Author: Kent Larsen
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 11/30
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…
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CFM 12/8-12/14 (OD 1 &2, Articles of Faith): Poetry for “We Believe”
When I think about the phrase “We Believe”, I lean to thinking that the more important word is “We” instead of the traditional focus on “Believe”. And I think the history of the early Church in the 1830s supports this focus. Many members of the Church were decidedly anti-creedal; i.e., they were against having a…
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Giving Thanks Beforehand
In the United States, tomorrow is Thanksgiving, ending a period when many people complain about Christmas coming earlier and earlier. If it isn’t the advertisements, it’s the music that somehow reaches our hearing earlier than expected. While I know many people love Christmas music and don’t mind hearing it almost all year, others are bothered…
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 11/23
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…
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CFM 12/1-12/7 (D&C 137-138): Poetry for “The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead”
A less-discussed principle of the gospel is the idea that it is universal—i.e, that the gospel and its blessings are available to all of God’s children, including those who are dead. The application of this belief leads to performing ordinances for the dead, a practice that is unique, as far as I know, among Christian…
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 11/16
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…
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CFM 11/24-11/30 (D&C 135-136): Poetry for “ He “Has Sealed His Mission and His Works with His Own Blood”
Our feelings about Joseph Smith can often be conflicted. On one hand we revere him as the prophet of the restoration, who has “has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived.” But need to the use of the phrase “save Jesus only”…
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 11/9
What did you notice in Church yesterday? How did you react? Did you end up thinking differently? 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,…
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CFM 11/17-11/23 (D&C 133-134): Poetry for “Prepare Ye for the Coming of the Bridegroom”
It’s difficult to overestimate the importance of the second coming in the restoration. Early members of the Church thought it would come quickly, in just a few years. And they wrote and taught about that expectation. While it seems like the focus on the second coming has diminished over time, we still regularly preach and…
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 11/2
What did you notice in Church yesterday? How did you react? Think differently? 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…
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CFM 11/10-11/16(D&C 129-132): Poetry for “I Have Seen Your Sacrifices in Obedience”
This lesson can be both difficult and exulting. Our LDS understanding of the next life both inspires because of the idea that our relations have an eternal permanence, and troubles many of us because of what we don’t understand about polygamy and the details of how the multiple relationships we begin on earth translate into…
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 10/26
What did you notice in Church yesterday? How did you react? Think differently? 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…
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CFM 11/3-11/9(D&C 125-128): Poetry for “A Voice of Gladness for the Living and the Dead”
Baptism for the Dead is one of the beliefs that make the LDS Church distinctive among religions today. Frequently discussions with non-Mormons focus on what Paul meant in 1 Cor. 15:29 while ignoring the broader question that our doctrine addresses with proxy ordinances: If baptism is required for everyone, then what about those who passed…
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“Truth and Treason” and Today
[WARNING: the following includes some things that maybe considered spoilers by those who haven’t seen the film.] I’m not sure how well it is known, but the film “Truth and Treason”, currently in theaters, tells the story of a young LDS man in Hamburg, Germany in 1942. Helmuth Hübener’s story has been told before, perhaps…
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 10/19
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…
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CFM 10/27-11/2(D&C 124): Poetry for “A House unto My Name”
The phrase “A House unto My Name” is easy to connect to the Temple. But section 124 isn’t just about building a temple — in 1841 the Kirtland Temple is far away from the bulk of Church members and the Nauvoo Temple has only recently had its groundbreaking. Instead, we might think of house in…
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 10/12
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…
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CFM 10/20-10/26 (D&C 121-123): Poetry for “O God, Where Art Thou?”
Adversity is rooted in the problem of evil—if God is good, then why does he allow evil to exist? Or if “man is that he might have joy,” why is there so much suffering in life? And worse, it often seems like for some the suffering is “but a moment”, while for others the suffering…
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CFM 10/13-10/19 (D&C 115-120): Poetry for “His Sacrifice Shall Be More Sacred unto Me Than His Increase”
Sacrifice is a key gospel concept, and as such is also a key concept for life. Whether the it involves one person giving up something to help others or simply the individual giving up something for his own benefit, sacrifice is always about making decisions that balance one benefit or good against another. So we…
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 9/28
A few days ago I posted 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…
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CFM 10/06-10/12 (D&C 111-114): Poetry for “I Will Order All Things for Your Good”
If things have been ordered for our good, do the things look like they have been ordered or arranged? This week’s Come Follow Me lesson title implies that what happens in our lives is meant to help us both now and in the hereafter. The statement “I will order all things for your good” is…
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The Ethics of Talks and Lessons at Church
When was the last time someone told you how much they liked Church on Sunday? Or what made a Sacrament Meeting really great? Or what in a lesson touched them, made them cry or gave them a new way of thinking? I often hear complaints about Church these days. If it isn’t that the Sacrament…
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CFM 9/29-10/05 (D&C 109-110): Poetry for “It Is Thy House, a Place of Thy Holiness”
I like this photo of the Bangkok Thailand Temple. I know many people will see in it an island of good among a sea of chaos and evil. I can’t disagree more with that view—most of humanity doesn’t live in the stereotypical suburban pastoral nowhere favored by the world, and where they do live is…
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CFM 9/22-9/28 (D&C 106-108): Poetry for “The Order of the Son of God”
Like it or not, our lives are built of structures. We organize our days according to everything from natural events, like the rising and setting of the sun and our own biological rhythms, to the hours of the clock that our society has assigned to the day, to the needs we have to coordinate with…
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CFM 9/15-9/21 (D&C 102-105): Poetry for “After Much Tribulation … Cometh the Blessing”
I noticed this time through the Doctrine and Covenants how the idea of trials is a major theme of this book of scripture. And the sections in this week’s lesson are during one of the most challenging periods of trials in early church history, the first round of persecution in Missouri and the subsequent travel…
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CFM 9/1-9/7: Poetry for “For the Salvation of Zion” (D&C 94-97)
We focus on the temple, and we have from the beginning of the Church. The temple plays a crucial role in our theology, but also a role that demonstrates tensions between principles. While the ordinances of the temple are done individually, those ordinances are often performed in groups, and the purpose of these ordinances generally…
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CFM 8/25-8/31: Poetry for “Receive of His Fulness”
What do we mean when we talk about ‘Fulness’? The Come Follow Me lesson for this week, covering D&C 93, suggests that it’s related to exaltation—but I’m not sure that we know exactly what exaltation is either. ‘Fulness’ suggests some kind of completeness or satiation—we will have everything we need, and maybe everything we should…
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CFM 8/18-8/24: Poetry for “A Principle with Promise”
Most of the time when we hear the phrase “A Principle with Promise,” we think of D&C Section 89 and the promise that we can “run and not be weary.” However, some kind of promise is associated with every gospel principle—there is at least one consequence that accompanies every principle, and the accompanying consequences follow…
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CFM 8/11-8/17: Poetry for “Establish … a House of God”
Perhaps the most memorable verse in D&C 88 is 119, which establishes the ‘School of the Prophets’ and encourages our cultural orientation towards education: “Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory,…
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CFM 8/4-8/10: Poetry for “Stand Ye in Holy Places”
What are ‘Holy Places’? What makes them holy? Are there different kinds of ‘Holy Places’? Has our understanding of ‘Holy Places’ changed over time? I suspect that most LDS Church members think of the Temple when we think of a holy place, but when pushed we might agree that the Sacred Grove is also a…