{"id":42997,"date":"2022-05-18T05:58:02","date_gmt":"2022-05-18T10:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=42997"},"modified":"2022-05-15T16:01:02","modified_gmt":"2022-05-15T21:01:02","slug":"what-is-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2022\/05\/what-is-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the Church?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently finished a review of the April 2022 general conference, and one of the talks that stood out to me most was Reyna Aburto\u2019s talk, \u201cWe <\/em>Are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints\u201d.\u00a0 I love the vision she articulates of feeling more ownership within the Church\u2014that it isn\u2019t just the institution\u2014with its hierarchy of leaders and physical buildings\u2014but mostly the members who are the Church.<\/p>\n

In the talk, she explains this as follows:<\/p>\n

From the beginning, God has sought to gather and organize His children\u00a0\u201cto bring to pass [our] immortality and eternal life.\u201d\u00a0With that purpose in mind, He has instructed us to build places of worship\u00a0where we receive knowledge and the ordinances of salvation and exaltation; make and keep covenants that bind us to Jesus Christ;\u00a0are endowed with \u201cthe power of godliness\u201d;\u00a0and gather together often to remember Jesus and strengthen each other in Him.\u00a0The Church organization and its buildings exist for our spiritual benefit. \u201cThe Church \u2026 is the scaffolding with which we build eternal families.\u201d<\/p>\n

While talking to a friend going through a difficult time, I asked how he was surviving financially. In tears, he replied that his bishop was helping him using fast-offering funds. He added, \u201cI don\u2019t know where my family and I would be if it wasn\u2019t for the Church.\u201d I replied,\u00a0\u201cThe Church is the\u00a0members<\/em>. They are the ones who willingly and joyfully give fast offerings to help those of us in need. You are receiving the fruits of their faith and determination to follow Jesus Christ.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a beautiful way to say that the Church was made for humankind and not humankind for the\u00a0Church.\u00a0 In the effort to achieve the immortality and eternal life of humankind, the Church is a tool God has established\u2014a scaffolding, as she quotes Elder L. Tom Perry as saying\u2014to help us get to where God wants us to be rather than an end unto itself.\u00a0 She adds that:<\/p>\n

Relief Society is not limited to a room in a building, a Sunday lesson, an activity, or a presidency at the local or general level. Relief Society is the covenant women of the Church; it is\u00a0us<\/em>\u2014each of us<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0all of us<\/em>. It is our \u201cglobal community of compassion and service.\u201d\u00a0Anywhere and everywhere we go, we are always part of Relief Society as we strive to fulfill its divine purpose, which is for women to accomplish God\u2019s work in individual as well as collective ways\u00a0by providing relief: \u201crelief of poverty, relief of illness; relief of doubt, relief of ignorance\u2014relief of all that hinders \u2026 joy and progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similar belonging exists in elders quorums and organizations of the Church for all ages, including our children and youth.\u00a0The Church is more than the buildings and the\u00a0ecclesiastical structure; the Church is\u00a0us<\/em>, the members.\u00a0We<\/em>\u00a0are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with Christ at the head and the prophet as His mouthpiece.[2]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s my love of the idea of Zion and community building that resonates with this description of the Church and its internal organizations as being the community made up of their membership, and that there are goals that those organizations exist to achieve.\u00a0 She still makes room for the centralized leadership structure of the Church (\u201cChrist at the head and the prophet as His mouthpiece\u201d), but also emphasizes that we are more important than bodies in Church meetings and a source of income for the Church, which is what I sometimes feel like when \u201cthe Brethren\u201d and leaders at more local levels are overemphasized for their role in the organization.<\/p>\n

This concept also reminded me some of Aburto\u2019s first general conference address, where she compared the membership of the Church to a kaleidoscope of butterflies:<\/p>\n

A group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope.\u00a0Isn\u2019t that a beautiful image? Each butterfly in a kaleidoscope is unique and different, yet these seemingly fragile creatures have been designed by a loving Creator with the ability to survive, travel, multiply, and disseminate life as they go from one flower to the next, spreading pollen. And although each butterfly is different, they work together to make the world a more beautiful and fruitful place.<\/p>\n

Like the monarch butterflies, we are on a journey back to our heavenly home, where we will reunite with our Heavenly Parents.\u00a0Like the butterflies, we have been given divine attributes that allow us to navigate through life, in order to \u201c[fill] the measure of [our] creation.\u201d\u00a0Like them, if we knit our hearts together,\u00a0the Lord will protect us \u201cas a hen [gathers] her chickens under her wings\u201d\u00a0and will make us into a beautiful kaleidoscope.[3]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I love this image of working together as a group to \u201cmake the world a more beautiful and fruitful place\u201d as we journey together back to our heavenly home and \u201csurvive, travel, multiply, and disseminate life\u201d along the way.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Sister Aburto\u2019s talk was the one that resonated with me most deeply from the recent general conference.\u00a0 While perhaps not novel or mind-blowing it has been something that has been on my mind since reading the talk, and I felt like it was worth sharing what she articulated about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
This is what I look like in the kaleidoscope<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Footnotes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Reyna I. Aburto, \u201cWe <\/em>Are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,\u201d CR April 2022, https:\/\/www.churchofjesuschrist.org\/study\/general-conference\/2022\/04\/13aburto.p8?lang=eng<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Reyna I. Aburto, \u201cWe <\/em>Are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,\u201d CR April 2022, https:\/\/www.churchofjesuschrist.org\/study\/general-conference\/2022\/04\/13aburto.p8?lang=eng<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Reyna I. Aburto, \u201cWith One Accord,\u201d CR April 2018, https:\/\/www.churchofjesuschrist.org\/study\/general-conference\/2018\/04\/with-one-accord.p22?lang=eng<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently finished a review of the April 2022 general conference, and one of the talks that stood out to me most was Reyna Aburto\u2019s talk, \u201cWe Are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints\u201d.\u00a0 I love the vision she articulates of feeling more ownership within the Church\u2014that it isn\u2019t just the institution\u2014with its hierarchy of leaders and physical buildings\u2014but mostly the members who are the Church. In the talk, she explains this as follows: From the beginning, God has sought to gather and organize His children\u00a0\u201cto bring to pass [our] immortality and eternal life.\u201d\u00a0With that purpose in mind, He has instructed us to build places of worship\u00a0where we receive knowledge and the ordinances of salvation and exaltation; make and keep covenants that bind us to Jesus Christ;\u00a0are endowed with \u201cthe power of godliness\u201d;\u00a0and gather together often to remember Jesus and strengthen each other in Him.\u00a0The Church organization and its buildings exist for our spiritual benefit. \u201cThe Church \u2026 is the scaffolding with which we build eternal families.\u201d While talking to a friend going through a difficult time, I asked how he was surviving financially. In tears, he replied that his bishop was helping him using fast-offering funds. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10397,"featured_media":42998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-doctrine","category-women-in-the-church"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/bugslife-butterfly.gif","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42999,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42997\/revisions\/42999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}