{"id":46728,"date":"2024-03-12T06:00:29","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=46728"},"modified":"2024-03-12T13:07:49","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T19:07:49","slug":"different-church-experiences-and-the-command-to-mourn-with-those-that-mourn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/03\/different-church-experiences-and-the-command-to-mourn-with-those-that-mourn\/","title":{"rendered":"Church Concerns and the Command to Mourn with Those That Mourn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Responses to my last post reminding me of something I\u2019ve been thinking recently: the fact that individuals can have quite different experiences with the church. The most extreme form of differences would be the extreme faith crises and a couple<\/a> of examples<\/a> serve to illustrate the pain these can cause. Alma 7 says Christ \u201cwill take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people \u2026 that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people,\u201d which I see as linked to the command to mourn with those that mourn. Those in faith crises are clearly mourning.<\/p>\n

The examples in the links are of the more extreme type, but I think we also know that struggling with concerns at a less extreme level is also common, and can also be quite painful as well. For instance, just a few months ago, the new bishop\u2019s wife gave her first talk in the ward as bishop’s wife, saying she\u2019d been assigned testimony<\/em>. She took the opportunity to give a talk I\u2019ve rarely ever heard and NEVER from a bishop\u2019s wife: how she has been struggling with the church, how she would appreciate people being kind to her during her struggles, and how we all ought to be kind generally to those who struggle.<\/p>\n

The only other time I\u2019d heard anything like that was about a year earlier from another young couple recently moved into the ward, who addresses similar issues. Add to the equation the fact that the new bishop called that husband as his second counselor, so the new bishopric is pretty interesting.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But this also highlights what I think may be growing trends. Struggling with the church, especially among those under 30, seems to be a growing trend (these couples are in their late 20s, I guess that\u2019s a trend in leadership also) so much so that I\u2019ve now heard such talks about personal doubts from my new bishopric families.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve sometimes had the impression that our church community can view the faith struggler as something of an \u201cother\u201d to the more ideal faithful member, and that the bishopric families would be held up as models of that idea faithfulness. If so, my bishopric seems to be crossing that boundary. If the trend is to call younger and younger bishops, my sense is that this trend will likely grow.<\/p>\n

Based on such concerns of the apparent struggles of this younger generation, during my last 1.5 years as bishop, I put what we call our \u201csafe-space group\u201d: a place to allow people to come and talk about possible questions or concerns with the church in the context\/hope of helping people cope and stay.<\/p>\n

Lots to say about that experience in later posts, but one of the things I wanted to share from the get go with those who attended was the need to avoid any kind of \u201cus v. them\u201d attitudes with the more orthodox members who would not be interested in such a group. \u201cYou can understand that you are different, but we\u2019re seeking to be fellow citizens with the saints. Different is okay, but let\u2019s not make claims that different is better. Just different.\u201d<\/p>\n

The call, I said, was to empathy: participants wanted greater empathy from more orthodox members and needed to share that empathy as well. But that can be hard, and I shared this Calvin and Hobbes cartoon<\/a> to illustrate. Looking at things from different perspectives is helpful in that empathetic quest, but as Calvin learned, it can also be really difficult.<\/p>\n

So are we called to mourn with those who have different experiences with church than we might have? My sense is that different points of view are going to become increasingly common, and that learning to get along will become increasingly important.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Responses to my last post reminding me of something I\u2019ve been thinking recently: the fact that individuals can have quite different experiences with the church. The most extreme form of differences would be the extreme faith crises and a couple of examples serve to illustrate the pain these can cause. Alma 7 says Christ \u201cwill take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people \u2026 that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people,\u201d which I see as linked to the command to mourn with those that mourn. Those in faith crises are clearly mourning. The examples in the links are of the more extreme type, but I think we also know that struggling with concerns at a less extreme level is also common, and can also be quite painful as well. For instance, just a few months ago, the new bishop\u2019s wife gave her first talk in the ward as bishop’s wife, saying she\u2019d been assigned testimony. She took the opportunity to give a talk I\u2019ve rarely ever heard and NEVER from a bishop\u2019s wife: how she has been struggling with the church, how she would appreciate people being kind to her during […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10406,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latter-day-saint-thought"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46728","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\/10406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46728"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46741,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46728\/revisions\/46741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}