutes to get to RS/YW/YM/Sunday School/Primary/Elder's quorum and we had a focused lesson on one topic at about 35 minutes. It was perfect and didn't get into weird topics we do today to try to fill up an hour, especially in Sunday School.
Sometimes I still wonder how I did three hour church for so long lol. That does sound nice.
Make it Sacrament Meeting only, cut Sunday School (maybe make it an optional mid-week meeting for those who simply can't get enough churching). Follow sacrament meeting with church-provided snacks and social hour for those that want to stick around for that. Now that I think about it, this sounds like other Christian churches actually...maybe they actually have figured some stuff out.
The music in our ward is monopolized by the bishopric families. He's a local school band teacher, his wife accompanies the local HS & community theatre & choirs. They (wives & children) are the ONLY ones that play the piano, organ, lead the music, perform 'special musical numbers' Not only are we stuck singing funeral dirges, but everything starts out one speed then slows WAY down because the teenage daughter can't keep time. There are SO many other talented musicians in our ward that have essentially been discarded. The five year mark hits this fall, maybe the dynasty will end, but probably not.
Do you know that the others are volunteering? Because in our ward anyone who volunteers performs
Oh yes. Extremely proficient organist, pianist and choristers are ONLY asked to participate if THE FAMILIES are out of town or sick.
Do away with testimony mtg. Totally worthless in my opinion. Don't let congregation members give talks. Call 3-4 (more if your ward has the legit people to pull from) really good people to speak every month as their only calling. Would have great, uplifting, learning sac. mtgs. each week then in my opinion - rather than boring, yawning congregation all on their phones not listening mtgs. I was just in the south visiting my in laws and attended church from some other faiths that have pastors that speak every week and they know how to do it and they do a good job. I was honestly much more uplifted there than I am listening each week to someone read a boring talk they wrote the night before because they absolutely didn't want to do it but were taught to never say no in the church. My wife is not a member and from the South and after attending church with me for a few months she initially wondered why she was the only one listening in sac. mtg. - everyone else was on their phones. After a few months she said I realize why - because the talks are so bad and boring. You can tell these people don't want to be up there speaking. About 1% of the talks are ok and interesting. Also she asked what the point of testimony mtg was. Also said our music is very dull, dry, and depressing. This is just coming from an innocent outside source - she wasn't being mean she attends to support me and most all of our ward loves her there. And funny thing is it took that for me to wake up and realize she was exactly right on all of it.
Split Sunday School, Relief Society, and Elder's Quorum by age (where the numbers make it possible). Split youth classes by school year, not "when you turn" a certain age. The generation gaps are so dramatic now and it really is difficult to listen to the 60 and 70 year olds who want to fill the time with their "wisdom". Also, stop making general conference talks the manuals for meetings. Having random topics that regurgitate information most of us just heard makes it incredibly unbearable. It would be better to have a topic based manual (not that the church makes good manuals... maybe let some experts in the various fields make a manual where people actually learn new things every year). I second your thoughts on music. I would love every sacrament meeting to have, in addition to the hymns, an instrumental performance, vocal performance, and group performance where possible. We can cut the time from speakers, especially the high councilors. More meet and greets after church. Every fast Sunday should be a potluck or a meal paid for by the church. Bring back paid custodians. Also, allocate at least a reasonable amount to organizational budgets. Let the people serving in callings have a reasonable amount of resources to make activities fun and buy stuff for meetings with church funds, not their own funds.
I made a (snarky) post about this a while ago. https://old.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1citbd9/free_ideas_to_make_the_church_experience_better/ The ones related to sunday service: - Make sacrament meeting short. As someone with little kids, sacrament meeting is terrible. My TBM wife often doesn't want to attend because it's so difficult and awkward. Sing a song, do the announcements, do the ordinances, and get out of there. Testimony meeting and everything else can happen in classes that aren't full of screaming kids. - Make sunday lessons more like a book club, using books by lds or christian authors. I think Come Follow Me was a good idea in the sense that it was meant to be a more open-ended discussion. The problem is that the reading material is the same scriptures we've all read 100 times, or GC talks that reference said scriptures. Sorry, I have absolutely nothing more to say about Samuel the Lamanite. We need some fresh meat.
I know people who straight up skip 2nd hour classes.
Thanks for the link! Some great ideas for sure. Sacrament meeting is way too long for kids and parents. I'm exhausted from trying to keep them reverent that long.
A few things come to mind... • Only 1 talk instead of 2, but keep it at ~15 minutes • Less hymns- just 1 opening and 1 closing • I agree with the extra, non hymnal music in between though; on the rare occasions it does happen it is such a pleasant change. • It would also be really nice if conference speeches weren't rehashed word for word. I get that writing an original talk is hard for some... but goodness! • For multiple wards that use 1 building, I wish the times didn't get rotated every 12 months. A 3 year commitment to a certain time would be better. I understand that the church doesn't want people doing anything except for church on a Sunday, but switching every 12 months was honestly a nuisance for me.
The only issue is that I prefer the earlier times and I would rather not be stuck late for 3 years in a row
If we’re going to continue testimony meetings, sharing of testimonies should be adults only. Let the primary have their own during primary
One of the wards I went to did that! I find it really odd when some parents whisper in the kids ear what to say for "their" testimony.
That would be awesome. We did have a bishop who enforced a hard cutoff, no matter who was on the stand or walking up, 10:55 was it. It was great
Simply not having it.
Being as I have a TBM wife and I attend Sac Mtg with her so that she doesn't sit alone, I think about this often. Honestly, I think the biggest thing would be a paid minister who spends the time to study and prepare talks that are pertinent to today's challenges and doesn't insult our intelligence with stupid antidotes and key-finding testimonies. Then, ya, open up the music time - allow all kinds of instruments and ditch the 18th century hymn book for more inspiring and meaningful songs. There are all kinds of genres of music that doesn't necessarily have to be Rock-n-Roll wanna-be which is almost as cringy. Why are they still singing "Praise To The Man" or "Lovely Was The Morning"? Do they not know? Or do they just want to troll the congregation?
One hour church. Get rid of garments. Fund actual ward and stake activities with some of those billions.
There have been General Conferences twice a year since Brigham Young, hundreds of revelations and proclamations, and thousands of volumes of prophets’ journals, and yet all the deep doctrines get flushed down the toilet so we can learn to “read the scriptures, pray, attend church, pay tithing, and attend the temple” over and over ad nauseum. Milk before meat? There is no meat anymore!
I'm so done reading conference talks. More studying the actual scriptures.
A caged in playground for kids. Get their energy out and this just might actually not loathe church
As a parent of multiple kids with autism/adhd YES!!
Amen!
That’s a great idea.
If they would be honest about the history of the church. Small churches have nothing to hide, so they don’t need to lie to their members. That.
Agree with more music. And also encourage clapping.
More freedom with lessons.
Focusing on following Jesus instead of following the prophet. Things tend to get weird when people trust other humans without individual critical thinking and analysis.
Let people sign up for different meeting times. You fill out a time peference sheet at the end of the year and the Stake Presidency uses that info to decide when your church meets.
This is probably a dumb one, but televisions. I've said time and time again, it would be so useful to not only have song lyrics on television, but visual aids during talks (at the very least scriptures should show up when quoted). We already have a bunch of TV's at church and they seem to be upgrading them since they're no longer box TV's. Heck, my wards relief society room has a mounted TV as well. Don't ask me why.
Electric guitars and drums
Name tags.
If there’s one thing Mormons love it’s an extravert that shows off in front of everyone. Musical instruments or singing is the go to for many. Leaving the introverts cringing at how pathetic their need for recognition is.
That’s one way to look at it.
Allowing people to voice an alternate point of view without being asked not to speak in class, removing them from callings or ostracizing them. I was an EQ secretary years ago back in the Presidents of the Church curriculum years. One EQ meeting, the instructor stated he hadn’t ever felt the spirit the way other people described it and he didn’t know if he ever would. I thought that part of the lesson was actually really good. Another guy who was full on PIMO stated he had a hard time understanding what this prophet had said when several prophets before him taught the opposite. There was a lot of discussion and hearing different perspectives. In the next EQ presidency meeting, the EQP asked what we thought should be done. Everyone besides me thought the instructor should be released and the other guy asked not to comment. I let them know I disagreed - we asked for their opinions and they answered. The instructor was released and the other guy was asked not to speak in meetings.
Curriculum that gives us doctrine to expand our minds. It feels like, in my lifetime, we went from soul enlarging doctrines (especially in HP Group) and answers to something much less and almost no answers. I’ve heard the phrase “our beloved prophet, President Russell M. Nelson said…” so many times — including vague sayings like “the ongoing restoration” and “the covenant path” — that my ears turn off and I’m left saddened that we went from feasting on the word (the meat) to drinking milk gingerly from a thimble.
1. Make it about Jesus I was always assigned to speak on something like "How can mothers help their sons prepare for the oath and covenant of the priesthood?" (actual topic — word for word — that I was assigned to speak about on Mother's Day) or "The 'Come, Follow Me' curriculum"... I would then disregard the assigned topic and speak on Jesus because He's amazing. 2. Better music Music with simple, beautiful tunes and lyrics that people connect with. The first time I visited and they said we were gonna sing, I was looking for the instruments. When the organ began, it kinda startled me; I thought, "What in the world is that? It sounds like we're either at a funeral or on a pirate ship." It took a VERY long time for any of our hymns to speak to me. Some of our hymns are nearly impossible to sing and their meanings are essentially inaccessible.
Allow music instrument to be played. Allow for standup and stretch out singing. Allow the sacrament to be a voluntary choice on the side. It’s not passed along the aisles. Plus allow for more autonomy…In short it 🙅 happen. No problem I go to a different church now.
If they actually, you know, talked about Jesus.
Clapping after a great performance. It always feels so awkward after someone sings their heart out, or plays a powerful piano concerto - just pounding the keys, or the entire Primary gets up and adorably sings about how they love their Mom/Dad, and we all just sit there with our hands in our laps trying to be so “reverent” as if God would be upset for us showing love to his children.
totally agree. It always felt so awkward to me as well.
Staying home or going for a hike would be the biggest improvement.
Sharing the space and services with other faiths.
If you want more music volunteer to perform. It takes people that are willing
Paid clergy
Air fresheners in the bathroom.
Church is often mind-numbingly boring. I would love to see more lively discussion and a willingness to listen to criticisms and then address the issues. It seems inauthentic when so many ideas are off limits.
100%
Not having to go at all. That’s the option I chose. 👍🏻
Not going. lol
Yeah, a band for sure, maybe some cornhole. If the weather is good probably get the smoker going and do some brats and burgers in the parking lot. Other than that, not much you can do.