I realize that I should probably be sending this dilemma to “Ask a Methodist Girl” or “Ask a Protestant Girl”, but please do the best you can with me, under the circumstances.
I grew up in the Methodist church, and have taken a few spiritual detours along the way, but have always been steadfast in my belief in God. I have always been curious about the LDS church, and have attended church services, a baptism and more recently have met with the missionaries. I also attend a United Methodist Church, one whose membership includes many people that knew me as a child. There is comfort there. I am a single mother of two daughters, and attend church with my 12-year-old (my 20-year-old daughter is on a spiritual quest of her own…). We have attended both churches together, and while my daughter liked the LDS service (she thought Primary was great!), she has expressed that she feels more comfortable attending church where she knows people, and where people know her…I can understand that, so we are trying to become more active in our UM church.
My problem, if it is a problem, is this: I think about the LDS church all the time. I’d love to say I felt the spirit in the sacrament service, but I really felt it during Sunday School and especially during Relief Society. I miss that! The women in that ward are wonderful, and while I thought I would feel a little out of place (since unlike most members of the ward, I am not married or caucasian), I really did not.
So I have this dilemma. On the one hand, I want to foster my daughter’s spiritual growth, and I think the best way to do this is by going to a church where she feels at home. On the other hand, I wish to grow spiritually as well, but without excluding (or confusing) my daughter. I do not wish to convert at this time, but is there a middle place?
Anne
There is a wonderful sense of openness, awareness, respect, and spiritual sensitivity that emanates from your letter. And that, my dear, is precisely what it takes to craft a middle place or a middle path for a family like yours in a complicated religious situation.
So your daughter feels more comfortable in the UMC congregation that has been your spiritual home since you were a child, while your own ongoing adult spiritual path is leading you into the precincts of Mormonism. How to meet her needs and your own at the same time?
Of course, I’m rooting for you to join the LDS Church because, ahem, (among other more elevated reasons) I want you to move to my ward and hang out with me in Relief Society! But for now I’ll put down my pom-poms, because it sounds to me like you’re doing the right thing by listening to your daughter and getting active in your UMC congregation.
My daughters are not yet twelve, but already I look forward to that tender, important, confusing age with a great deal of trepidation. How fantastic that your daughter feels connected to a church community to support her (and you) through these crucial formative years! I think it’s worth celebrating that your daughter wants to attend church at all!
What I also gathered from your letter is that race may be a factor in your situation. No doubt, that may also be on your daughter’s mind. For people of color in the US, churches have historically served as a crucial spiritual safe harbor for working out how to survive and carry oneself with dignity and grace in the face of a sometimes hostile majority white society. If your UMC congregation offers a stable, intergenerational local community that can offer your daughter additional role models and sources of strength in this area of her personal and spiritual development, by all means, keep taking her there. Mormonism is terrific, and we’ve come a long way on race, but even well-thinking Mormons coming from a traditionally Anglo-dominant culture may just not be aware of some of the dimensions of experience your daughter and you face as nonwhites in the US. And it’s not your daughter’s job at age twelve to teach them.
Even as you support your daughter by attending UMC, I do think you should continue to feed and support the part of you that enjoys Mormonism. And even if most Mormons take an all or nothing approach to Church attendance, that doesn’t mean this approach will be the right fit for you. Continue to sneak in Sunday School and Relief Society if you can. Bargain with your daughter to do three weeks with the UMC and one with the LDS. See if you can exploit the scheduling of Sunday meetings to your advantages—sometimes the times of LDS ward meeting times shift from year, and some wards due to building-sharing needs meet in the afternoons. And let your Relief Society president and bishop know what’s going on. I don’t know if they’d assign you a visiting teacher before baptism, but they might—and I get the feeling you’d enjoy that. Get and stay on the ward email list. Attend activities. Subscribe to the Ensign. Read good books about Mormonism. Keep feeding yourself, and in a year or two, reevaluate.
One thing I’ve learned living in an interfaith family is that if I put the needs of the family as a family first, the whole interfaith thing will iron itself somehow, over time, with the help of God.
Readers, what additional advice or support can you offer Anne? How do you negotiate between the different spiritual needs of members in your family?
Send your query to askmormongirl@gmail.com, or follow askmormongirl on Twitter.
Everyone is individual and unique. Encourage her to pursue her own spiritual path. It may or may not lead back to the one you want for her but encouraging a person’s uniqueness and individuality can only be a win win for all.
Great advice. I’ll just second it and add that you could also add family prayer and family home evening into your routine if you don’t already do that. Those are ways to connect with your daughter spiritually even if you end up with different church preferences; you can feel united in faith at home. I believe the Holy Ghost will bless and inspire you in ways that will help you fulfill your responsibility as your daughters spiritual guide and mentor.
Another response I find sort of odd.
“What I also gathered from your letter is that race may be a factor in your situation. No doubt, that may also be on your daughter’s mind.”
It seemed to me that race was not a factor and that the Relief Society members seem to make it a non-issue. And “No doubt, it is on your daughter’s mind?” I didn’t sense that anywhere. I think it is typical of any 12 year old, either girl or boy, to be more comfortable among people they know. but kids are generally very adaptable and chances are there are kids in the primary and young women who are classmates, which may or may not be true of the UMC congregations. Also, kids that age are fairly adaptable and a few times in the LDS ward and she will feel just as comfortable.
Anne is the parent and should be able decide which place might be best for her child and herself in the longer term. Kids do not think that way. They tend to be in the moment. And things change pretty fast in their lives.
“Keep feeding yourself, and in a year or two, reevaluate.”
I like that bit of advice. Some great church leaders came to the church after such a personal journey. I did have the thought about whether Anne’s daughter, who loved Primary, could be suggesting that they attend a church where they know people out of concern for her mother, rather than herself. Kids with that level of maturity can be quite protective of their parents, and even if Anne didn’t feel out of place in Relief Society, her daughter may be anxious that such a reaction in her mother could occur.
We all have to learn how to adapt to new situations and new people throughout our lives. I don’t think it is a good idea to try and protect her daughter from a new situation because she is comfortable somewhere else. A parent should decide what is best for her child, not the child….. that is why they are the parent. If a parent worries too much about rocking the boat with a child, then the child may grow up unable to adapt because they expect everyone to adapt to them and their wants rather than the other way around. Real life is dealing with change and discomfort at times. I think if the mother wants to go to the Mormon church then she can tell the daughter that is what she has decided and over time her daughter will meet friends and be fine. If we are never uncomfortable then how do we learn to deal with discomfort when it comes? Surely it WILL come.
I agree with Jen (hey Jen, it’s been awhile). It’s heartening to see that the mother is sensitive to her daughter’s needs, but ultimately it is the parent’s responsibility to determine what is best for the family and the child at this stage. If, ultimately, that means choosing a church where the daughter is not entirely comfortable at first, the parent can always explain that in a few years the daughter will be old enough to choose for herself and the parent will be supportive of whatever she chooses, but for now the parent is doing what she thinks is best.
Hey brjones…it has been awhile, and it’s nice we are agreeing on something as well….
I have to say that not being able to decide between the two denominations – UMC and LDS is quite troublesome for me because these two denominations are very different in their doctrine and their practices which makes me think that you don’t really have the proper grasp of what the Bible teaches and what the particular denominations teach (or does it even matter?!?!)! Be sure first to decide on what exactly is that you are looking for in a church you would like to be a part of and then follow through! Taking your daughter’s spiritual growth into consideration is commendable, but having her go back and forth between the two denominations, as it has been suggested by someone previously can have some serious repercussions on her spiritual life!
re: 8, on the contrary, I don’t think it’s problematic to go back and forth between two denominations at all. And I definitely don’t feel that it is necessary to have a complete doctrinal grasp of a faith before you start attending in ernest. In fact, I have often wished (even after serving a mission), that we as Latter Day Saints took a less “all or nothing” approach when teaching and dealing with those who are interested in the church.
To the original poster, I believe that if you feel anything at all at LDS services, you should continue to attend- as much or as little as you like. Tell your daughter what you are feeling. Ask her what she’s feeling. Acknowledge that it is okay not to know, but try to do what makes you both feel good, and spiritually “filled”. I have a 14 year old daughter, and I’ve found that I’ve been able to talk to her very openly about a lot of topics for the last couple of years- they’re often more mature than we give them credit for.
I believe that one of two things will happen as you continue to attend an LDS ward (it sounds like you already enjoyed the fellowship in the smaller meetings): either the doctrines and the lifestyle will really start to resonate with you, and you will find yourself having a greater desire to learn more (you will in effect be developing a testimony), or you will grow increasingly uncomfortable with what you are hearing and decide it is not for you.
A couple of words of advice, if you’d like to hear them: first of all, sacrament meeting is not always the most spiritual meeting of the 3. Take the spirit where you can get it, but don’t dismiss it if you don’t feel it everywhere. I often tell my kids that they may not get anything out of church some weeks, or even most weeks. Listen to the spirit as it speaks to you. Also, try to disregard (well-meaning) members who would pressure you to take steps that you are not ready to take- but don’t let them stop you from coming if you want to be there!
I don’t know much about the UMC, but I did lead a Weight Watchers meeting in one of their buildings for a while, and I noticed that a phrase that was posted prominently around the building was “God is still speaking”. Amen, Amen, Amen. He will speak to you. Best of luck in your journey.
Research EVERYTHING before you make any decisions. The Church is either true….or it’s not, there is no gray area, NONE.