Why don’t we just come to your churches on the first Sunday of the month, walk right up to the lectern and say whatever we want to say? It’s not like you card people to make sure that they’re Mormon first. That sounds like a great way to reach out to Mormons to me!

Awesome, Jack! And welcome to F&T meeting. I’m putting you on my bingo card right now.

I was going through old journal entries today and I came across this. I thought you’d be interested. This was recorded during my first semester at BYU.

“Sunday, March 4, 2001

I went to the LDS sacrament meeting today. … Today was fast Sunday, and people are allowed to come to the podium and bear their testimonies. So I came forward. I was shaking so badly. When it was my turn to come, I started to talk about how I’d gotten into some bad fights with my dad when I was in ninth grade, and how he’d tell me that no one would love me, that no other parents would want me because I was such a rotten child. But what Dad didn’t understand was that Jesus wanted me, and that He loves me, and He had a plan for me. And I quoted Jeremiah 29:11-13. I was crying so badly.

Afterwards, people said so many nice things about my testimony. Everyone asked me to repeat what verse it was I quoted. [One girl] gave me such a nice note, and even [a guy friend of mine] said he was impressed with the fact that God loves us. Several girls said they were thankful for my testimony, and one girl said I was an example to her. [My roommate from Deseret Towers] told me later on that she didn’t think there was a single person in that room who hadn’t been touched by my testimony. Someone told me that some girls had been talking about how ironic it was that they’d felt the Spirit more during my testimony than anybody else’s; any of the members, that is.”

Ugh, I was a crier and a shaker, how cliché. But still, you know what? Us evangelicals are always looking for new ways to reach out to Mormons. Why don’t we just come to your churches on the first Sunday of the month, walk right up to the lectern and say whatever we want to say? It’s not like you card people to make sure that they’re Mormon first. That sounds like a great way to reach out to Mormons to me!

You’ve inspired me. I’m gonna go to F&T meeting tomorrow.

I always found church concordance covers fit Stephen King novels quite nicely.

“Have I Done Any Good?”…

“I Stand All Amazed”…

I have fond memories of giggling uncontrollably while playing that.

I don’t blame you guys at all for playing games in church. Protestant churches aren’t always interesting. When my mother was alive but terminally ill, I visited her church with her one day and the pastor was droning on. We started passing a note back and forth making plans to go see a movie after church, 30 Days of Night. Now that she’s passed away, I still have the note and I look at it and it makes me laugh. There’s just something really funny to me that we were passing notes in church, making plans to see a really gory rated R movie on the Sabbath. It was the last time I went to a movie with my mom though, and I’m not sorry I did it.

My current pastor is usually interesting enough that I don’t get bored often, but I may have to keep the games thing in mind next time I have a boring pastor.

Bridget (or I guess you go by Jack, right?), I think
F&T meetings (and probably other sacrament meetings as well) are probably boring, which is why we play games during them. I think I enjoy F&Ts a little more because I know the people in my ward very well, having lived in the same ward for most of my life, and I’m always entertained by finding out what they have to say. But then, I’m easily entertained.

I think what you said would be a very welcome thing to say at F&T in most wards. One of the things we need most is an outsider’s perspective of us. It’s refreshing.

When I was a teenager, I read a lot of counter-cult literature and had contact with several prominent counter-cult ministers. I had a really poor attitude towards Mormons and eventually had an epiphany about all this, seeing that my attitude needed to change and the counter-cult influences needed to go. I visited a friend’s ward once and in F&T meeting I got up and shared this, that while I was not a believer in the church, I knew that we each put our hope in Christ in some way and I wanted them to know there was one evangelical who’d had a huge change of heart about them. I’m sure it was one of the oddest things they’d ever heard at a F&T meeting.

I may have spoken at F&T meeting once in my early days at BYU, I can’t remember. It’d have been something along similar lines if I did.

Regarding parents whispering to their children what to say at F&T meeting, I’ve always looked at it with a caustic eye. I’ve known several ex-Mormons who felt that they were taught to fake a testimony they never had by parents who insisted they repeat “the church is true” on a regular basis. I certainly don’t want my own daughter affirming belief in the church unless she actually comes to feel that way. It’s something that I’m open to, but I’m doing my best to see to it that she isn’t manipulated either way.