NOM

I finally gave my talk on service today. I thought it went well, I got a few laughs from the stories I told and people seemed genuine when they said "Good talk" in the hallway for the remainder of church.

My main points were that in my experience most people think they are good and want to serve, but that we all struggle with the best way to serve. If you are struggling with how best to serve you should take a moment to realize that the fact that you have that question probably means you are on the right path. And that there is no good concise answer, but that we should realize that like it says in Ecclesiastes there is a time for everything and we should spend this life trying to get better at recognizing the right times to do which service, and to not judge ourselves to harshly for getting it wrong sometimes. And remember that your service is between you and God, don't let others tell you you're doing it wrong.

I also threw in some information about how to help homeless people in the Salt Lake Valley, providing ways to get more information and info about the nearest shelter and some volunteer programs they have. (In my prep for the homeless part I found the church's release on homelessness from April unimpressive. They touted that they were willing to sell a Deseret Industries location for a homeless shelter; if they were serious about helping homeless people I would think that they would be offering the DI rather than selling it. Also, why isn't there a church run shelter in SLC? My brother blames FDR for destroying the ability of churches to provide large scale help for the needy during the Depression, but that sounds like a right wing fairy tale, anyone with info would you enlighten me?)

I've told my bishop that I don't believe anymore, though we haven't discussed it in over a year, but they still had me bat cleanup and speak last. When the meeting was over he came over and with a look of relief that I didn't go off the deep end in my talk said, "Thanks for speaking, that was a great talk." I am grateful to still be accepted and appreciated by my tribe today.

Sounds like a great talk! I'm glad you felt positively about it and got good feedback. I love that you gave clear concrete ideas on how to serve the homeless. Well done.

Linked wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2017 12:03 am I am grateful to still be accepted and appreciated by my tribe today.

Great result

Sounds like an awesome talk! You had a lot of great comments and plugs for where service is needed. Good job! Your bishop sounds like an OK guy as well.

I would love to hear a talk like that (if I went to Sacrament). I think there's a hunger in a lot of people to hear original, heartfelt messages about things that can actually make a positive difference in their lives. I'm glad you had such warm responses to your talk.

Kudos Linked!

Man, I just can't imagine giving a talk as a non-believer. One of the first against-the-grain things I did, before I even realized there was a whole world of NOM/Exmo/Mormon-historical-fact thought, was to tell my bishop no, I won't give a talk. I still nominally believed back then. I would laugh if they asked me at this point.

It's impressive that you went through with it. And not surprising that people liked it; anything mildly different is like a breath of fresh air in Mormondom.

Enoch Witty wrote: ↑Wed May 31, 2017 1:13 pm And not surprising that people liked it; anything mildly different is like a breath of fresh air in Mormondom.

True. I brought my ex-boyfriend (who's black and very irrevrently enthusiastic) to testimony meeting and he got up and shook up the house!

One of my NOM fantasies is for us all to get together and go to the same testimony meeting and all go up first to speak - so the whole meeting is NOM testimonies. Then peer pressure subconsciously is shifted.

Thanks fellow NOMmies.

Enoch Witty wrote: ↑Wed May 31, 2017 1:13 pm Man, I just can't imagine giving a talk as a non-believer. One of the first against-the-grain things I did, before I even realized there was a whole world of NOM/Exmo/Mormon-historical-fact thought, was to tell my bishop no, I won't give a talk. I still nominally believed back then. I would laugh if they asked me at this point.

It's impressive that you went through with it. And not surprising that people liked it; anything mildly different is like a breath of fresh air in Mormondom.

I really enjoy speaking (last time I was supposed to speak the other speakers took all the time and I only had a couple minutes and I was really disappointed). I'm not sure if I'm good at it, but I like to try. And as an engineer there aren't a lot of opportunities to speak in public for work. I tell people no for other stuff though.

As for speaking as a non-believer, as long as I don't have to say stuff that I don't believe I don't feel like it's an issue. And with a topic like service there is plenty I can say from my heart. And it's fun to throw in some against the grain stuff too. I told some stories that included members of my ward and never used Brother or Sister, I called them by their names. And my sentence on serving our families as parents was based in the 21st century, not 1950: "As husband and wife work together to put food on the table, keep a roof over their heads, and have a happy home."