Christian Communities

Where We've Been

• A history of belief
• Defining Traits of 20th Century
• Paradigms of Belief
• How to Build Enduring Faith

Where We Are Going

• A Restored Christian Life
• Our Soaring Theology
• We Will Pursue a Thesis

Modern life, for all its marvels, lacks meaning and enduring coherence and the restored gospel of Jesus Christ provides many of the very things modernity so desperately needs.

Hallmarks of Modernity

• Tolerance
• Modern Scientific Leaps
• Fractured thinking
• Inability to Sustain a Narrative
• Trading Meaning for Stuff
• Extremism

Modernnity

• Artifice
• Isolation
• Mistrust
• (Re)segregation
• Faithlessness

Fred sits alone at his desk in the dark
There's an awkward young shadow that waits in the hall
He has packed all his things
And he's put them in boxes
Things that remind him that life has been good
Twenty five years he's worked at the paper
A man's here to take him downstairs
And I'm sorry Mr Jones, it's time
There was no party and there were no songs
Cause today's just a day like the day that he started
And no one is left here that knows his first name
Yeah, and life barrels on like a runaway train.
Where the passengers change
They don't change anything
You get off
Someone else can get on
And I'm sorry Mr Jones, it's time

Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice
In the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream.
Waits at the window, wearing the face
That she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
Where do they all belong?

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Two keys to this paradoxical power in the LDS church are, first, that it is, by revelation, a lay church and radically so— more than any other—and, second, that it organizes its con­gregations geographically, rather than by choice.

the basic Church experience of al­most all Mormons brings them directly and constantly into po­tentially powerful relationships with a range of people and problems in their assigned congregation that are not primarily of their own choosing but are profoundly redemptive in po­tential, in part because they are not consciously chosen.

We belong to each other. By divine covenant, we belong to God and to each other. Covenant belonging is a miracle. It is not possessive. It “suffereth long, and is kind.”12 It envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.13 Covenant belonging gives roots and wings. It liberates through commitment. It enlarges through love.

And thus we experience a double loaves and fishes miracle: first, a community of Saints can rally in magnificent selfless unity to address a dramatic need; and second, simultaneously, a fellowship of Saints can be knit together in love, through daily, loving ministering in many quiet circumstances (as in a family, a ward, a branch, or a community over many years), independent of any dramatic need.

Brothers and sisters, we never know how far the effects of our service will reach. We can never afford to be cruel or indifferent or ungenerous, because we are all connected, even if it is in a pattern that only God sees. I am part of this pattern. Rosetta is part of this pattern. You are part of this pattern. And the Savior is part of the pattern. In fact, I like to think that the Savior is the spaces in the pattern, for there would be no pattern at all without them.

Constancy

Geography

Lay clergy

Dedication

covenant

ministering

Betty mantooth

A dear Friend

covenant community

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