We were invited to spend Easter with friends. One of their fathers is a Stake President. He was talking about the church today and here are his high points. He references discussing these things and getting several of these insights from a member of the 1st Q of the 70.

He hears many, many people telling him that Mormonism is losing relevance with people.

The IRS has hundreds of pages of rules. LDS Inc. has a handbook and the scriptures which is much less. It should suffice for people to be able to follow them much easier.

He believes now is like the time in 4th Nephi where the generations of members are losing their testimonies through not transferring them parent to child. People just expect their children to gain them without their involvement.

We have good kids and exceptional youth, we just have poor role modeling.

The Law of Thirds is burning out members. 1/3 do all the work, 1/3 irregularly attend church, and 1/3 don't.

I gathered he was feeling a little concerned with leaders giving work to people who won't say no but should and when giving it to other people they have a million excuses not to including that they had already done that and wanted to try something new. He didn't like this response.

It was a weird and refreshing conversation. It was like talking to the leader of a club. No spiritual talk and all temporal talk. I thought this is a religion? But I appreciated the insights into a job that I've never really understood.

My big take away was that people seem more and more uncomfortable with their church but all the leadership is unanimous in their primary message - stay the course indefinitely. We need nothing new and no changes. We need you to get the vision of what we have.

they seem to close their eyes/minds to all the Admitted essays & other Changing info coming down the road, don't they?

Then there are the shifts in ppls values, ideals, priorities, and available resources (time, money, focus). They either don't see them or 'can't' deal with those!


Different situations, but Same solutions/answers.


Yup, that should seal their future...

GNPE Wrote:
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> Yup, that should seal their future...

Well, the SP thinks that in a few generations there will be no strong testimonies left.

He and his 70 friend might have more prescience than their prophet.

and the church has no one but themselves to blame for this. In their attempts to create the perfect zion people they killed the heart and soul of the church.

Let. It. Die.

Thanks, very interesting.

From memory, those setting the example and attending meetings will be made to feel guilty and, ironically, those who don't won't.

It seems like the SP is helpless to address the big issues that are facing his stake.

Rampant apostasy - Parents are sucking at their job.
Burned out members - Lack of commitment to the church
Losing relevance - No we are not!! Head in sand.

If this is the widespread mentality of the leadership, the decline of TSCC is inevitable.

I always had the same feeling when I was in the EQ presidency meetings and ward council meetings. Its a club, not a religion.

Elder Berry Wrote:
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>
> The Law of Thirds is burning out members. 1/3 do
> all the work, 1/3 irregularly attend church, and
> 1/3 don't.
>

We don't even have a 1/3 doing the work in my ward. This ward may not be the current norm, but it is in very bad shape. Many disaffections, almost no elder's quorum, HP group is paper thin. We have about 8-10% holding on and the rest are gone or on their way out.

The church is run by business men and they run it like a business.

If that's the case, then they're running that business into the ground. They seem to be stuck half way between a business and church and no one seems to be on the same page.

Yes, the church is about to turn itself around by investing in VHS tapes and floppy disks. They got it all figured out.

:D

It's a business that's supposed to be owned by God, And he's supposed to be telling the management when there are any major changes, so while they are trying to figure out what God is trying to tell them they just remain entranced with the details.

There is all the words of all of the modern prophets that are supposed to be the word of God and unchangeable. I think it has them painted into a corner.

hugenippley Wrote:
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> There is all the words of all of the modern
> prophets that are supposed to be the word of God
> and unchangeable. I think it has them painted into
> a corner.

Not true. If a "prophet" says "thus sayeth The Lord" then it is literally supposed to be the words/will of God.

God is unchangable in Mormonism, humans are not. They worship a fickle and jealous God. That is unchangable.

The "Nature of God" is like Greek Gods. Their immortality and god power is unchangable but their personalities aren't.

The apotheosis of Mormonism's god is still ongoing. This is the problem of God in Mormonism. Also the unchangability of the Mormon God is based upon "laws" which are absolute. Their God is constrained by rules He cannot break. The Mormon God is limited, prone to fits and changing His mind but supposedly bound by rules that even simple mortals can affect such as doing His will requires Him to help them.

It is all confusing. Mormons are absolutists with regards to the nature of their God and their God is unchanging only in relation to powers higher than Himself. There may or may not be an absolute being behind the Mormon God. Either way the Mormon God is only absolute it following the rules of heaven of which we have not much information. The Mormon God is managing mortals through "continuing revelation." Only a being prone to change their mind would need such a mechanism.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2016 05:48PM by Elder Berry.

All I mean is that they have all of these teachings of past modern prophets that they have to at least pretend are inspired. They have jettisoned some of Brigham Young's, and other prophets racist teachings. They grew up believing these teachings as the word of God, and they know that a lot of the members did too, so they aren't likely to get new "revelations" to contradict them. And if they undermine the credibility of the past prophets by changing too much, they undermine their own credibility, so they are doubling down on things like keeping the Sabbath day holy.

Expect more to come. More porn, modesty, words of wisdom in "Eternal" repeat mode not to mention their favorite hawking - Fire Insurance.

They worry about anything that can negatively affect the bottom line and they couch everything in spirtiual/doctrinal terms to draw attention away from the real issue at hand.

RB

I think Mormonism depended on its members having puritanical morality values that were the norm in 1800's. Not even Mormons are that puritanical these days and outside the church, who cares how their neighbor lives? If most of the world is coming around to letting gays get married and living lives without guilt, how can tssc expect to not have any consequences for insisting on 19th century lifestyles?

They are the new Amish.

How does this theory square up with secret polygamy, screwing people in the barn and having orgies in the temple? They were a sex cult and there were plenty of them at the time. Oneida comes to mind.

I don't think the SP fully understands the law of thirds when it comes to the church.

1/3 attend
1/3 are completely inactive
1/3 are lost, just kept on the records to keep numbers up.

1/3 of the adult attenders then do all the work
1/3 of the attenders have excuses to not to any work
1/3 of the attenders just say no and have zero interest

So at best, 1/9 of the members on the records do all the work.

Your subdivision,, scotslander, comes arithmetically close to an old aphorism about most organizations, religious and secular:

"10% of the people do 90% of the work."

Sure. Just multiply both sides by 1.111.

10% => 90%
11.11% => 99.99%
1/9 => 100%

didn't one third of heaven go with lucifer ?

Yep. I'm one of these thirds. I stole my body by jumping into my mother's womb right before her righteous pre-existent son was trying to get in...

Member: SP, I just feel that Mormonism is losing all relevance with me; and many, many people tell me they feel the same way.

SP: The IRS has hundreds of pages of rules. LSD Inc has a handbook and scriptures which is much less. It should suffice for you to be able to follow them much easier.

Member: Well, that's relevant. I guess...

New slogan for TSSC: "LDS, Inc., Fewer Rules than the IRS!"

Jesus.

That is what I was thinking. Spin it as less rules to try and make it more relevant?

Elder Berry Wrote:
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> It was a weird and refreshing conversation. It was
> like talking to the leader of a club. No spiritual
> talk and all temporal talk. I thought this is a
> religion? But I appreciated the insights into a
> job that I've never really understood.

This preoccupation with membership and numbers and the
organization is characteristic of a cult. The MAIN message of
a cult is "WE ARE EVERYTHING TO YOU." He's complaining that
there are too many members for whom the organization is not
EVERYTHING.

In a cult the ORGANIZATION and its leaders are more important
than the message. That's why you need to get more people
officially into the ORGANIZATION, and not just accepting your
"gospel message." This was well illustrated in Joseph Smith's
day when he, the LEADER of the ORGANIZATION went around
convincing his followers to break section 101 of the Doctrine &
Covenants (since removed from the D&C) which publicly stated
that the Church was totally against polygamy.

Holy Joe's major problem was that he
A- wanted to be considered infallible
B- wanted to be able to revamp doctrine as his desires evolved.

The members who couldn't reconcile those two things, either left of their own volition or were driven out/murdered.

The members who could manage to reconcile the conflict remained faithful to the church.

Still the same in 2016. I hesitate to use this word to describe the faithful because it carries significant pejorative connotations, but if the shoe fits then they should wear it; And the shoe is: Credulous!

lovechild Wrote:
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> is: Credulous!

They are. Doubting their doubts all through their lives. Clinging to their credulity for a variety of reasons.