We recently had a conversation with a family member (Jadyn’s brother). A recently returned missionary and current student at BYU-I he is faithful, believing, and quite dedicated to The Church.





He was at our house the other day while on Christmas break and asked a question that sparked a long discussion.





“I’ve heard you guys, and others, complain before about Mormon culture,” (which, you know, we have) “and I sometimes wonder- am I that member? I’ve never had a faith crisis. I never feel uncomfortable at church. And while I would never purposely try to do anything that communicates to some other member that they don’t belong here, I still get nervous that I might unknowingly be that super annoying Mormon you complain about. What can I do as a faithful, believing member to not be that member?”





His question was sincere and he wanted an answer. Introspective and insightful, he was able to recognize that from his place of relative privilege, having never felt any real doubt, discomfort, or misplacement in The Church, he was genuinely concerned about unknowingly contributing to a problem that he could see was real. Please note, when he referred to that member he was speaking of members who (probably unintentionally) communicate to other members that they do not quite belong in our community.





We tried our best to answer his question, pulling from our own experiences and conversations we’ve had with others. This is what we came up with. To be clear, this is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but it’s a start. Our aim in this post is to answer his question and advocate for real ways we can foster inclusivity and understanding.





We would be interested in your thoughts in the comments and might revisit this subject for a later post. We ask also that as you share this post you comment above with a suggestion of how we can avoid being that member.

















How to Not Be That Member













1. Respect the Experiences of Others.





Recognize that your church experiences are not representative of all church experiences. As my brother-in-law noted in our conversation as he speaks to friends who have either left the church or struggled within it, it sounds like they have had dramatically different experiences. Indeed, they have.





Some people have difficult experiences in The Church, others have remarkably uplifting ones. Some people feel uncomfortable with certain doctrines, practices, or with our history, while others do not. If you have never felt or experienced discomfort in The Church then wonderful, good for you!





However, understand that the experience one has within the church is extremely subjective to that person’s background, circumstances, and local leadership, and you should never, ever, try to discount their experience by saying it wasn’t yours. It is a terrible strategy for pastoral care (you’ll never win anyone that way) and you come off looking like a jerk.













2. Don’t allow others’ bad experiences to threaten your good ones.





To that point- other’s experiences do not threaten yours any more than yours invalidate theirs. We sometimes see active members of The Church shy away from difficult conversations or flat-out refuse to discuss others’ negative experiences in large part, we argue because they feel their good experiences threatened by others negative ones. Your experiences are yours and they can exist side by side with another’s, be they good or bad. We live in a deeply flawed, and complex world where circumstances are only rarely black or white. It is important for all of us to allow ourselves to see a situation from another's perspective without feeling threatened by it.













Application of both points





To both of these points; with the recent Temple changes, we’ve seen a number of members react poorly to other members excitement over them. We think a lot of this comes from that above-mentioned feeling of discomfort which in turn breeds defensiveness. It’s difficult to have been a part of, enjoyed, and found deep spiritual meaning in something that has been openly recognized now (at least by many members in the pew, if not the institutional church) as causing deep hurt.





Remember, no situation is black or white. It’s easy to look at these temple changes, to hear people (the writers of this post included) emotionally admit how damaging to their faith the old ceremony was, and leave with the takeaway of, “old temple ceremony = bad”. Following basic “if, then” principles… it doesn’t take long to conclude that if the old temple ceremony was bad, then it couldn’t be possible for your experiences within it to have been good. But then what do we do with those of us who did have positive experiences in the temple prior to January 2019? Can we live in a world where two people can be sitting in the exact same endowment session and walk away with polar opposite experiences, one enlightening and the other discouraging? The answer is- of course. Of course, we can.





We mustn't let ourselves fall into the trap of feeling threatened by other people’s experiences, especially when they differ drastically from our own. To pull further from this example, the temple is an extremely personal worship experience, and we think in this particular change it has been easy for members to feel threatened and defensive of their past uplifting temple experiences. It’s human nature. We would like to challenge the impulse, though, that the only or best way to defend our positive experiences in the church is to invalidate, or even outright deny, the negative experiences of others.





Ultimately, when we come out of a place of defensiveness and fear we lose our ability to reach out in understanding and can, even unintentionally, cause damage.





To share one real-life example, we know of one person who commented in reference to the temple changes- “I wish these people had been just as excited by The Family Proclamation” implying that “these people” are less faithful, celebrating revelation only when it suits their ideology. When it comes to situations like this, empathy and understanding are a more excellent way. You don’t need to understand why “these people” are excited by the Temple changes. But you can be happy with them anyway. Indeed, in this instance rejoicing with those who rejoice is, we argue, fulfilling one’s baptismal promise to “mourn with those that mourn.”













3. Let People Disagree





This last bit may seem unrelated to the above points but we felt it was also important.





I (this is Taylor) remember my first time in a Jewish Temple. I was just out of High School and trying to convince my parents that majoring in Religious Studies wasn’t a complete waste. That day was not a regular service- it was a Torah study. We were looking over the story of Jacob and discussing it together. While I don’t remember really anything we talked about that day I do remember at one point someone raised their hand in response to something someone else had said and started his comment with, “I completely disagree...”





I was shocked because in my experience as a Latter-day Saint I couldn’t recall having ever heard someone disagreeing in Sunday School. (If you have, great! That doesn’t take away from my experience). We also think it’s fair to say that among other Latter-Day Saints we are probably not alone in this experience. In our experience, it seems rare that anyone would raise their hand and say something like, “Well... I’m not sure the Holy Ghost works that way” and they certainly wouldn’t say something like “I think The Book of Mormon is more of a figurative than a historical thing.”





To be clear, we aren’t advocating for any doctrinal stances here. What we are saying is that in our unconsciously not allowing that kind of discussion we have forced “doubt-talk” into the back of our member’s minds, where it festers rather than heals. So often when we speak to members who have concerns the conversations begin with, “I didn’t know who to talk to…” Perhaps if we could incorporate disagreement in our discussions, if we could allow space for members to voice that disagreement without immediately trying to “fix” it, they would feel more enabled to speak to their concerns.





How we create this shift in our Sunday School classrooms we, admittedly, aren’t sure and would love to hear your thoughts.













In closing, one of the best bits of parenting advice we ever received is- “if you’re worried about whether you’re a good parent, you probably are.” The same can certainly be true of the kind of member we are. If we are thinking about it, you’re certainly a good one. However, just as with parenting, that doesn’t mean that the occasional introspection can’t be helpful and productive.





Again, this list is far from exhaustive and I’d appreciate your thoughts. We, like our family member, come at this topic from a relative place of privilege. We don’t pretend to know how to fully answer his question but do hope that together we might all avoid being that member.







