A few weeks ago I attended a session of my local Stake Conference. It was the Saturday Evening session. We had a visiting General Authority Seventy. Not an apostle, also not an Area Authority Seventy. He had the G.A. in his title at the church website.
While he was talking, I had a really negative experience. The individual was really self-confident, spoke loud and clear, told many jokes, and also was quite sarcastic. I had the impression that I was at a multi-level-marketing conference and he was the keynote. He was trying to convince us that we should buy more inventory to go out and sell in the world.
His message was about how to get inactive members to come participate again. The specifics involved trying to get us to go to their homes and deliver a message that felt, to me, judgey and self-righteous.
There was also a scripture that seemed uniquely honed for his purpose of weaponization and manipulation of the saints that he did weaponize against us: Press forward with a steadfastness in Christ[1]. In his telling and context, we are so tired in our daily lives, that we just stop going to church. In his mind, he is thinking that all these problems will go away if we simply press forward in Christ.
A short form response to this particular concern from me would be: The atonement isn’t magic dust that gets us out of our problems, please stop suggesting that Jesus’ Sacrifice we can force our feelings to go away. Please start suggesting that we listen to our bodies as they try to tell us things!
As I wrestled with how to respond, and eventually did respond, here are some more general thoughts about the experience and response instead of local topic-based points that I was angry about.
- Being a bull in a china shop is not productive to me or to the person who is making a mistake. Therefore a letter to an editor, posting vitriol or discussing my anger at length at home wasn’t productive.
- Ignoring my feelings and pretending that they aren’t here is not helpful, either. My feelings will just get more and more compressed until I have a big bang event and something comes out of me that I really didn’t want to have happen.
- Talking about my feelings directly is the most helpful short-term thing that I can do. It gets them out. By directly I mean, one-on-one with the person in authority that you have access to. I had access to my Stake President. If I had access to my Area Authority or to the General Authority who made the comments I would have responded to them directly, but I don’t have their contact information.
- In the long run, I still have these feelings. Every time I hear a story about how people who are called to church service are just that – people – I know that I have an obligation to provide clear, kind, loving commentary where applicable. If I don’t, how can any improvement happen? Therefore, I am also posting a note to my blog here after my anger has dissipated.
To that end, to all of our leaders, please be kind. If you are one of the people who is the “keynote” at a Saturday evening session, please know that we are sacrificing a LOT to come see and listen to you. We crave a sacred experience. We crave feeling the Savior’s love. We crave knowing how we can become more like the Lord. We don’t enjoy, nor does the Lord, when you abuse your calling to manipulate us, use sarcasm, or try to impress us with your wit and humor. But when you honor that office that you hold we have extreme gratitude for you, your devotion, your testimony and the time you take to serve.
[1] 2 Nephi 31:20
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