Walden Posted July 18, 2018 Posted July 18, 2018 Take up meditation and practice it during church services. http://www.meditationtechniquesbeginners.com/transcendental-meditation-technique/ 2
Danzo Posted July 18, 2018 Posted July 18, 2018 1 hour ago, cinepro said: Personally, I can't get my kids to want to go home after church. I think the secret is the number of trees that can be easily climbed. I have always found climbing trees to be a wonderful cure to being bored. 1
Danzo Posted July 18, 2018 Posted July 18, 2018 13 minutes ago, jkwilliams said: That was actually my last calling. My wife had sort of asked to be put in the nursery, so the bishop released me from the high priests group leadership and put me in the nursery with her. It was fun, most of the time. you could start bringing snacks to Sunday School. I little sugar in the system seems can help sometimes. 2
Kenngo1969 Posted July 18, 2018 Posted July 18, 2018 4 hours ago, jkwilliams said: I’m not generally a provocateur, but even if I were, I can already feel my wife’s hand crushing mine if I did what you suggest. She sounds like a strong woman.
Jane_Doe Posted July 18, 2018 Posted July 18, 2018 6 hours ago, jkwilliams said: I hadn't been to church in quite a while until this past weekend. Since we moved back to Utah, my wife has been asking me if I would attend church with her. I don't think it's a huge sacrifice, but it was definitely awkward. I am taking the same approach I did before: focus on the good things and try to tune out the not so good. It started out OK, as the sacrament meeting talks were on the subject of service. The first talk, by a recently married young woman, started out talking about how we learn to love by serving others, which is something I strongly believe in, but then she defined service as attending the temple. Her husband's talk, although he said he was going to talk about service, was about preparing to go to the temple and how to get the most from it. The Gospel Doctrine lesson was about King Solomon and his wisdom, but it too turned out to be about temples, the last 15 minutes being a "name that temple" game. I'm not complaining, but I'm really trying to devise some strategies for getting through 3 hours of church every week. I had to keep reminding myself, "I'm doing this for her, not for me." I don't want to end up grinding my teeth every week. Any suggestions? Sometimes you just go to look at this particular hours as a great opportunity to meditate on the ways life has been blessed and contemplate on things. Which may of course meaning totally ignoring the teacher who's go off to who-knows-where. 4
Tacenda Posted July 18, 2018 Posted July 18, 2018 (edited) 3 hours ago, rpn said: Find other ways to occupy your mind. Write the talk that you think should have been given. Read the hymnbook and tune out the talk. Sing in your head. Recall memories of good things. Find a hymn that fits the subject, then go to the bottom and find the scripture, then go to the scripture and read the context. Draw a picture of what the lesson/talk should be about. Draw an alternative presentation. Make a list of all the other things you can think of that apply but the speaker left out. Draw pictures of people worshipping (you'd need to sit towards the back and over the the side to have the most choices). Write bedtime stories for child/grandchild based on childhood experiences. (This comes from someone who made up a whole musical in her head in the course of a summer in a plant where she canned asparagus. You body's participation does not prevent your mind from strolling through the garden, smelling the lavender.) RPN, I always thought you were male! Why, I don't know but you give wonderful advice here! For some reason after being inactive for over a year I, like JK, find it extremely difficult to go to church and stay the 2nd and 3rd hour. So I appreciate reading these suggestions. Edited July 18, 2018 by Tacenda
Storm Rider Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 5 hours ago, jkwilliams said: I’m not complaining, just asking for advice on to make this work for us. I am not sure you personally were exactly complaining, but it is evident that there was confusion over the priority. Our entire perspective changes when our priority changes - it moves us from where we were to a new point. When the focus becomes making your wife happy then it is no longer about how you personally are tolerating the meetings. Everything becomes secondary. In our marriages, it is often about selfless service to our spouse for no other reason than to bring them pleasure and enjoyment. I do agree that this is selfless and that is the point of serving our spouse. You may still be annoyed with speakers and discussions, but you will seek for the positive and share those comments with her to engage in conversation. You will still remain firm in your own beliefs, but you will focus on the positive, or whatever else it takes, to make her happy. 1
strappinglad Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 If my wife wanted me to go to the opera with her I would comply.... once in a great while. If she wanted me to go every month I would need to know why she wanted me to go somewhere that was uncomfortable/unpleasant for me. What are the expectations expressed or implied ? No need to respond. I know opera is good for me.
Unaffiliated Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 Why is church painful for you? It always brings me peace and relaxation.
snowflake Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 22 hours ago, jkwilliams said: I hadn't been to church in quite a while until this past weekend. Since we moved back to Utah, my wife has been asking me if I would attend church with her. I don't think it's a huge sacrifice, but it was definitely awkward. I am taking the same approach I did before: focus on the good things and try to tune out the not so good. It started out OK, as the sacrament meeting talks were on the subject of service. The first talk, by a recently married young woman, started out talking about how we learn to love by serving others, which is something I strongly believe in, but then she defined service as attending the temple. Her husband's talk, although he said he was going to talk about service, was about preparing to go to the temple and how to get the most from it. The Gospel Doctrine lesson was about King Solomon and his wisdom, but it too turned out to be about temples, the last 15 minutes being a "name that temple" game. I'm not complaining, but I'm really trying to devise some strategies for getting through 3 hours of church every week. I had to keep reminding myself, "I'm doing this for her, not for me." I don't want to end up grinding my teeth every week. Any suggestions? Try going to a church whose focus is on the Bible and Jesus........
Kenngo1969 Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 9 minutes ago, snowflake said: Try going to a church whose focus is on the Bible and Jesus........ https://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/02/mormonism-obsessed-with-christ 1
Tacenda Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 9 minutes ago, snowflake said: Try going to a church whose focus is on the Bible and Jesus........ Like I mentioned earlier I've had a difficult time going back to church, since being inactive for over a year. So when I tried going back since a move to a new area, thought it would be a good thing since no one would know I was inactive for a short time. But it was so difficult, I now understand how my children use to feel, when they became teenagers and didn't want to go all the time but we forced them to. I decided I needed to figure out where my church should be and asked my husband if we could alternate going to the LDS church and then try out another faith's church around our town. We haven't tried it and my husband who agreed is now backtracking. But I feel I need to figure it out before it drives me insane or I lose a belief in anything. I wonder if JK's wife would agree to that, but I don't know if JK would even want that, and it might cause a lot of problems or hurt feelings, where now my husband is almost like myself in the faith dept. and JK's wife is true believing.
snowflake Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 23 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/02/mormonism-obsessed-with-christ Having been raised LDS, I know the LDS church believes in Jesus and the Bible. IMO, Jesus and the Bible are not the top priority in your church, I would list the LDS top priorities as something like........ family, church, prophet, priesthood, the gospel, BOM......then the Bible and Jesus. Important......but not the most important. All i'm saying is that other churches put Jesus as top priority.
jkwilliams Posted July 19, 2018 Author Posted July 19, 2018 16 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said: She sounds like a strong woman. Oh, you don't mess with my wife.
jkwilliams Posted July 19, 2018 Author Posted July 19, 2018 49 minutes ago, snowflake said: Try going to a church whose focus is on the Bible and Jesus........ The point is to be where my wife is.
snowflake Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 1 minute ago, jkwilliams said: The point is to be where my wife is. Oh......I think you're just going to have to suck it up and deal brother!
Kenngo1969 Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 (edited) If someone invited me to go to a church to which I don't belong, have never belonged, and with which I am unfamiliar, I'm not sure my first approach to that opportunity (and I'm not indicting anyone else in the thread here; I'm simply thinking "aloud," as it were) would be to find fault with what goes on or to start keeping a mental catalogue of "Well, we don't believe [x]," and "Well, we don't do [y]": I would treat it as the learning opportunity and the opportunity to experience something new that it is. Yes, since I'm intimately familiar with the history, doctrine, practice, and so on of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and since I know Bishop Smith's weaknesses and I know that Sister Jones isn't a particularly effective Gospel Doctrine teacher, and so on, ad infinitum and, potentially, ad nauseam, it's an entirely different situation than the "going-to-a-different-denomination" example I mentioned above. I confess that I don't always feel well-motivated to go to church or to some of the other things I might be called upon to do in a church with a lay ministry. Candidly, I wish I could participate more than my "work-induced" "sabbatical" from church (an ironic word, that, since I believe "sabbatical" and "sabbath" come from the same root) has allowed. But as I see it, church, fortunately, is not a haven for the perfected; it's a laboratory for those who, however haltingly and incrementally, are being perfected, including the Bishop Smiths and the Sister Joneses. I can understand those who are not particularly scintillated or stimulated by church; I can understand those who are annoyed with the foibles of a Bishop Smith or a Sister Jones; but if I'm not willing to forgive or to overlook the foibles of a Bishop Smith or a Sister Jones, I'd better be prepared for the same treatment from those who are unwilling to do the same to the foibles of a Brother KennyG. What I confess that I don't understand (and again, I'm not necessarily calling out anybody else specifically here) is the attitude of "I'd-rather-set-my-own-hair-on-fire-than-go-to-church." If I make my going to church contingent on what a Bishop Smith or a Sister Jones does (or does not do), I'm apt always to be disappointed (on those rare occasions I even make it to church, that is: perhaps I should call Bishop Smith and Sister Jones beforehand and say, "Now, I'll agree to come to church, but only if you do (or do not do) [x]" ). Though we use the word "sacrament" in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and while that word, too, has its own significance, personally, I like the word "communion." And whether I see church as an opportunity to commune with God is not about what Bishop Smith or Sister Jones does. Rather, it's entirely up to me. Edited July 20, 2018 by Kenngo1969 2
Kenngo1969 Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 14 minutes ago, jkwilliams said: Oh, you don't mess with my wife. Wouldn't dream of it ... and that's also true of a great many women I know.
Kenngo1969 Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 15 minutes ago, jkwilliams said: The point is to be where my wife is. But, John, don't you want to be in a church whose focus is Christ and the Holy Bible?
jkwilliams Posted July 19, 2018 Author Posted July 19, 2018 5 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said: But, John, don't you want to be in a church whose focus is Christ and the Holy Bible? I'm not getting involved in sectarian disputes.
Jane_Doe Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 1 hour ago, snowflake said: Having been raised LDS, I know the LDS church believes in Jesus and the Bible. IMO, Jesus and the Bible are not the top priority in your church, I would list the LDS top priorities as something like........ family, church, prophet, priesthood, the gospel, BOM......then the Bible and Jesus. Important......but not the most important. And you would be wrong. Moving on now.
bsjkki Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 You can look forward to 2019 when the Sunday School curriculum changes and is focused on the New Testament. It should be an interesting year. After perusing the test manual for Come Follow Me primary, I feel my teachers are going to learn a lot next year and learn a ton about the New Testament. Here is the test manual for Book of Mormon I found. https://www.lds.org/bc/content/ldsorg/manual/test/Come-Follow-Me-for-Primary.pdf
Stargazer Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 2 hours ago, snowflake said: Having been raised LDS, I know the LDS church believes in Jesus and the Bible. IMO, Jesus and the Bible are not the top priority in your church, I would list the LDS top priorities as something like........ family, church, prophet, priesthood, the gospel, BOM......then the Bible and Jesus. Important......but not the most important. All i'm saying is that other churches put Jesus as top priority. Your perception seems to be well out of joint from my own experiences. There are certainly some LDS who are off-kilter on this, just as there are certainly some mainstream Christian members who are. But what I hear every Sunday over the pulpit, in class lessons, and public testimony, is that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Eternal God. I've been a member since 1966 (was not born in the Church), and this has not changed from that day to this. Without Christ there are no prophets, no Church, no gospel, no BOM. If you feel otherwise, well then, I guess we were either attending different Churches, or you heard something other than I did. 2
Unaffiliated Posted July 19, 2018 Posted July 19, 2018 7 hours ago, Tacenda said: Like I mentioned earlier I've had a difficult time going back to church, since being inactive for over a year. So when I tried going back since a move to a new area, thought it would be a good thing since no one would know I was inactive for a short time. But it was so difficult, I now understand how my children use to feel, when they became teenagers and didn't want to go all the time but we forced them to. I decided I needed to figure out where my church should be and asked my husband if we could alternate going to the LDS church and then try out another faith's church around our town. We haven't tried it and my husband who agreed is now backtracking. But I feel I need to figure it out before it drives me insane or I lose a belief in anything. I wonder if JK's wife would agree to that, but I don't know if JK would even want that, and it might cause a lot of problems or hurt feelings, where now my husband is almost like myself in the faith dept. and JK's wife is true believing. Try watching General Conference talks on YouTube. You can have a whole nice conference session from the past from your home and get enriched by church leaders.
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