We are commanded to give to the poor and needy. Ancient and modern scriptures are clear on that. But are there clear priorities when choosing how to distribute our offerings? Let me give you a hypothetical situation to see what you think. (more…)

I have been really embarrassed about something for many years. I don’t like to talk about it that much so not very many people know about it. I need to move past it so I’ve decided that I’m going to share this embarrassing moment with you today so that one of two things will happen. Either I will realize that it’s not uncommon and move on with my life or I will realize that I am a freak and promptly find a psychiatrist who will help me learn from this experience and then move on. (more…)

Kristen’s excellent post yesterday on teaching children compassion reminded me of a subject I have been thinking about lately. I saw the greatest ad on BYU TV recently. Some nerdy kid in a high school hallway scene had his books and papers spilled all over the floor by a passing bully. A big strapping athlete kid was nearby hanging with his jock and cheerleader friends and noticed it. He paused for a minute then went over to help the nerdy kid pick up his books. For some reason I found it touching (clich�s and all). There is something very powerful and moving about seeing the strong help the weak simply out of compassion. (more…)

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how to raise kind and compassionate children. I think I know how to teach them to have compassion for those they know personally, but I’m not sure I know how to teach them to have compassion and take some responsibility for people they don’t personally know. For that matter I’m not sure if I know how to do that myself. (more…)

In my last post, the second in this series on our nearly exclusive focus on helping everyone become “active” members of the Church, I explained why I think that simply meeting the basic requirements to be considered an active member and staying that way until death is not sufficient for exaltation. (It was a pretty good post, actually. If it weren’t so long maybe more people would have read it.) The idea was that over reliance on Grace is dangerous because it can lead those with the proverbial “five talents” to become satisfied with their five talents and not double them. Expanding on that analogy, let’s say that becoming an active member of the church and staying that way is the equivalent of two talents. For those born into this world with one talent, turning that into two talents would indeed warrant those desired words from God “well done thou good and faithful servant”. But what of those that arrive here with 2-5 talents? What must they do to receive that commendation from the Lord? If just meeting the minimum requirements to be called an active Mormon is not enough, what then? Is the church providing the needed assistance to these folks to double their talents in this life? (more…)

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…)

I think I’m going to die, literally. I know when too. It’s going to be this Sunday and it’s going to be in one of two places. The first place it could happen is right after the teacher in Sunday School asks us why we think it would be a good idea to have prayer in our lives. The second place it could happen is in relief society right after the teacher says, “Ok, who has quote number three?” (more…)

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