This post is Janet’s fault.
Tag: Church Living
The New Era 2.0
The Church has a new website for youth, launched today.
Merry Christmas
God be thanked for the matchless gift of his only begotten. Merry Christmas everyone.
Get thee behind me, Santa!
I know, I know. There’s so much to love about the jolly fella. But he keeps getting in the way. Or not.
Tithing Settlement 2008
Tithing Settlement is a great part of the Christmas season.
Release Time v. Early Morning Seminary
Below is a forward I recently received about a perceived effort to eliminate the release time seminary system in an Idaho school district. The email is from a CES employee to parents of students in the school district encouraging them to oppose one of several proposed schedules currently under consideration that apparently would restructure the district’s trimester system and eliminate the class flexibility that enables the release time seminary program. It’s unclear whether preventing the Church from offering seminary during school hours was the intent of the proposed schedule at issue, but it nonetheless raises some interesting questions about the release time seminary program.
The Great Unity
Last weekend I went to the penultimate game in Yankee Stadium, and the next night watched the last game on television, complete with its post-game wake. Over nearly 20 years I’ve attended meetings there, letting a place and a culture become an almost religious part of my life. Its a Temple of baseball.
Doctrines of Localization
In April, 1998, President Hinckley visited New York City to speak at a special fireside held in Madison Square Garden, and our stake provided a 100+ voice choir for the event. I remember thinking at the time that with all of the talented Church members in New York City, the choir should be permanent.
Only a Clerk
Soon after I was made a ward clerk 20 years ago this month, I walked into the clerk’s office to find a xerox copy of an article posted there. The article was the text of a letter, sent by one of my predecessors, to the Church’s membership department, and had somehow found its way to Sunstone. It was titled “A Religion of Clerks.” The author, Randal Quarles, has since served as Undersecretary of the Treasury.
Sunday School Redux
Three excellent quotes from this week’s Sunday School lesson: Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can.
Reading Psalm 137 as a Microcosm of Discipleship
Psalm 137 is one of those wonderful and paradoxical passages of scripture that contains within itself a universe.
Quadrupling Fast Offerings
About a year or so ago our stake made a move to improve fast offering receipts. The bishop supported this and urged everyone to donate to fast offerings and, in addition to the general admonition, he reinstituted Aaronic priesthood collection of fast offerings after church.
I am now officially not young
It happened not long ago. I started getting emails from something called the Cambridge Stake MSA. As is my habit with all mass mailings, I deleted the first few without reading them, but after a while I noticed them and realized that I didn’t know what MSA stood for. Turns out MSA is the “Middle Singles,” which is everyone 30-50 years old who isn’t married. In the eyes of the church, I am no longer a “Young Single Adult.” I’m just a “Single Adult.” I am now officially old.
What If President Hinckley Says This Next Month…
“…brothers and sisters, there is another matter of which I’d like to mention before we close this glorious conference. We live in a new age. A time where information surrounds us. The internet has grown to be a regular part of many people’s lives. Email makes it easier to communicate… but I’m not going to give you my email address (crowd erupts with laughter).
The December 1925 Improvement Era
Let’s flip through a church magazine that’s nearly a century old. The pages are slightly yellowed; there are a few stains on the cover and the staples are rusting.
The Real Reason
Matt Evans and I went a few rounds at one of those other blogs over the reason behind falling LDS birthrates. Turns out we were both wrong.
The Four Types of Mormons
So my very bright friend in Wisconsin has come up with something that should get us light years beyond the tired old Liahona-Iron Rod business. Here it is, in his words, not mine.
Book Review: I Love Mormons: A New Way to Share Christ with Latter-day Saints
The techniques that Evangelicals use to convert Mormons to ‘traditional Christianity’ do not work. The same cannot be said for the method proposed by David L. Rowe in his new book. .
David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism
David O. McKay presented a dramatic contrast to his predecessors: an athletic, movie-star-handsome, clean-shaven figure who often wore a white double-breasted suit; contrasted to the dark-suited, bearded polygamists (or, in the case of George Albert Smith, son of a polygamist) who preceded him as Church President ever since Joseph Smith. In an age prior to professional image-makers, he instinctively grasped the importance of appearance, and coupled it to the substance of a professional educator to become an icon of Mormonism whose persona did much to change the negative image of the Church in much of the world.
HFPE
Griping about endless crafts at Home, Family, and Personal Enrichment Meeting is a Bloggernacle staple. I’d like to try something different.