Come Follow Me Changes

[Calm]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

the massive number of "where will you go" videos on TikTok is insane.

What are “where will you go” videos?

Edited July 15, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

5 hours ago, bluebell said:

  But I also think that it can perpetuate the taking of scriptures out of context and keep us from really understanding what the original writers of scripture were trying to say or teach and how ancient day saints understood things.

I think I is helpful to practice looking at things through other lenses as communication can be a train wreck if someone isn’t able to put aside their own assumptions at least some so they can actually listen to what someone else is saying, so I believe the above is useful for a variety of reasons.

[JLHPROF]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

What are “where will you go” videos?

A trend of people posting photos of themselves as members and then after leaving the Church always to the background of Elder Ballard's Oct 2016 Conference talk:

"If any one of you is faltering in your faith, I ask you the same question that Peter asked: “To whom shall [you] go?” If you choose to become inactive or to leave the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where will you go? What will you do?"

Ironically they're trying to show how much happier they are after leaving but a good number honestly look worse off to me.

There's quite a good number of them.  They use #I'vecomehome and #exmormon.

https://www.tiktok.com/discover/if-you-decide-to-leave-the-mormon-church-where-will-you-go

 

Edited July 15, 2023 by JLHPROF

[MustardSeed]

13 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

A trend of people posting photos of themselves as members and then after leaving the Church always to the background of Elder Ballard's Oct 2016 Conference talk:

"If any one of you is faltering in your faith, I ask you the same question that Peter asked: “To whom shall [you] go?” If you choose to become inactive or to leave the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where will you go? What will you do?"

Ironically they're trying to show how much happier they are after leaving but a good number honestly look worse off to me.

There's quite a good number of them.  They use #I'vecomehome and #exmormon.

https://www.tiktok.com/discover/if-you-decide-to-leave-the-mormon-church-where-will-you-go

 

I know both camps- close to several people have left, and I’d say it’s half-and-half, with regards to happiness, increase and decrease. If people leave because they are unhappy in general, they’re not gonna find happiness anywhere else. Those who have left because their belief system does not match the church’s seem to be thriving. 
 

Of course, that is anecdotal, and it is observational only.  

[JLHPROF]

23 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

I know both camps- close to several people have left, and I’d say it’s half-and-half, with regards to happiness, increase and decrease. If people leave because they are unhappy in general, they’re not gonna find happiness anywhere else. Those who have left because their belief system does not match the church’s seem to be thriving. 
 

Of course, that is anecdotal, and it is observational only.  

What I notice is for every one that looks happy, contented, flourishing after leaving there are two or three posting drunk pics, flipping off the camera, hanging off multiple people in various states of dress, even embracing sinful lifestyles, basically becoming unpleasant.

As I said, they may think they're happier but they've not left for something better.  Wickedness never was happiness.

But there are a few that seem to fall no further than iced coffee, tank tops and piercings, and Sunday activities outside the chapel.

Edited July 15, 2023 by JLHPROF

[MustardSeed]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

What I notice is for every one that looks happy, contented, flourishing after leaving there are two or three posting drunk pics, flipping off the camera, hanging off multiple people in various states of dress, even embracing sinful lifestyles, basically becoming unpleasant.

I haven’t seen much of that, though I am not denying that you have.  
 

I think when somebody leaves a community that has a lot of rules whether that’s a family a college or a religion or career it involves some reaching that may appear messy to attain a new normal of autonomy. 

[bsjkki]

I think it sad people feel they need to leave to be happy. Last week in RS they asked, ‘where do you feel discouraged?’ My answer to myself was ‘church.’ In the talk he gave two examples where church was the discouraging factor. We didn’t discuss that aspect and moved on. I know many who left feeling betrayed due to church history discoveries and others who left because they never felt good enough or capable of being perfect enough. 
 

I am surprised how many who leave immediately begin drinking. The WOW is very low on my list on why I don’t drink or do drugs. But my dad was a non-member and didn’t drink or smoke and looked down on those behaviors so maybe it’s not tied so tightly to church teachings for me. 
 

I know leaving is a very painful and difficult process for some people. 

[bsjkki]

As far as Come Follow Me, I think it dumbed down SS even more but so much depends on the teacher. It went much more discussion based in my ward and we heard personal stories that seemed to dominate the class.

[sunstoned]

8 hours ago, Chum said:

I could never upvote this enough. Stuff that isn't easily explained is interesting. It begs in-depth conversation and has all the potential to lift a lesson.

Double up vote from me.  

Edited July 16, 2023 by sunstoned

[Calm]

5 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

I haven’t seen much of that, though I am not denying that you have.  

The TikTok option would tend to draw, I guess, those who want to make a point more about the Church no longer having authority, even in cultural ways, over them, so there would be a higher percentage of the “in your face” type videos.

Edited July 16, 2023 by Calm

[gopher]

I think the church should copy what they do in the beginning of the endowment ceremony for Sunday School.  Before each class, play a 2-3 minute video explaining the purpose of the class, the expectations for the teacher and the expectations for the class.  They could include some of the suggestions given here.

I like the idea of the teaching in the Savior's way that was introduced a decade? ago, but sometimes I still see the "sage on the stage" style of teaching where there is very little class participation.  Having the lesson on an electronic device is nice so you can read through the material if the class gets boring.

[MustardSeed]

1 hour ago, gopher said:

Having the lesson on an electronic device is nice so you can read through the material if the class gets boring.

The device is sometimes a life saver for me though I’m admittedly not always “on task” with it- maybe I have adult ADHD or something but for me boredom is actually physically painful anymore.  

[manol]

On 7/15/2023 at 10:21 AM, bluebell said:

I would really appreciate a lesson manual that doesn't pretend like the problematic or difficult scriptural verses don't exist.  That frustrates me to no end.  It's like having a huge elephant in the room that we are all being asked to ignore.  It can feel patronizing to me--like they are hoping that we don't notice the elephant because we couldn't possibly deal with it. 

Two of the BEST and most memorable Sunday School lessons I ever experienced come to mind as examples of engaging courageously with the elephants in the room.

The first was in a Presbyterian church when I was in my late teens.  Briefly the teachers told a story in which all of the characters made "bad" choices often based on "good" intentions, and then asked us students to rank the characters from least evil to most evil.  Then pretty much whatever argument we came up with for why this or that person was more or less evil, the teachers shot it down.  The class ended without any satisfactory resolution of the question they posed.  I never forgot it, and about thirty years later I finally came up with an answer that I'm comfortable with.

The second was decades later in a Sabbath school class at a synagogue.  The lesson included the passage in Exodus where God "hardened Pharaoh's heart".  The rabbi focused the discussion on the difficult question of WHY would God do that?  I figured since the Jews had had thousands of years to figure it out that the rabbi would present a nice neat "wraps it all up and ties it with a bow" answer at the end of the lesson.  Nope!  At the end of class he basically said, "we do not know why God hardened Pharoah's heart."  Wow.  THAT was courageous!  So basically the point was, it's okay to NOT have an answer, much less a "textbook" answer, to every reasonable question. 

(My most memorable LDS Sunday School lesson moment was when a teacher explained the difference between the Pharisees and the Sadducees:  The Pharisees believed in a literal resurrection while the Saduccees did not, and so they were sad, you see...)

Edited July 16, 2023 by manol

[Duncan]

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-home-and-church-book-of-mormon-2024/03?lang=eng

[webbles]

For the 2020 edition to compare, you can see them at:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-individuals-and-families-book-of-mormon-2020/02?lang=eng

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-primary-book-of-mormon-2020/02?lang=eng

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-sunday-school-book-of-mormon-2020/02?lang=eng

[blackstrap]

On 7/15/2023 at 9:21 AM, bluebell said:

Bro. Soandso

For a second there I thought I had missed the appointment of a new GA .🙃

When it comes to the new lessons I try to remember the current and near future demographics of the Church membership . A big slice of the membership don't have 20-30 years of SS under their belt. 

At the risk of repeating myself, if you want to build your testimony, read the scriptures. If you want to chisel  away at a testimony, read the scriptures.

Particularly in the Old Testament, everything that happened, good or bad, was God's will, so if someone hardened his heart ,God did it .If someone softened his heart, God willed it. Personally I have a problem with that thinking in that it removes responsibility for everyone for their sins.