Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 10/12

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October 13, 2025

This is the latest invitation for reactions to local meetings, in the vein of my post on September 25th about how we can take what happens in Church meetings—sermons, lessons and anything else—and enter a conversation with them, magnifying what was said or adding what we think.

I’m convinced that even if the speaker or teacher is poorly prepared, we can still find elements in what is said and what happens that inspires and edifies us. Even if church meetings aren’t conducted in a way that reaches us, we can take responsibility and find a way to feel the spirit.

My suggestion for putting this into practice is to write down reactions and thoughts to what happened in Church. You might keep your own ‘spiritual journal’, or, if you like, you can post your reactions below. I’m adding my own reactions and thoughts as a comment to this post — because those reactions aren’t any better than anyone else’s.

Let me emphasize that this is NOT a place to criticize what is wrong with church. The point is to post what you learned because of what happened at Church. Think of it in the format, “They said or did this, and I said that.” Even the things you dislike the most can be turned into lessons for what the gospel teaches we should do.

My hope is that these reactions serve as an example of a better way to treat what happens at Church instead of the perennial complaints about speaker or teacher preparation or ability, or complaints that the Church should do things differently.

[I should also note that I skipped last week because it was following General Conference — the most heavily examined meetings of the year, the best prepared, and the most discussed. I don’t think I need to add more discussion about Conference. Instead, I think we can benefit from thinking about our weekly local meetings differently and finding ways to get the most out of those meetings.]

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Below, I’m adding my “conversation” with what happened at Church this past Sunday in the first comment. Feel free to add your “conversations” with what you experienced below.

Comments

One response to “Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 10/12”

Kent Larsen

October 12, 2025
Here are my reactions to yesterday’s Church meetings (10/12):
- Last week, one of the reactions I head to Pres. Nelson’s passing was that he made a lot of changes to the Church. I have to agree. Changing any large organization is a little like turning a supertanker—you turn the rudder and then an hour or two latter you finally see the tanker begin to turn. Making changes in large organizations is hard and takes a lot of time.
- An example of this is the Church’s Unit History Tool which almost no one knows about, but could make a wonderful impact on many Stakes, districts, wards, and branches.
- Our ward held fast & testimony meeting this week, and a couple of the testimonies talked about memories of President Nelson and prior prophets. One talked about having mixed feelings about a new prophet because of the prophet’s previous statements and politics, and eventually coming to have a testimony of that prophet’s calling. I think this is a common struggle, and like many struggles, the struggle itself has value.
- Another testimony talked about seeing people change over time. I love that idea — it takes a certain positive sensitivity to notice that someone else is changing. I hope I can someday learn to have that sensitivity.
- Our Bishop announced that next weekend the different congregations in our neighborhood—from several different denominations (Jewish, Lutheran, Catholic, Baptist, etc.) will all present their sermons or focus their worship on the idea of “Love Your Neighbor”. On Sunday afternoon we will then all meet together for a pot luck dinner. This sounds like a wonderful way to get our neighborhood united!

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