Changes and the Church DT's

Changes and the Church DT’s!    

With all the recent changes that have taken place within the Church, I can’t help but worry about my children and wonder how they as young parents are faring with their own families.   Are they whole-heartedly sustaining our prophet, President Nelson?    Do they see these changes as stepping stones leading toward the Savior?  Are they making the necessary changes?   In my first observations I would say that the answer is a resounding “YES”.  

All these Church changes have brought me back to 1980 when some dramatic changes took place for us as young parents too.    We pioneered the “new” 3-hour block!   This was such a blessing to us.   We were putting away the “ALL-day Church block”!   But now that I can stand back and look at it, our Sunday worship was only 4 hours…. It was just spread out through the entire day.

The first hour was Relief Society/Priesthood.  Although, Relief Society seemed to be optional.   If you didn’t go Sunday morning you could catch it during the week on a designated morning.  Priesthood attendance was mandatory for the men.    The next 1 ½  hours was Adult and Jr. Sunday School ending around noon.   We could go home, feed our children, have a little nap then return around 4pm for the final 1 ½ hour Sacrament Service.  This 1 ½ hour for Sacrament was difficult for parent and child.   I must admit, in my limited church experience prior to joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I had never seen such behavior from children in a church service or in a church chapel.   Toddlers were freely walking up and down the aisles, preschoolers were rolling on the floor under the benches.   Cheerios, crayons, coloring books, and home-made Quiet Books (that NEVER worked) were scattered from one end of a bench to the other.   At first, I was appalled but soon joined in the frenzy once we had our own child.   Saturday grocery shopping always included choosing the right treat for Church.   Instead of Cheerios I sometimes stepped it up a notch with Fruit Loops until the “no sugar” mania hit!   Sometimes I still broke out the Fruit Loops just to watch the other mothers gasp and their children green-eyed with envy! 

Our church paradigm changed when we moved to Wetaskiwin, Alberta. As the most recent move-ins, Sister Ellen Prince, the Bishop’s wife and Relief Society President, toured me through the building.   She brought me into their brand-new Chapel and clearly instructed me,

 “This is our new Chapel.   We have struggled and sacrificed for this beautiful building.   We do       not feed our children in the Chapel.  No crackers, cereal, cookies, Gummie Bears, etc.   If you want to give your children a snack in between meetings please feel free to use the kitchen.”  

WHAT!!!???   Can this be done?   I realized that I had some serious planning to do.  This was the beginning in changing everything about Sundays!    We did it!   And no worse the wear for it!

 

THEN in March 1980 the big headlines in the Ensign read:

   “Church Consolidates Meeting Schedules”

We never saw it coming!    I don’t even remember how it was introduced to us.   But we were now Pioneering the 3-hour Church block.    We received diagrams of 2 choices:   1) Sacrament Service in the first hour or 2) Sacrament Service in the last hour. 

 

                                     

I have got to say, there was a sudden devotion to Relief Society and Sunday School!   Everyone quickly realized that if you were a Primary Teacher or Nursery Leader you would miss all of the adult meetings.   And then there was this new thing called “Sharing Time” for the Primary Presidencies… an added responsibility that at first seemed like a “dog and pony show” for the children….EVERY week.   But we all forged ahead.  We learned our duties, identified our new roles and embraced the new 3-hour block. 

We were all in!   Some of my Sunday habits were slow in changing.   Every Sunday as I loaded that Church bag I felt like I needed to back up the car and open the trunk in order to have everything I needed to tackle another Sacrament Service with small children. 

After a year of the new schedule one Sunday I was involved in some last-minute scrambling around loading that bag with one more toy or book when I suddenly realized that I had completely forgotten to include my scriptures.   I quickly asked myself a question, “what are you going to church for?   To play or to learn?”.    Right then and there I made a decision that would revolutionize my Sunday worship experience.    I emptied that bag and repacked it with only necessary items like some sandwiches, Primary teaching aides,  AND scriptures.   The children were 3, 5, and 7 years old.   On the 20-minute drive to church I informed them that church was going to be different today!   Today we are going to listen in Sacrament Service.   They were going to learn to sit still, listen, and feel the Spirit so that we could all benefit from the Sacrament Service that would take place!   “Just pretend you are watching TV! You’ll do fine!”  

Those first few Sundays were not easy.   I watched my children experience the “Church DT’s” (their own sort of de-tox).   As the children suffered their own withdrawal of paper, pencils, crayons, books, and toys their DeTox symptoms were much like that of one recovering from serious addictions .… uncontrollable trembling, hallucinations, severe anxiety, sweating, and sudden feelings of terror.

This pretty much is what my children went through in 1981 when our Sacrament Service paradigm changed.  I persevered!   I had seen them sit in front of a TV for at least an hour and never need a drink or to go to the bathroom.   I knew we could apply this to a Sacrament Service.  We had many Family Home Evenings themed around respect and reverence.  

Just like Moses and the Israelites, 39 years later, we have arrived at our new destination!  What did we learn?   How have we progressed?   Did we fulfill our objectives?  

Ironically, the purpose and major objectives of the new 1980 schedule as released by the Brethren was as follows:

“The purpose of the consolidated meeting schedule is (1) to reemphasize personal and family responsibility for learning, living, and teaching the gospel and (2) to allow Church members more time for personal gospel study, for service to others, and for meaningful activities.”  

March Ensign, 1980

This objective is not much different from the new objective that we have just experienced in 2019 with the meeting time changes from 3 hours to 2 hours.   In all reality, we still have 3 hour Church we just do the last hour at home!    For those little “Israelites” that complained about 3 hours of Church have now come to see that they got what they wanted but the lion’s share of teaching the gospel now sits squarely on their shoulder as parents at home.  

This is our step up!   This is our advancement in the Gospel.  This most definitely feels like a higher law.  It is our children’s turn to pioneer!   And we along with them will pioneer again ourselves.  If we taught them well enough to sit still, listen, feel the Spirit, and live the Gospel they and our grandchildren will go forward and do just fine.

Time, Food, or Money!

31 Dec 2018

Now that we are on a 2nd mission…. We see both missions in comparison.    When people hear that we were in Cambodia for 22 months the first question is always…. “how was that?”   I always respond with “It was a WOW every day!  Not always a good WOW but nonetheless, a WOW”

The Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission has proven to be very different.  There have been no language barriers, no shock value on the streets nor any cultural challenges.   Although there are still beggars but they stay on the sidewalks and are never in the middle of the street.  The beggars here seem to be seasonal, evidently, it is too cold to beg during the winter months. 

The Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission as proved to be more of a subdued “ah-ha!”  We get to see the Church up close and personal.   One thing that impresses me the most is that we get to hear about the sacrifices that people make to be here.  It has caused me to look at and evaluate sacrifice.   What HAVE I sacrificed, what DO I sacrifice, and what am I WILLING to sacrifice?  

Recently in an MTC Devotional by Elder David Bednar he quoted C.S. Lewis from the book Mere Christianity.  It is Mr. Lewis’ thoughts on what God would beg from each of us, 

 “Give me all of you!!!   I don’t want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work. I want YOU!!! ALL OF YOU!! I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man or woman, but to KILL IT!  No half measures will do.  I don’t want to only prune a branch here and a branch there; rather I want the whole tree out! Hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them ALL over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self---in my image.  Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself.  My will, shall become your will.  My heart, shall become your heart.”     

                

How much more would I need to give to reach that level?  Am I strong enough to do that?   Where do I begin to step it up?   It seems that as I read and study about sacrifice, obedience always ushers in sacrifice.  Faith in Jesus Christ is a must that leads to obedience.

An observation that I made many years ago was that the Church (really it was more the Ward level) was looking for one of three things from me:  my time, my food, or my money.   When I had an abundance of one they seemed to ask for the others!  During my second year as a member of the Church, I realized that when the missionaries had asked if I would be willing to pay tithing that was just a financial spit in the bucket compared to what was really required!   

The first January after we were married I learned about the Ward Budget!    WHAT?!?!?  We have to help pay for electricity and maintenance on the building?!   Who does that?   Is that the way it was with every church?  I wasn’t really reconsidering my choice I had made the previous year but we were paying 10% of an already meager wage now we have to give another $10/month for the Ward Budget (some people had larger allotments than that… every family was assigned according to what the Bishop asked).   Paying your Ward Budget was not attached to your worthiness of having a Temple Recommend but obedience and sacrifice had a definite connection!   A few years later (around 1976) the Cardston Stake had been approved by the Church to build a new Stake Center.   This was exciting news until I learned that the membership had to contribute 50% of the cost of the building.   The Stake Presidency asked every member to pay and extra 5% of their income to pay for our portion of the new building.  With faith in one hand and obedience in the other, this sacrifice was made month after month.   I could have baked a pie, made some squares, or contributed a craft a lot easier than 10% tithing + 5% Stake Budget + Ward Budget, but money is what was at the top of the Lord’s sacrifice list for now.    

The building was only a few months away from being dedicated when we moved!   We both secretly rubbed our hands together saying, “oh boy, we now have 5% more money”!  I don’t think we realized one thin dime of that money.   I don’t know how we paid that because I couldn’t see where it was coming from in the first place.   There was no extra money floating around.   That was my first great lesson learned about sacrifice, obedience, and faith.   About 1988 the Church did away with Ward Budgets…. couldn’t find that money either!!   So we continued to give our money, time, and food and didn’t try to figure out where it was coming from or how it was going to show up.   

The sacrifice the Lord asks of us is to wholly rid ourselves of the “natural man”

            “ For the Natural man is an enemy to God…unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord…”   (Mosiah 3:19)  

When we completely surrender ourselves to the Lord, then He will cause a mighty change in us and we will become a new person, justified, sanctified, and born again with His image in our countenances.   Amaleki, simply put it, “Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him….”  (Omni 1:26)

Brother Truman G. Madsen tells about a visit he made to Israel with President Hugh B. Brown, an Apostle of the Lord.  In a valley known as Hebron, where tradition has it that the tomb of Father Abraham is located, Brother Madsen asked President Brown, “What are the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?” After a short moment of thought, President Brown answered, “Posterity.”

Brother Madsen writes: “I almost burst out, ‘Why, then, was Abraham commanded to go to Mount Moriah and offer his only hope of posterity?’

“It was clear that President Brown, nearly ninety, had thought and prayed and wept over that question before. He finally said, ‘Abraham needed to learn something about Abraham’” (The Highest in Us [1978], 49).

I learned many things about myself during those years.   Tithing didn’t seem like a challenging commandment at all when first approached with it but you add Ward Budget and a Stake Budget on to it and it became a true sacrifice.   This was my pioneering lessons in tithing.   It was my own personal way to trudge through the snow.  

The word sacrifice means literally “to make sacred,” or “to render sacred.”  Today we are not called to pay Ward budgets or Stake budgets or to pull handcarts through the snow-swept plains of Wyoming.  However, we are called to be ministers within the gospel of Jesus Christ.   It is interesting how often we now see the word ministering in the scriptures.   A sister recently queried, “how did we miss that?  Why didn’t we see ministering before?”    I have come to the conclusion that we read ministering to be the act of teaching and preaching (and maybe sometimes some finger wagging!).   President Nelson has put us on a higher plain.  Now we see ministering as it has been redefined and refined as being an act of loving, nurturing, giving, and serving.   We have been lifted higher in thought, word, and now it is up to us, in deed.   

I now need to decide what part of “ALL of me” am I holding back?   What does “ministering” look like on my shoulders?   This is some of the “ah-ha’s” that the Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission gives to me.   Although, these upcoming sacrifices are still in the question form rather than an answer…..

To Be Continued.