{"id":52880,"date":"2026-02-23T14:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T21:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=52880"},"modified":"2026-02-22T12:40:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T19:40:04","slug":"what-did-church-lead-you-to-think-about-yesterday-2-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2026\/02\/what-did-church-lead-you-to-think-about-yesterday-2-22\/","title":{"rendered":"What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday, 2\/22?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who is responsible for your experience at Church? Is our worship passive, dependent on the skill of the speakers, musicians and those organizing the meeting? Or are each of us active participants, trying to pull worship out of what we\u2019re given?<\/p>\n

We claim that we go to Church to worship, but often members talk about Church like it is entertainment. I hear things like \u201cI got bored\u201d, \u201cI didn\u2019t like that talk,\u201d \u201cWhat they said was wrong,\u201d etc. If you go to Church to worship God, why would you let these issues get in the way? Is the presentation, good or bad, why you came to Church? If you are worshiping, why would you allow the inabilities of speakers or teachers keep you from that?<\/p>\n

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The simplest model of communication consists of a speaker, a listener and a message. But when we apply this to worship, is it different? Where does God fit in that model? Is he the speaker? If so, how is he communicating and what is the message?<\/p>\n

Sometimes, we hear that God speaks through others, if so, are we listening to that? If we are disappointed because we are expecting to be entertained, are we letting that disappointment keep us from hearing God\u2019s messages?<\/p>\n

Given this idea, 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 looking for what God had to tell you? Did your reactions make things better?<\/p>\n

This is the latest invitation for reactions to local meetings, continuing the spirit of my post<\/a> on September 25th about how we receive what happens in Church meetings\u2014sermons, lessons and anything else\u2014and enter a conversation with them, magnifying what was said or adding what we think. In these posts I\u2019m 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?<\/p>\n

The point here is that no matter how poorly prepared the speaker or teacher is, or no matter how what happens triggers us, or is objectively or doctrinally wrong, we can still find elements in what is said and what happens that inspires and edifies us. Even if church meetings aren\u2019t conducted in a way that reaches us, we can take responsibility and find a way to feel the spirit.<\/p>\n

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So please, write down reactions and thoughts to what happened in Church. You might keep your own \u2018spiritual journal\u2019, or, if you like, you can post your reactions below. I\u2019m adding my own reactions and thoughts as a comment to this post \u2014 instead of as a part of this post, because my reactions aren\u2019t any better than anyone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s about the good things we can get out of Church, not the negative things that disturbed or upset us. It doesn\u2019t have to be orthodox, traditional or even on topic.<\/p>\n

If you like, make your response in the format, \u201cThey said or did this, and I said or thought that.\u201d Even the things you dislike the most can be turned into lessons for what the gospel teaches we should do.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who is responsible for your experience at Church? Is our worship passive, dependent on the skill of the speakers, musicians and those organizing the meeting? Or are each of us active participants, trying to pull worship out of what we\u2019re given? We claim that we go to Church to worship, but often members talk about Church like it is entertainment. I hear things like \u201cI got bored\u201d, \u201cI didn\u2019t like that talk,\u201d \u201cWhat they said was wrong,\u201d etc. If you go to Church to worship God, why would you let these issues get in the way? Is the presentation, good or bad, why you came to Church? If you are worshiping, why would you allow the inabilities of speakers or teachers keep you from that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"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-52880","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\/52880","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\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52880"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52882,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52880\/revisions\/52882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}