Christmas Song Traded for Recommit to the Church

[Linked]

Yesterday in Sacrament meeting we had a nice meeting on the program. 2 speakers, a Christmas rest hymn, and topics that were appropriate for the season. We also had a member of the stake presidency on the stand. The member of the bishopric conducting announced that we would be having a change to the program. They cut out the Christmas rest hymn to give the SP2 a few minutes to talk at the end. He spoke on the 3 fold mission of the church. He asked us to commit 5 new years resolutions the SP had come up with. 1 - Take the Sacrament every week. 2 - Read the BoM everyday. 3 - Attend the temple monthly. 4 - Do indexing. 5 - I don't remember. He asked us to give these gifts to Jesus for Christmas. All I could hear was stay in the boat, don't let your indoctrination fail.

And Stake Conference was just last week. You have to come ruin one of the good Sacrament Meetings with this right after Stake Conference? Come on, man!

[Enoch Witty]

As horrible as this is, it was also probably pretty blatant to even the TBMs in the crowd, who all (knowingly or not) crave more Christ in their meetings, especially during December. As bad as these kinds of things are, I think they will ultimately do more damage to the membership than anything else.

[Brent]

I wouldn't be surprised by this, often people who feel out want to get a piece of the action. Combine that with the idea that he is a person of stature and also may be feeling the crush of defections/lack of commitment of members it's not a big surprise that at this most important moment he decided to throw down a bit. Remember to his mind the need to speak and put the spotlight on himself can easily be interpreted as a "prompting" he shouldn't ignore.

Although I've resigned 2 of my 4 children (Millennials) consider themselves "Active Mormons" but don't attend regularly nor have they been sealed or endowed. Neither they or their spouses hold callings. So. What's up with that? I don't know but I can image that trying to keep a stake and wards functioning as what is considered "Commitment" is changing might be a rough deal. When I was in the Bishopric we always struggled to fill all the callings and with the new relaxed Millennial attitude your stake presidency may really be struggling.

[20/20hind]

Any they blame satan and worldly reasons why people are leaving the church. They are clueless that they just maybe part of the problem. People can only hear pray, pay, obey so many times before they snap. The church and other denominations are losing young people left and right and they blame cell phones and video games.

Its always easier to look at external reasons why you are losing customers. The majority of rhe time its the actual product that turns people away.