Lately when I look up RfM on my phone, the first entry that pops up is an ad from mormon.org with the headline: "Worship Jesus With Us".

Puh-leeze.

Dishonest to the core. Because the Mormon Church is short on worshipping Jesus, in my experience and observation.

However, an improvement to uttering "Christ" all the time, which as I've said often and recently here, grates on my ears. I know it as a cuss word from multiple sources but also don't hear it used so starkly in other churches as it is in the Mormon Church. EVs of my acquaintance say "Christ Jesus" or more often just "Jesus". So that's just what I'm much more accustomed to.

I finally looked at the LDS ad today out of curiosity as to what they would say about how they worship Jesus. Here are some highlights. (I have extracted just portions of their responses to their own questions).

"Come Unto Christ"

Question: "What should I wear?"

Response: "Just try to look nice."

Q: "Will I feel uncomfortable attending alone?"

A: "Many of our members come to church by themselves each week. ... [but] if you'd like someone to attend with you ... contact your closest congregation. They'll find you a friend to sit with."

Q: "What are the services like and how long do they last?"

"Church is in three parts. The first hour of church is called Sacrament Meeting. We sing hymns ... Someone says a prayer at the open and close of the meeting. We take the Sacrament (or Communion), which consists of bread and water, blessed and passed to members of the congregation. We also listen to members of the congregation give sermons, called "talks" on various gospel topics..."

NG: What the heck? When do they ever call Sacrament 'Communion'? Or talks 'sermons'?

For the question of whether a visitor has to participate in taking the Sacrament, the answer is no, "simply pass the tray to the next person" and "feel free to sit back and just enjoy the service."

Service?

See what they do there? Use terminology from other churches to normalize themselves. When do they ever say 'Communion', 'sermon' or 'service' when referring to their SMs?

They use bait and switch tactics even more obviously now in their attempts to entice people in. I can't stand the dishonesty of it. I could respect more a church that has fewer, if any converts, but that proudly and openly conveys what they truly believe and what they are really all about. What is the point of getting thousands of converts but losing them almost instantaneously because what is sold to them is different from what reality turns out to be. If a business operates dishonestly it can be charged with false advertising, or if the false front is blatant or damaging enough, perhaps even criminally charged.

Watch while we take 'Communion'? Sit back and enjoy the 'service' as you listen to the 'sermon'? And dress 'nice' to attend. Don't forget to phone ahead to get a 'friend' to sit with you if you're attending alone.

And then get hit upside the face with the reality of a Mormon SM. NOT what you expect or what they now apparently advertise.

The ad includes a video with a woman's picture and the caption: "When Lizzy found the Book of Mormon, she found community, belonging, and happiness soon after."

Lucky Lizzy. Not my experience with Mormonism!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2019 04:30PM by Nightingale.

I think they meant to say "Jesus worships Joseph Smith with us"

Bednar got out his super light sword pen one night and tried to get it right, but it came out wrong.

Umm.

Isn't church in 2 parts per visit?

The 3 part suggests that church is still 3 hours long.

Also, they really need to emphasize that members can't choose the nicest mormon church building or even the closest one to their homes. Oh no! Mormons have to be told when and where to attend.

It's funny how words or phrases can grate. What's with "come unto Christ"? Who today talks like that? What's wrong with "Come to Christ"?

kentish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's funny how words or phrases can grate. What's
> with "come unto Christ"? Who today talks like
> that? What's wrong with "Come to Christ"?

Good point!!!

This bait and switch is even worse than what I felt as a convert decades ago. It wasn't until I went to Utah to attend BYU that I realized how far from regular Protestantism I'd fallen. The only reason I stayed as long as I did was because I figured the missionaries who taught me couldn't possibly have gotten it SOOO wrong. It must have just been that Utah Mormons had a different slant/take on Christianity than Mormons in the Midwest. Since I went back to the Midwest after graduation from BYU it never phased me much how some Mormons were so weird. I just practiced my faith the way I thought the missionaries had said was okay. I truly believed in, and held onto tightly, the concept of FREE AGENCY as it was taught me as an investigator way back in the day. When Free Agency got changed to Agency to Obey I knew I wasn't in Kansas any more.

This new and improved bait and switch will either fail miserably to bring in membership or will succeed tremendously in getting the Mormon church to change it's tune. It could end up exactly with the outcome of the Reorganized/Community of Christ. But that would mean throwing J.S. under the bus. Can they go that far?

For money I think LDS,Inc. is ready to do anything.

What's with the phrase "Come unto Christ"? Who talks like that today? What's wrong with "Come to Christ"?

Sorry for the repeat post. My first effort brought a a red spam warning so I tried again and ended up with both.

Also known as "Mormon Mainstreaming"

The goal is to look like just another Christian denomination, albeit slightly weird.

The trick is utterances like "worship Jesus" while never mentioning that LDS believes very different things about Jesus than Christianity does.

The deception runs deep.

If they didn't twist who is worshiped around to the point where Jesus and Joseph get confused with each other, I dunno, maybe Mormonism wouldn't be so confused with a cult.

They even fool themselves to a point. What's more dishonest is the deception used to pull others in. Then after they're baptized they learn of the deception enough to decide do they stay or go.

The love bombing is a part of that. Once the razzle dazzle wears off, what's left is worn thin and threadbare.

Come worship an old man where when he talks the thinking has been done. It only costs you 10% of your pre-tax income and your freedom.

"Watch while we take 'Communion'? Sit back and enjoy the 'service' as you listen to the 'sermon'? And dress 'nice' to attend. Don't forget to phone ahead to get a 'friend' to sit with you if you're attending alone."

When are they going to say come have some coffee and donuts with us?

Last time I was there almost a year ago it was no different.

Anyone else remember the phrase we were supposed to repeat back in the 60s? "I'm not a Christian, I'm a Mormon." We'd freak out if someone called us Christian. But now they're the real Christians. Yeah, whatever.

I don't recall that phrase exactly. I do recall we weren't supposed to wear a cross.

I really liked crosses besides them being fashionable, they were a sign to me of Jesus dying for the sins of mankind. Mormon taught it was idolatry to worship the cross. But Christians don't worship the cross. It is only a symbol of their faith.

Big difference Mormons failed to understand.

I wore one anyway. Was always a bit of a rebel. :)

Mormons never had a problem with being identified as Christian. It was being called Protestant that they took issue with.

I never heard the "We aren't Christian" thing in the 60s either. We were the one true Christian church on earth.

Correct! We were the 'restored' church, because all the other churches had 'lost touch' with ghawd. I don't recall thinking that it made a difference which church we were compared to, they are all of them wrong!

JS was just a restoration tool in ghawd's hands; such a good boy!

Sing praises of Joseph's Myth with us.

A cross is a thousand times better than that stupid bronze horn blowing thingy.

We have thousands of Roman artifacts and ZERO artifacts of Nephites, straight from the imagination of Joe Smith.

The idea that mormons worship Jesus the way Christian (capital "C") people do is hogwash.

The last time I sat through a mormon sacrament meeting was Christmas day 2011. I had already been out of the church for years, but I was out of town visiting family and I was persuaded to go along.
Guess how many of the talks that day were about Jesus.(Remember, this was CHRISTMAS DAY). Zero. Not a single one.

The youth speaker mumbled something about a conference talk. Whatever.

The two featured speakers were an (old, white, male) member of the local temple presidency and his (old, white, female) wife speaking about how amazing temples are. Really they were talking about how awesome they are. They went on and on about all the people they meet at the tenple and how spiritual they are and how people always comment about how much they feel the spirit when they are around because they spend so much time in the temple. Blech.

That sacrament meeting.. I mean"service"...was among the most revolting things I ever sat through.

Speaking of Jesus, wassn't this past Saturday, April 6, Jesus's true, official birthday according to mormon teachings?

Did anybody at General Conference even mention that?

Yes, as a convert I thought I would at least learn a bit about the Bible and Jesus in my SS classes. I heard one Bible story the whole year and I don’t remember anything on Christmas either though we did sing some holiday songs.

That thing about finding a friend to sit with. Yeah right. Good luck with that!!!

Worship (Joseph) Christ (Jesus Smith!) with who? The Mormons?

If they really wanted the world to worship Christ with them they would have a sign out front saying worship Christ with us 9 a.m. [dress] sharp!

I don’t have any friends that would sit through Sacramento meeting with anyone

They extend an invitation: "Worship Jesus With Us!"

So maybe a naive, unsuspecting schlub falls for it, thinking: "I'll hang out with a bunch of great Jesus people, we'll sing songs of praise to Jesus, we'll have donuts and coffee together, we'll talk about Jesus and maybe work together on some projects to help needy people...in the spirit of Jesus. Then I'll go home and feel good about myself and my relationship with Jesus."

But what really happens?

You get pressured into paying 10% of the gross amount of all of your earnings and gifts each year...to an office in SLC, so that some old, old guys in suits whom you've never met can decide how to spend it, without any obligation to tell you about how they spent it.

You get pressured to make yourself worthy to go to a strange building they call the "Temple," where you find out that you're supposed to buy underwear from the Mormon church for the rest of your life. You get to also wear some funny costumes, practice some weird handshakes and shake hands with a guy hiding behind a curtain. Weird. Maybe intriguing to some. But doesn't seem like much "worshiping of Jesus" is going on.

You can have donuts on your own time and dime. But no coffee. Sorry.

There are a lot of places extending the same invitation: "Worship Jesus With Us!"

Many of them are actually trying to make it a pleasant experience. The Mormon church isn't. I predict a continuing pattern of decline in the competitiveness of the Mormon church in a rapidly tightening market.

funny...man hiding behind the curtain

Rumor of the new name of the church is to be called "THE CHURCH of CHANGING to CHRIST of Latter Day Saints".. you heard it here