Thursday, June 30, 2011

The Lesser Law of Correlation

While I've heard or read a few different people talking recently about how boring, unspiritual, or somewhat stifling our church meetings are sometimes, especially sacrament meetings, I rarely feel the same way.

I feel like I get out of church meetings what I put into it. The best way to get something out of temple attendance, sacrament meeting attendance, participating in sunday school classes, scripture reading, prayers, etc. is to go into it with a question in mind. Whatever the topic, start thinking and asking questions about it, and very quickly everything you see will be focused around that topic. It's pretty amazing to watch.

One of our local leaders recently gave a presentation regarding how many of the changes coming from church headquarters are actually moving away from the bureaucratic, centralized direction of the past in favor of more direction from local leaders. Examples of this are the new church handbook, recent changes to the Duty to God program, the ward council structure, etc.

If anything, they are putting the ball in our court to see what we will do with it without being commanded in all things. If we're not ready for the higher law, we're going to go back to correlation and centralization. I don't think that's good for anyone, but if we're only ready for the lesser law at this time, it's all we're going to get.