As for children, my husband is not a member so I have to take my two babies alone every Sunday. If things are difficult, I hang out in the mother’s room and “fellowship”. Even though I missed most of sacrament and the classes because of my son, I felt more blessed in the end. That was my lesson. It was a greater lesson than I ever received in RS or SS. (Last month my younger son finally entered nursery, so I am FREE!)

As for our amateur clergy, I went to an Evangelical church for a few months before I rejoined the church, and thought it even more boring. . . and they had a professional band. . . with drums!

Sue M, I’ve been where you are. I don’t know if your husband attends church, but mine didn’t when my kids were babies. I was doing it all on my own, and I really felt like it was a waste of time. Until I decided I wasn’t going to church for me, but for the kids. They needed to be there to have that experience. If I’d stopped going, when would I have started back up? And how much harder would it be to get the kids to go when they were older if they weren’t used to it?

I can still remember vividly one day, I was so ready to pack them all up and head home, tired of sitting on the floor with the baby in the foyer (which meant my older kids were there as well, because they wouldn’t stay in the chapel on their own), and another mom in the hall said to me, “You’re such a great mom.”

Here I was feeling like it was a total waste of time being there, when I was actually inspiring another mother to want to be a good mom. You never know what influence you’re having on people.

And I agree with Kurt–church should be about serving others. It’s when you lose yourself that you gain, anyway.

That is how I felt every Sunday morning until last January when I decided on a one-year “independent study” from attending meetings. The fact is that church is boring boring boring. And I wake up on Sundays feeling much better.

If you get something out of church, more power to you…but that has been my experience, for what it’s worth.

May be, I am just getting older. But according to my memory, it is getting worse.

…Read scripture “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” (Amos 3:7) …Ask lesson-prompted-question-with-obvious-answer, “Who does god reveal his secrets to?”

…Read scripture “THIS is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” (2 Cor 13:1) …Ask lesson-prompted-question-with-obvious-answer, “How many witnesses does it take to establish god’s word?” Follow with the supposedly-insightful-church-structure-confirming-question, “Why does god have three people make up the first presidency?” …It is all I can do to not give a serious but bumbling answer such as, “Because, well, if you remember back when it got to the point where president Benson was at his most incapacitated, and president Hinckley and president Monson were running the day to day affairs with the church. Anyway, it got to the point where it was just kind of the two of them. And, given their love of family, they couldn’t, you know, go to family reunions and stuff if there was just one of them left. So three allows one to be sick and stuff, and the other to have a chance to vacation and relax, while the third handles things until the second one gets back.” And then the teacher would reply, “You know, I never thought of it that way. I guess the lord even takes family and personal needs into consideration. Personally, I was thinking that one of the reasons he set it up this way was…” –Because, no one ever gives a wrong answer in church. Come to think of it, that was one of the funniest articles ever written in the “Sugar Beet”. It was titled something like, “Ward Celebrates 50 Years of 100% Right Answers in Sunday School”. I was rolling.

…Kurt has a valid point with looking at church meetings as a service opportunity. Beyond callings, even serving in little ways, like being a pal to the kid who the other kids don’t really understand because he is home-schooled and dressed in clothes made by his mom. Or thanking the 75 year-old lady who is always the first to ramble on during a F&T meeting for sharing her ‘testimony’. –Overall, I am being totally serious. Just little things to make people feel like someone cares they exist.

All I’m asking is, how are people supposed to tell? How many people should needlessly suffer over the mistakes of men who stand up and say solemn things in the name of Christ that are simply not true? Everyone has the right to his or her opinion, but when it’s in a specific forum for the edification of the saints and someone has been called and set apart to declare it and he uses his 15 minutes to opine and pontificate, it’s to EVERYONE’S detriment. And it’s dishonest.

And if someone says something “wrong”–how’s the average LDS person supposed to know? A new convert who never had the chance to go to seminary and trusts the leaders of the Church will believe what he/she is told and repeat those things to others, or live his/her life around them. Before the 1980s, church leaders vehemently decried birth control. In the ’60s and ’70s, many people lived stressful, impecunious lives because they just had way too many children. My aunt has MS and partially blames the church leaders for the belief (back then) that birth control was somehow related to abortion and all those spirits were waiting to come down to earth.

The point is, get 100 Mormons in a room and maybe 2 will tell you thie same thing about doctrines. Most of our teachings are NOT in the scriptures, so to say it’s only doctrine if it’s in the scriptures is something of a cop-out.

Who determines doctrine, and at what point is something no longer doctrinal? When it becomes embarrassing? When enough members leave?