Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

agricola wrote:So yesterday I was at the gym being tormented by my trainer, and we talked. She's LDS. So here's a bit of 'straight from the source' stuff about LDS 'church' (stakehouse) stuff.

A) nobody is getting paid. Members tithe to the church HQ and the church HQ turns around and supports the stakehouses (I keep writing 'steakhouses' and have to fix it).
B) there isn't a 'preacher'. Various members rotate and give short (five minute) presentations on assigned topics. Men, women and young people all participate in this. They are assigned a topic by the bishop, who is a member who has been selected or assigned to 'run' that stake. Everybody has 'day jobs', there are no professional clergy at all - but the way they train EVERYBODY in a congregation means that practically EVERYBODY is 'clergy': see next -
C) members also rotate among all OTHER duties - songleading (chorister) is an assigned position and can be male or female. A pair of people lead the mens group, womens group, youth group - the pair could be a married couple, or two women, or two men, or a man and a woman. The bishop passes these duties around and members rotate through them for some specified period of time (like a year, perhaps).
D) the position of 'bishop' also rotates around in much the same way, but is assigned from higher up than the local stake.
E) communion/Lord's supper/what have you:
They use bread and water. It is passed around. The bread is 'blessed' by somebody (her son had that duty this weekend). (side note, all boys become 'elders' when they turn 13 and they can then 'bless' things). What is the bread? It is WHATEVER THEY HAVE AROUND THE HOUSE. So some weeks they get white bread and some weeks it is wheat and I guess occasionally somebody splurges and buys garlic-olive pugliese. It's - whatever.
I've said this before: the LDS and CoC shared a lot when they got started, but the LDS is ORGANIZED and the CoC isn't. An LDS congregation trains EVERY member to take EVERY role in the church, from childhood on up.
It is still largely male-led, however, at the upper levels. The elders are male (age 13 and up), the bishops are male, and going up the heirarchy, it's guys all the way. But at the congregational level, there is a lot of women involved actively in everything the church does.

SolaDude wrote:

agricola wrote:So yesterday I was at the gym being tormented by my trainer, and we talked. She's LDS. So here's a bit of 'straight from the source' stuff about LDS 'church' (stakehouse) stuff.

A) nobody is getting paid. Members tithe to the church HQ and the church HQ turns around and supports the stakehouses (I keep writing 'steakhouses' and have to fix it).
B) there isn't a 'preacher'. Various members rotate and give short (five minute) presentations on assigned topics. Men, women and young people all participate in this. They are assigned a topic by the bishop, who is a member who has been selected or assigned to 'run' that stake. Everybody has 'day jobs', there are no professional clergy at all - but the way they train EVERYBODY in a congregation means that practically EVERYBODY is 'clergy': see next -
C) members also rotate among all OTHER duties - songleading (chorister) is an assigned position and can be male or female. A pair of people lead the mens group, womens group, youth group - the pair could be a married couple, or two women, or two men, or a man and a woman. The bishop passes these duties around and members rotate through them for some specified period of time (like a year, perhaps).
D) the position of 'bishop' also rotates around in much the same way, but is assigned from higher up than the local stake.
E) communion/Lord's supper/what have you:
They use bread and water. It is passed around. The bread is 'blessed' by somebody (her son had that duty this weekend). (side note, all boys become 'elders' when they turn 13 and they can then 'bless' things). What is the bread? It is WHATEVER THEY HAVE AROUND THE HOUSE. So some weeks they get white bread and some weeks it is wheat and I guess occasionally somebody splurges and buys garlic-olive pugliese. It's - whatever.
I've said this before: the LDS and CoC shared a lot when they got started, but the LDS is ORGANIZED and the CoC isn't. An LDS congregation trains EVERY member to take EVERY role in the church, from childhood on up.
It is still largely male-led, however, at the upper levels. The elders are male (age 13 and up), the bishops are male, and going up the heirarchy, it's guys all the way. But at the congregational level, there is a lot of women involved actively in everything the church does.

So ironic that the church of LDS was started in part in Utah from a breakaway fella from the Restoration Movement of Campbell who moved out there with them...

Ivy wrote:

SolaDude wrote:

agricola wrote:So yesterday I was at the gym being tormented by my trainer, and we talked. She's LDS. So here's a bit of 'straight from the source' stuff about LDS 'church' (stakehouse) stuff.

A) nobody is getting paid. Members tithe to the church HQ and the church HQ turns around and supports the stakehouses (I keep writing 'steakhouses' and have to fix it).
B) there isn't a 'preacher'. Various members rotate and give short (five minute) presentations on assigned topics. Men, women and young people all participate in this. They are assigned a topic by the bishop, who is a member who has been selected or assigned to 'run' that stake. Everybody has 'day jobs', there are no professional clergy at all - but the way they train EVERYBODY in a congregation means that practically EVERYBODY is 'clergy': see next -
C) members also rotate among all OTHER duties - songleading (chorister) is an assigned position and can be male or female. A pair of people lead the mens group, womens group, youth group - the pair could be a married couple, or two women, or two men, or a man and a woman. The bishop passes these duties around and members rotate through them for some specified period of time (like a year, perhaps).
D) the position of 'bishop' also rotates around in much the same way, but is assigned from higher up than the local stake.
E) communion/Lord's supper/what have you:
They use bread and water. It is passed around. The bread is 'blessed' by somebody (her son had that duty this weekend). (side note, all boys become 'elders' when they turn 13 and they can then 'bless' things). What is the bread? It is WHATEVER THEY HAVE AROUND THE HOUSE. So some weeks they get white bread and some weeks it is wheat and I guess occasionally somebody splurges and buys garlic-olive pugliese. It's - whatever.
I've said this before: the LDS and CoC shared a lot when they got started, but the LDS is ORGANIZED and the CoC isn't. An LDS congregation trains EVERY member to take EVERY role in the church, from childhood on up.
It is still largely male-led, however, at the upper levels. The elders are male (age 13 and up), the bishops are male, and going up the heirarchy, it's guys all the way. But at the congregational level, there is a lot of women involved actively in everything the church does.

So ironic that the church of LDS was started in part in Utah from a breakaway fella from the Restoration Movement of Campbell who moved out there with them...

Yeah....interesting. That explains why I used to get "LDS" as one of my possible belief systems when I'd take the Belief-O-Matic.

SolaDude wrote:Well, Ivy, if you'd go for it and join 'em, I understand you'd end up on your own planet when you die.....not sure if that includes transportation to other people's planets or maybe a jaunt to heaven every now and then, though.

Ivy wrote:

SolaDude wrote:Well, Ivy, if you'd go for it and join 'em, I understand you'd end up on your own planet when you die.....not sure if that includes transportation to other people's planets or maybe a jaunt to heaven every now and then, though.

Sola, I can barely manage the planet I have now...much less another one.

B.H. wrote:

Ivy wrote:

SolaDude wrote:Well, Ivy, if you'd go for it and join 'em, I understand you'd end up on your own planet when you die.....not sure if that includes transportation to other people's planets or maybe a jaunt to heaven every now and then, though.

Sola, I can barely manage the planet I have now...much less another one.

Ivy, would you want to pop out millions of babies? The world has to get filled up somehow.

BH, that train has left the station. Now it's up to the younger Ivy generation.