A free tour of a standard LDS chapel--plain, dour, and souless as most of them are?! (The older ones have more character.) I'd take a tour of the Cathedral of the Madeline in Salt Lake or St. Patrick's in New York City--but an LDS meetinghouse?!

Yeah, that's going to attract droves of converts . . . .

They probably will have the baptismal font filled and have white jumpsuits ready for those will commit to baptism by the end of the tour.....LOL

But that way you don't have to pay any tithing to see the chapel!

I was wondering if they'll accept walk-ins or do you have to be invited? I would go just to ask questions.

The smell of sweaty polyester suits and baby vomit greets you at the door. Yuck. Preggy factory for dolts.

And it's free too!!

...the idea that weird things go in in Mormon churches. If that's the case, it's true there aren't any human sacrifices or sex altars, but there's the weird lack of Jesus-ness and the sensory deprivation of the chapel. ChurchCo isn't aware how weird its Sunday best image is to outsiders.

Do LDS churches have a library? This is an opportunity to plant a few interesting books there.

Do they have a bulletin board?

A table piled with pamphlets?

presbyterian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do LDS churches have a library? This is an
> opportunity to plant a few interesting books
> there.
>
> Do they have a bulletin board?
>
> A table piled with pamphlets?

Might want to make some book marks to leave in those books...

Way back when I was a member, the libraries were always locked, but had the half door with a ledge. So when it was manned, the top half of the door was open and you could ask for what you needed, but nobody could ever just wander in.

Of course, I was a well behaved under 18 year old, so I never tried. I remember some drama about the keys, nobody ever had them on weeknights when chalk or some manual or other would have been useful.

The newer chapels don't have any windows either and the few times I attended, there were no flowers or anything else to give color and beauty to the service. And the walls were cream colored, nothing to look at, etc.

The building is boring. I have wondered how the members feel about spending so much of their week in the same-old, same-old space... for the rest of their lives.

Growing up LDS, I hated church much worse than school, and I had to spend a lot more hours in school. The difference was I felt so trapped at church.

Then there is the ubiquitous, tawdry artwork. Blue-eyed Jesus and very gentile-looking Hebrews. My favorite is what's-his-name prophesying on the city wall while the bad guys shoot arrows at him.

I have been to both St. Pat's and the Cathedral of the Madelaine. I have also been to Cathedrals in the UK but the very best, if you ever get here, is St. John's Basilica in Stamford, Connecticut. Quite probably the best stained glass in America. BTW it was used in the making of the film, "The Cardinal". And you can see it without a tour guide. We have other churches in town which have some interest as well including the First Presbyterian Church shaped like a giant fish and having stained glass in a very modern way. We also have Greek churches with their architecture and domes, and more.

If they want the community to show up, the morg needs to offer free food and drinks etc.

No one is ever interested in looking at stupid Mormon buildings and hearing "testimonies", but they might be willing to endure the spiel for free burgers and hot dogs with cola.

In other words, people will come out for something that is FUN for them and their kids.
Of course, they still won't join because Mormonism itself is no fun.

My wife was a wedding photographer for some time and on several occasions I would act as her assistant. Invariably, I would notice how nice other church buildings are. Usually rich details, superb woodwork, and stained glass, not to mention ornate organs. Often the simple chapels of other religions would put the LDS tabernacle to shame.

Now, if you had been to any one of these buildings, let alone a grand cathedral, would you be impressed by a mormon chapel building? I don't think you'd be impressed by an LDS temple which, now that I've had my eyes opened, the most ornate room of which seems like a hotel lobby.

I realize that the church is going for "look we're normal, really we are!" but most people will go through looking for something shocking, or at least vaguely interesting and find nothing. No inspiration, no sense of wonder and very little spirit.

The basketball court will probably be the most memorable thing. People of other faiths sometimes find that sacriligious and odd.

I just chuckle at the idea that they honestly think that this is actually going to be a selling point. Morg churches are basically cookie-cutter clones (with maybe 3-4 active variations, depending on the decade built). There is nothing particularly attractive or inspiring about their ward buildings - even the temples look like the lobby of your average Marriott. I'm not suggesting that the Morg changes - in fact, I'd say that the buildings jive with their philosophy fairly well (no point in hanging up a bunch of Jesusy crap if you don't think about Jesus all that much).

I've toured through several cathedrals and basilicas around the world - the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, Trinity Cathedral and the Old Stone Church in Cleveland, and several cathedrals and small-town churches in Germany - I would list them all as attractions that I would go out of my way to see. An LDS building? I wouldn't even care to walk to the end of the street to look at the local one.

Do they still have the blue drapes everywhere? I was astonished when I went to a different ward and found the same blue curtains. A while back, the local church sold its meeting house and built themselves a new one. I went to a meeting there about four years ago; and I was amused that they left the drapes behind. I wonder what the new color scheme is? I guess I am going to have to take the tour.

"Let me share a scripture with you."
"Would you like to tour our church?"
"I know the church is true."
"We have a message about Jesus."

Been there, done that, and I could probably do a better job than they do while faking my way through it. They probably go back to their meetings wondering why these wonderful suggested actions aren't working.

I suppose getting people to go to the church building has more to do with breaking the ice and getting people to commit to something, because the buildings themselves are underwhelming. Maybe I should take them up on the offer... then describe the differences in architecture between the European cathedrals I've been in, compared with the Frank Lloyd Wright cookie cutter building I'm currently in.

You know what would be fun - go to a chapel where they don't know you and pretend to want to take the tour, then go through saying "Wow - this is bleak." or "Geez, this is really a depressing building - where are the flowers?" Then thank the missionaries for their time and say "After seeing this, I can cross Mormonism off my list."

Sounds like a good idea.

I'd feel really sorry for the missionaries doing the tour, thinking they have to do this all day, or sit here bored? I'd want to cheer them up by asking them about something that makes them happy, like their family. I might get into real church history if they kept pressuring me though.

... and that's the best the cult has to offer. Tours of meeting houses is just stoopid. Painfully stoopid.

I have lived in areas where they used to have chapel "open houses" all of the time.....you were lucky to get anyone at all to come to them.

I would never even consider it unless they provided Starbucks and sticky buns like at the Presbyterian church I sometimes go to. And as long as we're on the Presbyterian church, the Mormons would have to entice me with gentle bagpipe music like the music minister's Northumbrian and Scottish bagpipes and the great pipe organ played by a woman with a degree in playing the pipe organ.