Or many activities. Just give me a couple of paragraphs to flesh this out before you click off. On Sunday, there is singing, praying, talks, and the sacrament. In adult classes there are teachers, participants, and lurkers. There are meetings for those special few in the morning, maybe choir practice if you like to sing, maybe a fireside if you like extra content. During the week you might do personal scripture study, you might pray, you might visit an assigned ministeree or a friend, you might do a service project, you might attend the temple.
But not all people do all these things. Some Mormons sing energetically, some mumble along, some are simply mute. Some read their scriptures daily, some once in a while, some never. Some attend weekly but never lift a finger to do service. Some are just done with church on Sunday but are quite happy to help move a piano or help fix a leaky roof. The more you think about it, the more you realize how optional all these various activities are. And how much you and I and everyone else sort of chooses or selects their own set of Mormon things and activities to embrace while at the same time avoiding the distasteful or unwanted Mormon things. We all design our own particular Mormonism.
Now you might agree or disagree with that claim. Let me point out some interesting observations that follow from the idea that the Church is a broad collection of more or less optional things and activities.
First, notice how the things and activities that collectively compose the Church change over time. Just a generation or two ago, road shows and Know Your Religion and storing barrels of water and wheat in your basement were Mormon things/activities. They have gone away, but new things/activities have sprung up: Trek, name extraction at the local level, EFY. Scouting is going, going, not quite gone. This is a can’t-step-into-the-same-river-twice thing. The Church is an ever-changing collection of loosely affiliated things/activities. From year to year, it’s a different church as things and activities come and go.
Second, notice how your own personal Mormonism might be quite different from another person’s version. The Church, the institutional church, of course, struggles against this personalization thing. Leadership wants you to do everything, all the time, and if you don’t you’re a slacker or spiritually lazy. But in practice, I think most members skip this or that thing/activity that just doesn’t work for them. A large chunk of more or less active Mormons never attend the temple. Recent data suggests something like 40% of Millennial Mormons drink coffee. I’m guessing well over half of more or less active Mormons read their scriptures about twice a year. Some Mormons quite happily view General Conference as a twice-a-year Church Holiday and go do something fun instead of parking in front of a screen for a 10-hour marathon viewing experience. We all practice Mormonism selectively.
Third, note the new willingness of senior leadership to eliminate some activities. Pageants have been a Mormon thing for a long time, and some Mormons are really, really into them. Gone. Scouting has been a Mormon thing for a long time, with support from the highest levels. Almost gone. High priests have been a thing in Mormonism almost from the beginning. Now redefined out of meaningful existence, just like local seventies were eliminated two generations ago. I think this ongoing episode of paring back is long overdue, but it is still a surprise to see the senior leadership, which had sort of settled in a permanent status quo in recent decades, actually *do something*.
Fourth — and this is something of a surprise to me — my own personal Mormonism is considerably happier this year. Home teaching going away was the spiritual equivalent of losing ten pounds. Managing to get called into Primary means I no longer have to deal with the various dumb claims made in the Sunday School curriculum or the Conference-talk-every-week approach to priesthood lessons. Two-hour church, particularly the resulting one-hour Primary, is a lot less of a drag than three-hour church and two-hour Primary. The net effect of these changes (all of which have come on President Nelson’s watch) is really quite positive, at least for me. I hadn’t actually realized this until writing this post. Your experience may be similar or quite different.
The comments are going to be all over the place, I suspect. I’m sure there are some disappeared things/activities from two generations back that I forgot about. There are some new things I probably missed. I’m also interested in the net effect of recent changes on your own Mormon happiness barometer. If you are one of those Hill Cumorah Pageant people or a super Scouter, you are probably quite disappointed those things are going away. I doubt anyone misses three-hour church, but I could be wrong.
A final thought, which I almost hesitate to raise: Is the net positive effect of recent changes (assuming you like them) or the liberating realization that you can personalize your Mormonism by choosing or avoiding this or that thing or activity overshadowed for you by the continuing leadership crusade against gay marriage and homosexuality? It’s possible these positive changes are the equivalent of rearranging (in a very beneficial manner) the deck chairs on the Titanic instead of looking out for icebergs that might sink the ship. For some people, the continuing Mormon crusade sinks the ship. It’s possible, of course, that the leadership is starting with the simple procedural stuff while substantive changes to doctrine will require more time to engineer. Maybe in the comments this issue is best addressed in terms of what changes to the collection of Mormon things/activities you think might be on the horizon.
I noticed, Dave B., that you didn’t use “Cafeteria Mormon” as part of your words. So I’ll use it. I am a Cafeteria Mormon, teetering on the edge.
I agree with you. Growing up, it seems the church was much more structured. Roadshows, storing wheat (until it went weevily), water barrels, church on Sunday morning and then Sunday afternoon at 5. Primary on Tuesday’s after school. Thankfully, all have been restructured and/or disappeared.
I pick and choose what I want to believe and how I serve. I served in primary for many years. I finally asked to be released. Now, I attend the 1-hour sacrament meeting and that’s it. So nice. No pressure, no hype. I’ll be real honest: I used to love F&T meeting because we had a few crazies in our ward that were guaranteed to provide the entertainment. Not so much anymore. They’ve either died or moved.
My “Collection of Many Things” includes attending sacrament meeting, paying some tithes, supporting the next door neighbor girl financially while she serves a mission. That’s about it. The leadership crusade against homosexuality and gays continues to gnaw at my soul. And unfortunately I see no changes in the immediate future.
I also would love to see others in charge besides old white men. Again, I’m skeptical that we’ll see anything change.
Baby steps forward and baby steps back.
Susan, I decided not to use “Cafeteria Mormon” partly because as applied to Catholics it seems to be about selective beliefs rather than selective practices, and also because it implies a sort of lax or second-tier approach whereas my sense is almost all Mormons are selective about what they embrace. That is partly, I think, because there is so much on the Mormon table there just isn’t enough time, money, and energy to do it all.
So: I think Mormons are, to a large extent, necessarily selective, while in other denominations the choice to be selective is not so forced. I don’t have direct experience with other denominations, so perhaps I am wrong in that view. Hopefully others broader experience will chime in.
Thank you Dave for the refreshing blog! You express collective thought well. Even my daughter, who just read this, said some people just have the right words. Personally, I love having choices….but they have become numerous in the last 60 years! Thank goodness we are able to realize we do have choices and not hoops thst must be jumped through. I don’t think that is what Bro. Joseph intended. Have you ever perused The Grand Fundamentals if Mormonism? It can be found online….keeps me grounded.
Thanks for thinking through some things in this post.
“We all design our own particular Mormonism.”
Yay, he gets it!
“Leadership wants you to do everything, all the time”
But it didn’t last long. Leaders are ALSO Mormons and given to enormous variation in what any particular leader considers important and worth the trouble trying to compel others about. Those who are not strongly minded to compel anyone over anything (me, for instance) rarely become leader. I’m a navigator; I can show you the way, or some ways, but whether you go that way is entirely up to you.
I will admit to some grumbling about merely repeating conference talks as a substitute for well prepared, locally relevant lesson in priesthood meeting.
As someone who loves the scriptures and really digs into them… and then taught elders quorum to blank stares and a few nods… I can say that the beauty of church is exactly what you’ve pinpointed above.
A few months ago it really hit me as I was sitting there mute during the song but watching people singing their hearts out… not everyone worships God in the same way.
Some need to delve into the scriptures, some need to sing their praises, some need serve and administer, some need a congregation to be part of, and the church’s job is to have a place where we can all do that.
I hate singing and so I’d hate for someone to judge me for not singing. Likewise, I can’t judge someone who doesn’t know their scriptures. They may read the scriptures and feel confused/ frustrated as opposed to singing about God which brings them happiness.
Do what you feel brings you closer to God! It’s none of my business.
@Andy – Even on my mission I had a hard time staying awake when I read scriptures. Except for a few chapters here and there they just don’t connect with me and I don’t feel God there.
And I am with you Dave on Primary in the 2 hour block. If we were still in the 3 hour block, I would be deciding that I was going to do my own 1 hour block and just skip out after Sacrament meeting.
Susan Brown “I also would love to see others in charge besides old white men.”
Here’s a list helpful for finding churches not led by old white men, at least not exclusively so.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/religion-ordain-women_n_5826422
Stake Seventies were 2 generations ago, or 1? My dad was a stake seventy, and I didn’t think I was that old! sheesh.
As for the wheat barrels and water barrels, well, those are still alive here in Utah County. Last year, we went over to a guy’s house to empty out the wheat barrels from his basement. They were dated from the 1970s, and he was a former high councilman and offered to store them for the stake. There were 40 barrels. One of my neighbors took some of the wheat and fed it to his chickens. Some things aren’t changing as fast as you think, and we still hear plenty of talks about having a garden, food storage, etc. Our stake even has a stake garden for those people to use if they don’t have land for a garden. Pres Kimball’s admonitions are alive and well.
Stake seventies went away in 1986, so 1.3 generations ago. I now have the rare distinction of having been kicked out of two different quorums.
I would add church basketball and softball. I was super active as a youth but hated hated hated church sports. I felt so much pressure to participate but when I did it was disastrous for the team. I’m so glad it’s almost entirely gone.
No idea what’s next. I’d vote for a revamping of the Word of Wisdom – or at least how it’s enforced. I’d vote for women Ward Clerks and Exec Secretaries and Sunday School Presidents (baby steps). Mixed feelings about Trek but I bet it doesn’t have staying power because it’s too hard to pull off.
Some time ago I had a Bishop who absolutely loathed me. He refused to allow his counselors to offer my wife and I any callings, even though we both held temple recommends. The good side of that was that leaders rarely call one to a calling in which one’s skills and talents can be applied. But we loved to serve, so we decided to call ourselves as ministers to some of the widows and single moms in the ward. We had noticed that this Bishop did not believe that widows and single moms had no real needs and practically ignored them. So we stepped in and made sure they received hams at Christmas and that their yards were cared for. Best. Calling. Ever.
So I would suggest that if anyone out there is feeling underappreciated or unappreciated, call yourself to a calling. Find a need that is not being addressed, use your God-given talents to take care of that need or issue and keep your mouth shut about it. Become an anonymous minister in some fashion. I’ll bet anything it will become your favorite calling.
My father was called on a mission to be a building supervisor in the UK, to build chapels using volunteer labour, when I was 13, we moved every 18 to 20 months, and from Scotland to England (which have different education systems), which did not help my education, but I did meet my wife.
Normally building supervisors were retired Americans, who served for 18 months, and there was an allowance paid to suit. For some reason my father remained in the programme with his family, until it ended, I think while I was on my mission. 7 years.
Someone powerful thought to combine building with volunteer labour, with building for the future, where there were few members. The first ward sized building we build in a branch were there were no active adults, only half a dozen teenage girls.
So my families savings were used(and our house sold, and money used), and childrens education messed up, for a programme that just ended.
Any body else rememberchapels built by volunteer labour?
Geoff-Aus, Yes. I remember helping with the finishing of a building I guess it was back in the late 70’s. All the main construction was done by professionals, but there was a bunch of the last items that members were asked to perform. That sure makes you take more concern for your building than cleaning the toilets does.
Geoff- Moving from school system to school system disrupting education happened to our girls too. We had hoped the experienced compensated for the deficiencies but one of my daughters who had a learning disability and ended up with an old school European teacher who had no appreciation of her challenges or tolerance for the very concept set her back a long way.
We’d know how hard it was for her to finish an assignment. The teacher only saw that she had oriented her 3-hole punched page upside down and berate and humiliate her.
I’ve seen how hard it is to recover from that. But, in the end, one of the things our daughter learned was how to actually teach herself. That was a long hard road but it came in handy when she scrabbled her way back up from a humiliating flunk out from junior college to graduating from UC Berkeley and eventually earn an RN.
It sounds like you’re become similarly resourceful and accomplished with an appreciation for the value of going your own course. I congratulate you with the enthusiasm of knowing!
I’ll admit I’m in the minority that misses the third hour, but for two temporary reasons:
1. I have kids in primary and miss the extra hour of free day care.
2. We moved in January and have figured out why it’s been harder to get to know people then in pervious moves, the time between 2nd and 3rd hour was the best time to chat/visit. After sacrament mtg and after church require parents to shepherd/collect children and doesn’t lend itself to visiting.
Just reread that after posting it. The grammar is horrendous! And then there’s the typo. Wish I could edit but perhaps it lends some genetic credibility to my daughter’s story….
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Alice, the story shines through just fine. I’m sure you get half the credit for your daughter’s achievements in the face of challenges. By blogging standards, your grammar and style is an A+.
Geoff-AUS, the first LDS building I attended in Seattle, Washington, was built by volunteer labor. The original parts of the building dated to the early 20th century, although there had been an expansion and a variety of upgrades over the years. The upper hallways were narrow. There was a basement that was kind of spooky. But it had personality, as buildings go, compared to the standard design chapels of today.
Toad, I wasn’t sure if church youth sports are gone everywhere or just where I have happened to live. I think it was a good thing, overall, but sports and participation have changed over the last couple of generations. Kids are more into soccer and mountain biking than basketball and softball, which doesn’t work for church sports, so I think the market just dried up.
Geoff- I remember weeding cotton fields in Arizona in the early 80s. Every ward was assigned a few rows to remove weeds from. When the church discontinued there was mumbling about those darn child labor laws.
GEOFF -AUS asks “Any body else rememberchapels built by volunteer labour?”
Yes, one of the wards I attended in Hawaii near Pearl Harbor had been so built, and as others point out, it had personality or character. It also had a “cry room” where mothers could take their fussy babies. It was glass enclosed mostly and at the back of the seating and had speakers so they could hear.
I learned a number of skills working on church welfare farms; weeding was among the more tedious things (Patterson farm in the San Juaquin valley) rust removal and corrosion inhibition in Hawaii. Canning apricots at the church cannery in Redwood City. That entire batch went to the victims of a Nicaraguan earthquake.
Michael 2, I guess I appreciate the suggestion to find another church with women in charge. But you missed my point. It would be nice to see THIS church with less old white men in charge. It would. But that doesn’t mean I’m hankering to run away and find another church led by women. I’m afraid I’m stuck where I’m at.
Sometimes things are better left unsaid. You give advice when advice isn’t necessarily needed.
Really interesting post, Dave. I think you’re spot on in pointing out that we each do our own customization of Mormonism. I just wish that the people who view themselves as the most orthodox were more self-aware about this. But anyway, I think my experience is similar to yours in that the Nelson-era changes have been a net positive for me on the ground. The combining of elders and high priests has been good because I’m an aging elder, and I wasn’t ever likely to be promoted, so it was kind of an open question when I should start just attending with the high priests. And I like two-hour church, although I’m also sympathetic to Emily’s point about how it makes it harder to get to know people. I wish we had more formal linger longers or something.
On balance, though, I’m still probably more unhappy with the Nelson administration than happy, just because of the macro-level fighting with gay marriage and the like that you mention. Well, that and the fact that even positive moves like changing the temple ceremonies have been cloaked in the implicit admonition to pretend that they didn’t happen, so we can never acknowledge any actual mistakes.
As for what’s on the horizon, I only wish I knew. One thing I wonder is whether President Nelson, by running through and changing so many things so quickly, might be setting a precedent that future church presidents might follow.
I don’t think I am the only one who finds it ironic that even though I’m in favor of virtually all the changes of the last 18 months, I am disturbed what the changes represent. Because what they represent is an effort by the Church to stop the bleeding. Almost all the changes that I can think of make it easier to be a member of the Church. So, why would the Church leadership want to make it easier to be active in the Church? I don’t personally believe that they are reflecting the will of the Lord. I think they are managing a corporation that is struggling.
I can imagine that some of you are thinking: according to Josh H, the Church is damned if they do (change) and damned if they don’t. Josh complains when it doesn’t change. And he complains when it does. So let me simply say that I think these changes are good. I think the policy of April 2019 re homosexuality is 100x better than the policy of Nov. 2015. But it reminds me how wrong some things were, and how wrong some things still are.
Susan Brown says “But you missed my point. It would be nice to see THIS church with less old white men in charge.”
No doubt, and I will restate mine: I have chosen this church for a variety of reasons; wise old white men isn’t at the head of the list but I’m a bit concerned about your desire to limit my choices. When many choices exist I would prefer that you not meddle with my choice, not that you or I can actually do that.
I have noticed that progressives cannot stand for the existence of something, anything, they have not approved. It’s a thorn in their foot, a bee in their bonnet; or in this case, a bee in someone else’s bonnet; a mote in someone else’s eye.
BE the thing you wish others to be. If no churches exist to your liking, start one. That’s what Joseph Smith did and here we are arguing that legacy. My grandmother was active in Christian Science, started by Mary Baker… Eddy I think. I can hardly believe I remembered that name; I’m terrible with names. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Baker_Eddy
She wanted a church led by a woman and chose one. Had there not been one my grandmother was the sort to have started one. Wiser than me every day of the week. She did not try to change other people or deprive them of choices. She simply made her own choices. She chose to be elegant, educated, refined; and was well dressed every day of her life to the age of 97.