How Can Church Be More Fun??????

[DBMormon]

MODS - This is a thread based on doctrinal approaches to different personalities, so don't move it and don't shut it down..... PLEASE

What would it take for church to be more enjoyable to you. I don't want to approach this as a thread to be critical. So please keep comments more fucused on how your personality might be better suited by the church rather then addressing criticisms or reform ideas you think should occur accross the board for everyone. Do you see the difference? One is saying I can't speak for anyone else but I would love it if...... the other is saying the church is wrong it should do......

What would make church more enjoyable, entertaining, humorous.

Mods have a rule that this has to be a discussion around specific topic. So please feel free to approach this doctrinally. But try to to not make critical. walk the line

1.) If revelations were like three wishes and a geanie... what would you wish for.

2.) How could testimony meeting be improved If you could control the masses?

3.) What Doctrines would you like explored in sunday School lessons

4.) In regards to leaders and their time spent outside the three hour block, any suggestions

5.) Length of time for church meetings? start time?

6? Any other thoughts?

[Somebodyz]

For me it would just for me to be health enough to attend. The fun/joy comes from within.

[DBMormon]

I will try to be one of the first to post some thoughts.

- ignore every member getting equal time in regards to talk assignments and put your 15 best speakers in over and over and over

- tell 4 elders each week one of them is teaching next weeks lesson and they won't know which one till thy walk in next week .... finally elders start reading their manuals

- members who abuse testimony meeting get a once a quarter testimony bearing pass

- I want church twice a week, it's my favorite part of the week.

- only one testimony meeting per quarter is crying allowed

- optional sunday School course for deep doctrine discussion where we can deal with apoligetics and topics like Evolution - Are you a monkey's uncle, Polyandry - not your normal adoption, BOM translation - Stones, spectacles, and interpreters

- High Councilman Sunday - At any point in his talk a vote of common consent can be taken to remove him from the pulpit.

What else

Edited June 26, 2012 by DBMormon

[Kerry A. Shirts]

Get different manuals that show some interesting teachings and progress us in our eternal knowledge. The ones we have are truly horrible, or to quote our own Daniel C. Peterson "I think they are not very good."

Lets actually try to start learning something interesting and important. Lets get back to studying the scriptures instead of personalities who all taught the same thing (as the manuals edited show anyway). You read one, you've read em all for the next 25 years. LIFT OUR SPIRITS EWITH TRUTH not pablum and fluff.

[Calm]

For me it would just for me to be health enough to attend. The fun/joy comes from within.

They could drop the temp by ten degrees for me, but then everyone else would likely be cold.

Yeah, I'd like to be able to attend enough to start having something to complain about.

[DBMormon]

what keeps you guys from attending more often?

[Calm]

I will try to be one of the first to post some thoughts.

- ignore every member getting equal time in regards to talk assignments and put your 15 best speakers in over and over and over

- tell 4 elders each week one of them is teaching next weeks lesson and they won't know which one till thy walk in next week .... finally elders start reading their manuals

- members who abuse testimony meeting get a once a quarter testimony bearing pass

- I want church twice a week, it's my favorite part of the week.

- only one testimony meeting per quarter is crying allowed

- optional sunday School course for deep doctrine discussion where we can deal with apoligetics and topics like Evolution - Are you a monkey's uncle, Polyandry - not your normal adoption, BOM translation - Stones, spectacles, and interpreters

- High Councilman Sunday - At any point in his talk a vote of common consent can be taken to remove him from the pulpit.

What else

Love them all

[Calm]

what keeps you guys from attending more often?

Health...movement/sleep disorder. It would help to change all the pews to reclining chairs too. Edited June 26, 2012 by calmoriah

[DBMormon]

Our EQ President actually is doing that this week ....

- tell 4 elders each week one of them is teaching next weeks lesson and they won't know which one till thy walk in next week .... finally elders start reading their manuals

[DBMormon]

reclining chairs?..... and you think the High Priests are pondering Lehi's dream during sacrament a lot right already

[Calm]

With massage included....

Sorry, I know you wanted the thread to be at least semiserious, I'll be quiet now.

[rodheadlee]

More time in Gospel Doctrine. I have had the pleasure of attending a really small branch and we have RS and PH and Gospel Doctrine all rolled into 2 hours after Sacrament. It's been a lot of fun, with only 8 people you can't hide.

Edited June 26, 2012 by rodheadlee

[Somebodyz]

They could drop the temp by ten degrees for me, but then everyone else would likely be cold.

Oh I forgot about that. It used to be way too hot for me (and others). The old dears would put the heat up, wish they'd just put another cardy on. It's easier to cover up than it is to cool down.

Yeah, I'd like to be able to attend enough to start having something to complain about.

It's been more than 5 years for me. Pity we can't watch by a video feed of some sort.

DBMormon:Being filmed might improve talks too

[DBMormon]

When you have a good gospel doctrine teacher..... man that is good. I haven't been in Gospel Doctrine for like 7-8 years other then a handful number of times....errrrr I miss it

[DBMormon]

It's been more than 5 years for me. Pity we can't watch by a video feed of some sort.

If you have BYUTV or go get a roku if you have High Speed internet and the you have BYUTV... they have sacrament meetings each week without the actual sacrament.... at least you get a little feel for a real meeting

[Somebodyz]

If you have BYUTV or go get a roku if you have High Speed internet and the you have BYUTV... they have sacrament meetings each week without the actual sacrament.... at least you get a little feel for a real meeting

Thanks for the thought.

I have watched BYUTV and hubby gives me the sacrement, when he gets home from Church.

It would be nice to feel more of the ward. (They are very loving and visit)

Anyway we are going off your topic.

Testimony meets could be longer.

Edited June 26, 2012 by Somebodyz

[Calm]

It's been more than 5 years for me. Pity we can't watch by a video feed of some sort.

Our bishop has come up with sending out cds to all the shut ins each week of sacrament meeting, not sure if they do classes as well.

[19nazzy]

- tell 4 elders each week one of them is teaching next weeks lesson and they won't know which one till thy walk in next week .... finally elders start reading their manuals

I was visiting in a ward this past summer as a high council companion. For the lesson, one of the leaders pulled out his phone and had a random number generator pulled up and then pick a number. Which then corresponded to a list of members in the quorum, the person who had his number pulled was then the teacher for the lesson. I thought it was pretty interesting.

[blackstrap]

2.25 hour block ,no Sunday School,just PH and RS and Primary.70 minutes Sacrament, 60 minutes for the others.

[blackstrap]

As for having special classes for the older members on the tough topics,After the 6 or 7 horses have been beaten to death,then what?

[halconero]

Maybe make sunday school a little bit more like institute? Keep the rotating Gospel Doctrine glass, and the Gospel Principles class for investigators/recent converts/less actives, but maybe throw in some institute like classes like Church History, or a study on the Gospels.

I guess the potential downsides could be 1) not enough teachers and 2) people cherry picking their classes so that they learn a ton about one thing and ignore something they may not like, but of equal importance.

[CASteinman]

Drums.

Drums and snake handling.

If that doesn't keep you awake, you are probably not fogging a mirror anyway.

====

Ok, more seriously.... I think Church is already pretty interesting from the Opening Prayer to about 5 minutes after the Sacrament. Then again, from the Closing Prayer of Sacrament to the End of Priesthood. Participation makes things fun for me.

So the only part where I feel a bit bored is during some -- not all -- of the Sacrament Meeting Presentations. I almost wish we had two meetings during that time -- a Sacrament Ceremony meeting and then a second meeting that could be called "All Members Meeting". That way I would not feel that the Sacrament was, in some way, degraded by the rest of the meeting (I probably need to change my attitude, eh?)

I never get board in Sacrament itself or in Sunday School or Priesthood.

Only sometimes in the latter part of the Sacrament Meeting.

If Sacrament meeting were in two parts -- that second meeting would be a lot like the rest of our Sacrament Meeting and would be boring perhaps 1/3 of the time.

I think, however, that 1/3 of the time borig is a small price to pay for giving people the opportunity to prepare talks, learn the doctrine, preach it to the rest of us and bear testimony of what they know or what they are grateful for. Especially for the youth, new members, the timid and those who may feel overlooked or unappreciated.

Edited June 26, 2012 by CASteinman

[Calm]

Sacrament Meeting Presentations

Besides the Primary yearly one, are there others?

[The Nehor]

1.) If revelations were like three wishes and a geanie... what would you wish for.

Nothing. I have found God delights to teach me most things. If there is some knowledge he is not sharing I trust He has a reason.

2.) How could testimony meeting be improved If you could control the masses?

It couldn't. If I controlled them they would be my puppets and say only what I wish and thus the meeting would be dull. I think C.S. Lewis summed up my feelings on F&T meeting:

"I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology, and I wouldn't go to the churches and Gospel Halls; and then later I found that it was the only way of flying your flag; and, of course, I found that this meant being a target. It is extraordinary how inconvenient to your family it becomes for you to get up early to go to Church. It doesn't matter so much if you get up early for anything else, but if you get up early to go to Church it's very selfish of you and you upset the house. If there is anything in the teaching of the New Testament which is in the nature of a command, it is that you are obliged to take the Sacrament, and you can't do it without going to Church. I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren't fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit."

Not meaning to be unkind but thinking of fellow saints as "the masses" in anything but an ironic or sarcastic way is patronizing and suggests the conceit may need some peeling. God doesn't need my help to guide the masses of the Church. If I strip myself of pride he lets me help in small ways but usually as a servant and not a leader. Of course when we are perfected the two titles will be synonyms and then I might be more fit to lead or even rule.

3.) What Doctrines would you like explored in sunday School lessons

Faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the Holy Ghost, the atonement, revelation, hope, charity. The more I learn the more I realize the great mysteries are contained in the 'simple' doctrines which aren't that simple. If I find myself bored I start preaching my own sermon in the topic in my head and then revelation often comes.

4.) In regards to leaders and their time spent outside the three hour block, any suggestions

None. I don't think I'm qualified to have an opinion on how others spend their time in service to their God.

5.) Length of time for church meetings? start time?

Fine the way they are. I prefer later start times but that is because I like to sleep in.

[Hamba Tuhan]

To Nehor: 'Amen! On every single point'.