Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 11/30

Kent Larsen

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How did you react to Church yesterday? What did you notice? Did you end up thinking differently?

Do you think your reactions were what they should be? Were they ethical?

This is the latest invitation for reactions to local meetings, continuing the spirit 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.

The point here is that no matter how poorly prepared the speaker or teacher is, 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.

So please, 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 — instead of as a part of this post, because my 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 or your fellow congregants. The point is to post what you learned because of what happened at Church or how that led you to think. It’s about the good things we can get out of Church, not the negative things that disturbed or upset us. It doesn’t have to be orthodox, traditional or even on topic.

If you like, make your response in the format, “They said or did this, and I said or thought 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.

Comments

One response to “Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 11/30”

  1. Kent Larsen

    Here are my reactions to yesterday’s Church meetings (11/30):

    • One of the speakers talked about winter scout campouts, and it led me to wonder, is life maybe like a winter camp out? Kind of unpleasant overall, but still fun at some points?
    • Apparently one of the campers in the winter camp out set up a hammock — again, its kind of like life. Without thinking we set up our lives in ways that make it harder, that increase our suffering. Other times the set up is something that we’re given and expected to use, even though it causes us suffering — like being given a hammock for a winter camp out.
    • Another speaker made an analogy to fashion, saying that the best outfits have some kind of tension in them between different colors, or fabrics, etc. The juxtaposition of differences its what makes the outfit work, just like in life—opposition in all things is a way of saying this.

      To me, that seemed rather insightful, since when we talk about ‘opposition-in-all-things’ we usually see it as opposition to where we are, not balance and tension in our lives. It seems right to me that we do have such tensions in life, as we try to balance the demands on our time and attention, as well as the resources we have available.

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