How often do we decide that a talk given in Sacrament Meeting, or a lesson given at church just wasn’t very good?
If you have done this, can I ask “What were your criteria for judging? How did you know it was good or not?”
I think the issue of criteria is an important one. The scriptures warn us against judging, and even if we rely on the Joseph Smith Translaton’s clarification that we should “judge not unrighteously”, we still need to be careful about that word “unrighteously”. While I am sure that the word is much more than this, at a minimum I think righteous judgment must be objective and take into account all relevant information. I can’t see how to do that without carefully selecting criteria, and attempting to fairly balance those criteria. The more that I think about it, judging fairly and righteously is VERY hard — maybe its easier to just avoid it.
In addition, the more that I look around, the more that I see quick, unthinking, judgment. We readily say that a movie or show wasn’t good, when we have never given the first thought to what makes a movie or show good. Of course what we mean is that we didn’t like it—since we haven’t thought about criteria, we don’t really know if it is good. In our society everyone does this. We all think its ok to express our like or dislike of something AS A JUDGMENT OF QUALITY without giving it any serious thought. And we rarely, if ever, give any thought to the feelings of the individual(s) who created what we are criticizing. At best, we realize the potential offense and keep quiet, thinking to ourselves that its not good.
How are we judging? Are we judging righteously?
Beyond the feeling of the person whose efforts we are criticizing, we are also cheating ourselves with these kinds of quick, unthinking judgments. When we decide that a talk or a lesson isn’t good, we have simplified everything. We have reduced it to a simple judgment, and that often means we no longer have to think about it. And when we do this, we have cheated ourselves of the possibility to get something out of it. We no longer have to pay attention, and we can turn to our phones and watch cat videos or near-accidents or whatever attracts our attention. Does that help us in any way?
In this and in many previous posts in this series, I am trying to suggest that each of us can have better experiences at Church if we change our perspective, looking for what we can learn from talks and lessons instead of simply judging them as good or bad. When we do this, we will find that our own experience is better—simply because we have found pearls in what we thought was all dross.
So, if you aren’t thinking this way, maybe try it next Sunday, or the next time you are in a class or meeting. If you have already thoughts inspired by what happened at church, what are they? How did you react to what happened in Church yesterday? What did you notice? What did others do that you found interesting or different? Did you end up thinking differently? Do you think your reactions were what they should be? Were they looking for what God had to tell you? Did your reactions make things better?
This is the latest invitation for reactions to local meetings, continuing a series of weekly posts that started with my post on September 25th, 2025 about how we receive 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. In these posts I’m asking us all to think about how we listen and receive what happens at Church. If we only listen for mistakes, or things that bother us, what does that say about us? Is it most important to criticize others? Or to try to change ourselves?
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.
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