COME JOIN WITH US? (Part I)

I don’t generally write out my lessons verbatim, but this one is special, and by that I mean hard. I'll start with how it all went down.

I was lazing about like a heathen on a Sunday morning in a hotel room in San Francisco in February when I received a text from my friend Karen, a counselor in our Relief Society, asking me to sub and teach on March 23^rd.   I said yes, as I don’t know how to say anything else when I get calls from Church, and I kind of missed my old calling to teach.

She only had the page number, so I asked for which one it was since I don’t have the paper version.  She had to go look it up.  She texted back, “Come Join With Us.”  Uchtdorf’s last talk from General Conference encouraging us to keep coming to church. 

This particular Sunday was the 7^th week I had not been at Church. 

I texted back jokingly, “Is this your way of reactivating me?” Her response, “Actually I just looked up the title since it is not on the bookmark and realized what it was.  I have to say it made me chuckle J  it must not have been my idea.”

I took a deep breath and opened up the talk on my phone and read while I waited for my turn in the shower.  I’m in marketing by trade, and a big part of my job is to review all of a client’s documents and boil them down to their most simple, understandable form in the most logical order.  Having applied that process, here’s what I came up with:

The Church consists of a group of people that has these things in common:

1. They LOVE the Savior and wish to draw closer and follow Him
2. They YEARN TO KNOW Christ’s pure doctrine, rejoicing that God speaks to man
3. They ARE GOOD: caring, kind, honest, industrious
4. They want to put FAITH INTO PRACTICE, and see assignments as opportunities to fill covenants and engage in a great cause

These people share a common belief that:

1. Jesus CHRIST HIMSELF LEADS the church
2. As a result, this Church has the AUTHORITY to act for Him
3. This is used to administer necessary ORDINANCES & COVENANTS
4. Christ guides his Church through REVELATION & PROPHECY

Because of this shared belief, members willingly take on a very large commitment which includes:

1. Callings
2. Home Teaching
3. Visiting Teaching
4. Family Home Evening
5. Temple Work
6. Service
7. Teaching Assignments
8. 10 Hours of General Conference
9. 3 Hours of Church Weekly
10. Family History
11. Youth Activities
12. Early Morning Seminary
13. Maintaining Buildings
14. Word of Wisdom
15. Fast Offerings
16. Tithing
17. And Much More! (a well-worn final bullet in marketing materials)

Uchtdorf also makes clear some important things about the Church Organization itself:

1. It has a course and destiny and God will not allow it to drift or fail.
2. Is operated by flawed human beings, yet the truth of Christ’s gospel not tarnished, diminished or destroyed.
3. It is designed for the imperfect with desire to follow Christ, not for those who have mastered it all: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
4. The Church values pondering and questions, it was restored by a man with questions and doubts.
5. The Church honors personal agency and the right to worship however others choose, even if we sorrow when others chose differently than we do.
6. The Church benefits and needs unique perspectives, backgrounds and diverse experiences.

While on an individual and ward level we don’t always allow room for flaws (in self or others), can become fearful about pondering, agency or unique perspectives, official policy isn’t quite as down on these realities.  Even the best of us are imperfect, uninformed and needing forgiveness from God and each other, and all of us have very different experiences here.

Uchtdorf then breaks down the features and benefits of his Come Join With Us call to action.  Here’s the “WHY” of the proposal—these are the blessings that surely will come as a result that long commitment list—the ACTIONS: 

•         Peace

•         Happiness

•         Hope

•         Purpose

•         Healing of Wounds

•         Healed Suffering

•         Comfort for Grieving Souls

•         Nourishment

•         Rest

•         Truth

•         Meaning

•         Feel God's Power & Presence

•         Know & Grow Closer to Savior

•         Belonging

•         Benefitting a Group

•         Great Treasures of Knowledge

•         Words of Eternal Life

•         Way to Act on Faith, Take Up Cross,  Follow Him

•         Forgiveness of Sin

•         Sanctifying Influence of Holy Ghost

•         Salvation & Profound Joy in World To Come

•         Revelation and Prophecy

•         Priesthood Ordinances  & Covenants

I finished reading the talk.  Tears were soaking the pillow in my San Francisco hotel room. Peace?  Happiness?  Hope?  Healing? Comfort? Rest? I’d been going to Church for 42 years with an obedient, sincere heart and can’t witness to the truth of that. 

In fact, the last time I had went to Church, seven weeks before on the first Sunday of the year, I had gone in heartbroken fasting and prayer and pleading.  I went praying that I would recover emotionally, mentally, and spiritually from the very difficult last year.  I had spent several months carefully weaving together a peace out of Christ’s grace and love and went holding it carefully in my hands.   But when the meetings ended, I had fled sobbing, all of my very carefully constructed peace had been unraveled—first a picking, then pulling, then a hard yank in the last of those three dutiful hours—and it left me entirely undone.  Church shouldn’t hurt like that.

This was followed the next week with emails from old, once-solid friends about why they left the Church that left me wide-eyed and reeling in my weakened state. How could all this be the result of my effort and asking? And all these blessings, aside from the last two, all of my faithful non-LDS Christian friends could make the exact list of reasons why they benefit from going to Church. 

What did all of this mean?

Before I jumped in the shower, I texted Karen back: “I just read it and it hit tearfully close to home.  Are you sure I’m the right person to do this?” 

She assured me I was, so I asked for her prayers and said maybe this would be a good catalyst to work through some things.  And it has been. I can’t say my attendance stats have improved terribly over the past month since this request, I still feel sad and hurting when I leave Church and have noticed myself subconsciously avoiding it, so this has been a good exercise to investigate that more.  

So all of that said, I am either highly qualified to teach a lesson on why we should go to Church, or am extremely under qualified.  

Next: PART II: THE MISSING FACTOR

Post by Valerie Wise Christensen.

PART III: THE DARKNESS
PART IV: THE LIGHT
PART V: THE WIND & THE WAVES
PART VI: CAPAX DEI