In my last post I brought up the point that we as a church spend nearly all of our energy helping people (both non-members and inactive members) become active members of the church. That is a worthy effort, to be sure. My concern is that I hear very little talk about the gap between being an “active” Latter Day Saint and a Celestial-natured person worthy of exaltation. So the question of this post is whether there really is a gap between being (and remaining) Active and being Exalted. (more…)

The Baron over at Millennial Star has put together a nice series on the subject of member activity and retention in the Church. This is a lingering response to press that came out several weeks ago claiming that real church growth has been flat for several years. We Mormons have become very proficient at wringing our hands over losing active members to inactivity (or less-activity depending on the situation and the point of view). I have a couple of worries about the current paradigm in the church. One is I’m not sure exactly what active means. The Second is that I worry that we are so focused on getting people “active” that we may not have much of a plan to move from that point to the final end God has in mind for the saints. (more…)

Action is pretty light again this week in the ‘Nacle so I thought some light fare might be in order here as well.

I mentioned a cover band I used to play with in a previous post. But my (primary) former originals band, Noisepie, also did lots of covers. Of course we would “Pie” the songs up and make them our own. This post is mostly an excuse to show off some of these songs. I wish we had recorded more of our cover songs because some were pretty classic (you’ll have to ask if you’d like me to ramble on about that), but at least I have these for posterity’s sake. (I might have put this post up at Kulturblog if it weren’t so shamelessly self-aggrandizing…). Anyway, here they are with links to the MP3s: (more…)

There have been lots of religious surveys floating around in recent months. Nearly all of them ask participants where they rate themselves on a scale of orthodoxy-liberalism. I have invariably rated myself as an orthodox Mormon. For those of you that have hung around here a bit — Does that surprise you or is that exactly what you would think? In this post I’d like you to help me figure out what those terms orthodox-liberal mean for Mormons. (more…)

Rusty’s recent post got me a’thinkin. And that means trouble my friends, that means trouble. (more…)

There have been a few posts floating around on the age and the history of the Bloggernacle. This post is all about the future of this collection of Mormon blogs and those who visit them that we call the Bloggernacle. (more…)

I talked with an old friend today. He called because he knew I went to BYU and wanted to get my opinion on the Provo/Orem area. He is living in Southern California but a company out in BYU Land is courting him for a position they have open and he wanted to know what I thought. (more…)

A few years ago President Faust said something in conference that had a major impact on me:

No earthly authority can separate us from direct access to our Creator… We do not need to go through secretaries or make an appointment to reach the throne of grace. He is reachable at any time and any place. (James E. Faust, “The Lifeline of Prayer,” Ensign, May 2002, 59)

In other words if we want to meet with our Bishop we must set up an appointment that fits his schedule through the ward executive secretary. The same is true for our Stake President, Area Authorities, Area Presidency, etc. If we felt like meeting the President of the Church for an interview we would almost surely be out of luck. But we have a standing personal appointment with his Boss. Each of us can talk with the highest authority in this church any time we feel like it and He will attentively listen and respond. (more…)

When Nephi was explaining what the Rod of Iron represented to his brothers he said:

And I said unto them that it was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction.

Since member retention has been a hot topic in the Bloggernacle over the last few weeks I thought this might be useful to bring up. Nephi explains that the sure way to remain active in the gospel (and thus presumably in the church as well) is to hold fast to the iron rod. We often assume this applies to the scriptures only; but the scriptures are in fact the indirect Word of God to us. How do we even know if the scriptures like the Book of Mormon are true? – Only through the direct Word of God to our minds. In other words, we can only know through personal revelation. Therefore I submit that personal revelation is at least as important as the scriptures when it comes to the iron rod in our own lives. (more…)

I’ve written quite a few songs in my day and I like some of my old lyrics are better than others. Before I left BYU I wrote the chorus of a song I intended to use with my BYU band Sam I Am. Here’s how the lyrics went: (more…)

Here it is friends: My new analogy on how revelation really works. This has been tempered in the fires of a hot debate with Jeffrey Giliam over the last few weeks and I think you might like it. (Or not…) (more…)