Friday, February 23, 2007
Why Doesn't It Work For Us?
- The Latter-day Saint show genuine love and concern by taking care of their people
- They strive to build the family unit
- They provide for their young people
- Theirs is a layman's church
- They believe that divine revelation is the basis for their practices.
As I read those, only the last would be a matter of substanitive difference between us and them, and then only in some circles of "us." Which begs the question, giving the compartive growth statisitics, "What's working for them that is not for us?"
There are two reasons I would cite. The first is that often, they really do those things rather than merely pay them lip service. The Mormon church operates with far higher levels of accountability and personal development than we do. If their goal is to build families, then by golly, they get busy about it and if you don't join the party, you have problems hanging around the Mormons. We have largely forgotten the role of accountability in the church. We build mega-churches where one can remain faceless.
And it is that fourth point wherein I think the roots of their ability to "really" mean it lies. We ask people to join the church - they ask people to be the church. We envision church as something to be viewed and enjoyed, they view church as something to take part in. Oh sure, we say differently all the time, but we don't do differently nearly so often. It's just too easy to hire staff, and as staff its just to tempting to take the check and do it for them.
There is a reason groups like the Mormons come along and beat us a our own game. It's not because they cheat, it's because we don't do it very well anymore. I think it's high time we quit denouncing the opposition and started getting better than them. we will eventually lose if we stay on the first path. But if we choose the second we use competition as an opportunity to get better. We need to get better.
Related Tags: Mormons, values, meaning it, clergy, layity, staff
