Comments on: Steering between Scylla and Charybdis

By: queuno

queuno — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:42:07 +0000

I’d like to see how the Mennonites would resolve issues of “caring for the flock” if their numbers were in the millions, and in hundreds of countries.

Most of the issues in the Church are resolved at the local level. But there is necessarily an aspect of centralized/global decision-making that has to take place.

If you’re not willing to understand, you won’t.

By: nasamomdele

nasamomdele — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 16:54:51 +0000

A guess- Mennonites?

Is your Church the true Church, Guy?

By: Guy Noir, Private Eye

Guy Noir, Private Eye — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:47:45 +0000

All I can say/hope to have understood here is that the ppl who thrash out even minor decisions (on a local level) get more growth by learning to work together, accomodate each other’s needs than by having (the most trivial) issues resolved for them.
In the Mennonite church where I worship, we ‘over consider’ small items in our budget that would NEVER come up for consideration in Morland (by most people, anyway)… Guess which example brings more growth when all are invited to participate….

By: queuno

queuno — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:14:49 +0000

I donâ€™t know how the leaders of an organization with millions of members can avoid being management oriented. However, I think, because we are led by God, our leaders are also being guided to be more compassionate. I see it.

Many members don’t see it, but the focus on management and data actually is what allows the church to “care for the sheep”, so to speak. The Church spends millions of dollars annually to do things like store addresses and phone numbers and baptismal dates and transfer them between wards, all so that we can then care for people.

A “megachurch” may have 20,000 people … but that’s like 3 or 4 stakes. And they just don’t have the same participatory, collaboration-driven worship model that we have. And that’s difficult to do. You have to have sound management to pull off the 3 missions of the Church.

By: queuno

queuno — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:10:53 +0000

Excellent.

One day, I’ll post my itinerary on “How to see everything worth seeing in Nauvoo in just one day!” (We did this a couple of years ago — started when it opened and stopped when it closed.) We have friends here in Texas who complained that Nauvoo was a 2-3 day affair. My thought was … what, did you stop for a half-hour in EVERY HOUSE?

By: annegb

annegb — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:10:22 +0000

I don’t know how the leaders of an organization with millions of members can avoid being management oriented. However, I think, because we are led by God, our leaders are also being guided to be more compassionate. I see it.

It’s not coming fast enough for me, I’m bothered, like I said, by the chauvinism and the social jockeying for high position, among other things.

Being God’s church doesn’t mean being a perfect church. We’re progressing.

By: ESO

ESO — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:05:58 +0000

queuno–I have been working on just such a post (more info than you want, really)–look for it in May.

By: queuno

queuno — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:01:21 +0000

The model in Kirtland has always been “let’s do our own properties so well that people will flock to them, and then we’ll tell them what to look for when they go to the temple.”

I think Joseph Smith still is a key part of their message, at least in Kirtland. I think that CoC actually does a better job of celebrating the life of Hyrum better than we do.

It’s good to know you live near Palmyra. We want to visit there in a year or two; maybe you can tell us how to maximize our time there (I haven’t been since I was a teen).

By: ESO

ESO — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:49:34 +0000

queuno–I agree that the current CoC tours and their new visitors center there are great. I have been very impressed with their guides and they are generous about the use of the temple–the weekend I was there last year with a womens’ LDS group, we used the temple Saturday night and some of the 12 and area 70s used it for meetings the following Sunday.

My impression is that the worldwide CoC does not emphasize history–members in Ghana seem to focus more on Christ than on JS. Well, and what’s so bad about that? So Limoni is important to the CoC members there, Navous to members there, and Kirtland to members there, but members in CA might not care much.

Again, this is the impression of the outsider. Also, I live near Palmyra, and of course know of MANY historically significant church sites the church has made no efforts to buy. I was simply reporting my dad’s opinion.

By: queuno

queuno — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:44:32 +0000

I was going to add – it was always funny to me to see how the old Kirtland Temple tour would change. I remember when they would take you to the upper floor and talk about Joseph’s vision of Alvin and how that led to the revelation about heaven. That was the very early 80s. By the mid-80s, they wouldn’t mention it. By the late 80s, they would talk about the symbolism of the architecture, but mention none of Joseph’s revelations, except the experiences at the dedication and being receiving priesthood keys.

As a family, we’d go over to Kirtland once a year or so and you could tell how the temple tour would get shorter as they’d cut more out…

There seems to be an effort to make it more historical, even if the doctrinal schism between our churches is so great.

If anyone goes to Kirtland, I would recommend visiting Historic Kirtland first. You can watch a movie about the temple and then know what to look for when you go.

(My parents still live in the area and love to visit it.)