Subtle attempt at some humor…….. lost

I’ve always thought that this misunderstood and over-emphasized approach to grace was a recipe for self-loathing and fatigue. And now we’re applying it to meeting formats? Let’s just get a ward-level prescription of Prozac and pass it around with the bread a water. . .

1) They are dull and we should try to improve them by changing the format, content, speaker quality, etc.

2) They are dull, but we should not change them, because it is our job as congregants to obtain what we can from the well-settled format.

3) It is not dull. Those who think it is dull need to try harder to get more out of it.

I believe the meetings are dull. I understand that some people have a spiritual gift of sitting through sacrament meetings for 1 hour and 10 minutes without being bored for 50 minutes. I do not have that gift, and many others do not have that gift (as evidenced by the comments). I do not believe this gift can be obtained by trying harder or paying closer attention. I believe that failing to recognize those of us who lack the gift results in some of us falling away or not joining in the first place. (On the other hand, I acknowledge that changing the format may cause some who like the meetings as they are to leave the Church or not join.)

We #1′s can take solace in the fact that, although our Church seems to be have been run by #2′s and #3′s, eventually one of us may become Prophet. Then things are going to be different around here.

“but I just get turned off by the idea that somehow the meeting is perfect and the errors are mine alone.”

But no one has said that the meeting is perfect.

Great comments both of you, thanks

Firstly, no one said anything about ADHD, so don’t go there. That wasn’t the point.

“However, this is not at all representative of the larger group that considers church meetings to be dull.”

Just who is it then. Clue us in?

There are always a lot of things to complain about. I was surprised at the idea that anyone who is a serious investigator would be put off by our worship service. We do all the things other churches do as part of their worship services. We pray, sing and listen to talks about God and Jesus and the Atonement. We hear advice about how to more Christlike lives. That is what we do when we worship.

I like our meetings and I believe that it is possible to be touched by the spirit. I also believe that visitors are not nearly as critical of us as we are of ourselves.

I can handle dull religion, but dorky religion is right out. Stick to timeless ritual, and let people keep it timely by projecting their contemporary thoughts onto it.

I think the real point is that that change has to start from within the members who attend and those that participate. Then and only then, after all WE can do should anything we done to the format itself. I listen to the Mormon Expression interview and even Ms, Riess equivocated on some of her strongest criticisms in the article.

As Forest Gump almost said, “Dull is, as Dull does.

FWIW, I do not think Jana (and I would not be) was advocating turning Sacrament into an Evangelical rock concert. I am not advocating, as Paul said re 51, a “great format change from on high.” It’s not about completely changing everything. It’s about taking what unique things we have (e.g., our classic set of hymns, our lay ministry) and doing the best we can with them.

re 51:

Paul, I agree that meetings will (and must) be improved one-by-one, not by some great format change on high. BUT, how can we improve our meetings one-by-one if every ONE believes that there is nothing to improve? If every ONE insists that the only thing that must change is how we look at the meetings, not in how we prepare for the meetings, how we behave during the meetings, etc.,?

In fact, in Jana’s article she lists five issues. In my sacrament meetings, none of those five issues exist.

In my pre-LDS days, I found church pretty dull in my traditional protestant service (but then, I was eight years old). But my parents, who chose to go and worship, did not.

It’s ok to expect people to cultivate a certain taste for a new way of doing things. It’s ok to have a simple meeting.

I agree that it is disheartening to go to a sacrament meeting with mediocre singing and ill-prepared talks. But those meetings will be improved one-by-one, not by some great format change from on high. (If the simple format fails, why would we assume that a more entertaining format would succeed??)

I also agree that it’s disheartening to go to a meeting where youth and adults are so rude as to disrupt the reverence of the meeting. Little children we welcome, with all that they bring. But I have little patience for squawking deacons (including my own son) and chattering adults. Again, those issues are not going to be resolved by some format change. They’ll be resolved one-by-one through teaching and persuading as detailed in Section 121.

“There’s only something wrong with the world/the new generation/people with low attention spans,” then we’re also going to have to deal with the side effect of not being able to reach out to the world/the new generation/people with low attention spans, and we’re ultimately going to have to deal with irrelevancy.’

Well, it appears we have to disagree on this. The way of the world is not the way of God. And because the world continues to get more and more wicked does not mean we should embrace it. The Lord wants those who are ready to accept the gospel. I doubt the Lord wants us to lower the standards just to attract more people.

I just think that if we’re going to discount the perspectives of 1) people who want to improve the church’s allure to outsiders and 2) those outsiders themselves, then that is not entirely constructive. I think if the membership locks down and says, “There’s nothing wrong with our meetings! There’s only something wrong with the world/the new generation/people with low attention spans,” then we’re also going to have to deal with the side effect of not being able to reach out to the world/the new generation/people with low attention spans, and we’re ultimately going to have to deal with irrelevancy.

So are we unable to disagree with that because of that distinction? So, you can’t have an opinion or express an opinion because someone else might have a different opinion?

“The thing is that that line of reasoning implicitly acknowledges the fact that the meetings are, in fact, dull. The rhetorical question “Is the meeting itself dull or the people who attend it making it dull for themselves?” merely adds insult to injury. (Unless the rhetorical answer you meant was: “It’s the meeting.”)”

Quite the leap you’ve made there. We are talking about dull depending on whose standard. But the standard of the MTV/video game.text/tweet generation, almost everything that isn’t in motion is dull and boring.

I never thought they were dull.