Leader: Sin and Death separate us from God.
YM1: Even God sins, just look at the flood.
Leader: God doesn’t really sin, we’ll talk about it in a minute.
YM2: I thought was like the God before our God who did all that stuff.
Leader: There was no God before our God.
YM1: Yes there was, there were Gods the made him God.
Leader: Well it is possible there is an infinite regress of Gods, but…
YM1: Yeah, and Zeus was the First God.
Leader: [exasperated sigh]
Nelson Searcy’s new book for Evangelical churches on achieving rapid growth should be of interest to any Latter-day Saint. One of the stated purposes of our church has always been to “Proclaim the Gospel”. In order to effectively do this, one basic necessity is getting people to come to church. And that is what Searcy’s book is all about. In a very simple and deliberate fashion, Searcy reviews some of the things that have worked for his 8 year-old 1,200 member congregation in Manhattan, as well as in other “mega” churches like Mark Warren’s Saddleback Church. I found his suggestions simple and obvious, as in “that obviously would be good to do”.
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Several corporations use a 12 question survey to measure how engaged their employees are in the company and use this as a measure to determine the quality of the workplace. I thought it would be interesting to apply these questions to the church.
You may take the survey here, or link to it here
I will share the results when/if I get 250 responses.
The first time I went to the temple was about a month and a half after my baptism. It was the day after Thanksgiving. I had just introduced the girl who had given me the Book of Mormon to my family (from here on, merely the girl). It was odd to me how much better she was at talking to my cousins and aunts and uncles than I was. It turns out that she had a ton more experience dealing with family than I did, as my family only ever got together for Christmas and Thanksgiving, and my brother and I were the ones who snuck off and ignored them. Speaking of my brother, perhaps my most memorable moment of that Thanksgiving was going over to his house with the girl. He opened the door, wearing nothing but his boxers, and thus my normal life was introduced to my new religious life. (more…)
Jacob’s recent post came to mind today in sacrament meeting. With Thanksgiving coming up this week we had a few excellent talks on gratitude. I was struck by how closely the stories of gratitude matched with the idea of synthetic happiness described by Dan Gilbert here. Further, it is striking that this so-called “synthetic happiness” — the state of happiness we can attain when we make peace with not getting what we want — is a form of happiness that is just as real as the “natural happiness” we feel when we do get what we want.
The interesting thing is in all the stories told today the specific method used to arrive at this real form of happiness was to consciously count one’s blessings. In other words, it seems from the stories that more grateful people are more happy people. And if Dan Gilbert is to be believed, the kind of happiness we can arrive at after not getting what we want is just as “happy” as the kind of happiness we arrive at after getting what we want.
So count your many blessings folks. Name them one by one. According to Lehi the purpose of life is to have joy, and being grateful may be the most sure-fire way to be joyful.
As some of you might remember, I was participating in a Sept. 15 to Nov. 15 mustache growing contest with my five brothers and one brother in law. The contest is now over and entries are in.
BEHOLD! (and tremble)
The judging is taking place right now. (Judges are mostly extended family members on a family emailing list.) The three categories are Bushiness, Coolness, and Goofiness. While most of the bros went for bushy staches of sorts I decided to mix it up and focus on the goofiness/coolness angle. We’ll see soon how that works.
Anyhow, Kristen created the grand prize. Here it is:
This talk by Dan Gilbert is one of my all-time favorite TEDTalks, I must have listened to it a half-dozen times. I can’t help but think of my mom who has as one of her principal catch phrases, “I like to keep my options open.”
If I’ve counted correctly, A Serious Man is the Coen brothers’ 14th film. As the 2000s got underway, I was starting to think the Coens had lost their mojo. With Intolerable Cruelty in 2003 and then The Ladykillers in (2004) things were on a bad trajectory. Luckily, after taking a few years off they proved they still had some genius left by adding another masterpiece to their body of work with No Country For Old Men. Last year brought Burn After Reading which, despite having its moments, was not in contention for their best work. (more…)
Just wanted to note an interesting new marketing strategy from Deseret Book.
Here you can download a complete PDF of the books for free. Personally, I probably would never read most of these, but I was pleased to see Bruce Chadwick and Brent Top’s book here, as I like Dr. Chadwick’s studies, but would never have paid for this book. (As an aside, I’ve always loved the church’s policy of giving away their books for free via the web. (I wish the Boy Scouts did the same). Deseret Book, however, is not the church, but is a for-profit business. I can only assume they are doing this for marketing purposes.)
So what do you think? Will “the power of Free” help Deseret Book increase it’s market share?
Today marks my being baptized 11 years ago. In honor of that experience, here are two lists based on my personal experiences in the church:
11 biggest challenges to my staying active 11 years
Well, we of the Bloggernacle have been dissing people left and right of late, so I thought it was about time for the old “You have to say three nice things about that person†post.
Mr. McNaughton (more…)
My oldest is 6, and paid attention to conference quite a bit this time, with the help of stickers, the packet from the friend, and lots of snacks.
It is halftime on Saturday for General Conference. While I watch these great men from afar, it made me think of a few close up experiences I have had. (more…)
Of my wife and my five remaining grandparents, four of them are nearing the end.
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