Ideas to Make General Conference Better

[_Lucretia MacEvil]

Why do they even call it a conference? The congregation files in, sits reverently, open their little mouths to sing at the appropriate times, and are otherwise just talked at. How about providing microphones up and down the aisles to allow members to ask questions, or give suggestions, or tell stories about the Three Nephites?

[_jon]

Okay, why not set a Guinness world record with a 23,000 participant indoor Sunday drum circle. This rhythmic worship could help dislodge many wooden sticks in the descending colon, grown over a lifetime of General Conferences.

Did you say Guinness? An open bar with Guinness on tap would work wonders.

This would also be a catalyst for more seership, revelation and prophesying...

[_The Dude]

Fewer references to Robert Frost and C.S. Lewis; more references to Friedrich Nietzsche and H.P. Lovecraft.

Check out those cyclopean organ pipes!

[_Nomad]

This thread cracks me up. A bunch of former or disaffected Mormons telling those who continue to believe how they should do their own meetings. As though you’d all come crawling back on your knees with tears in your eyes and a testimony on your lips, if only general conference included a magic show interlude and better special effects. What a joke! I’m so glad folks like you don’t burden our meetings with your never-ending murmuring anymore. I just don’t understand why you can't manage to stop looking back to what you’ve left behind. Geez! Can’t you just move on? You’ve got a great and spacious building all to yourselves. Isn’t that enough?

[_Nomad]

I think Monson would fit in the blue preaching outfit, he looks to be about the same size.

I think I have mentioned this before, the power of the Holy Ghost is not the dull drone of cardboard cut outs. No matter how much they speak saying Holy Ghost, Spirit, Spirit Spirit. I think the blue DJ is jacking up the people and in no way has the Spirit and power of the Holy Ghost. That said, King David brought up the Arc of the Lord dancing with his might, to the utter shame of his wife. The worship of God with all our heart, might, mind and strength would engage a greater or lesser degree of movement as one cannot contain it and be still. Neither are the words spoken by the power of the Holy Ghost a sonorous drone fest. The form of godliness is killingly dull, the power of godliness, albeit denied as yet, would make all the difference.

Man, I would love a chance to invent the culture of a real Zion. It would be spectacular and not stupid or boring or trite at all. Is that YouTube I hear calling me?

Nice Lot Smith avatar. I read, not too long ago, two books about Lot Smith. Quite a colorful personality. Even more rambunctious that Porter Rockwell, in some ways. The two of them were certainly more than the U.S. Army could handle back in 1857. Great story. Someone should make a movie about it.

As for the "real Zion", I'm fairly sure it's a city that will take more than one crackpot rock-staring "prophet" to build.

[_Chap]

This thread cracks me up. A bunch of former or disaffected Mormons telling those who continue to believe how they should do their own meetings. As though you’d all come crawling back on your knees with tears in your eyes and a testimony on your lips, if only general conference included a magic show interlude and better special effects. What a joke! I’m so glad folks like you don’t burden our meetings with your never-ending murmuring anymore. I just don’t understand why you can't manage to stop looking back to what you’ve left behind. Geez! Can’t you just move on? You’ve got a great and spacious building all to yourselves. Isn’t that enough?

Naah! People who have worked for the same crazy boss or had the same crazy teacher in High School have a precious legacy of shared weirdness to amuse one another with. Celebrating and reminiscing about that shared weirdness is precious to them because:

1. They have it because of shared suffering, boredom and sheer wasted time in the past.

2. In this harsh world anything that can raise a laugh is worth hanging on to.

The exmormon experience of General Conference is evidently a particularly rich vein of shared weirdness. Even outsiders can join in!

[_jon]

This thread cracks me up. A bunch of former or disaffected Mormons telling those who continue to believe how they should do their own meetings. As though you’d all come crawling back on your knees with tears in your eyes and a testimony on your lips, if only general conference included a magic show interlude and better special effects. What a joke! I’m so glad folks like you don’t burden our meetings with your never-ending murmuring anymore. I just don’t understand why you can't manage to stop looking back to what you’ve left behind. Geez! Can’t you just move on? You’ve got a great and spacious building all to yourselves. Isn’t that enough?

...and yet here you are, posting on a thread that cracks you up, conversing with folks like us, burdening our meetings with your testiphonial clap trap, move on indeed.

Perhaps if Conference had presented Will Schryvers recent scholarly work on the Book of Abr....oh, hang on...now I remember...

[_Nomad]

... my experience as Gospel Doctrine teacher ...

--Consiglieri

The last time we visited my in-laws in Utah, they had gospel doctrine teacher who I suspect was a lot like you. Self-obsessed. Trying to impress everyone with his intellect. Going off on wierd tangents. Noticeable lack of the spirit in the room.

I'm sure he was popular with a few of the people in the class. But I heard he was released not too long after our visit, and then he and his wife went inactive.

I wasn't surprised.

[_DarkHelmet]

Instead of announcing new GAs, bring a bunch of GA candidates up front at the beginning. Between talks, have elimination rounds, like American Idol, where you bring 2 candidates to the front and announce which one is eliminated and which one is a new GA. It would add some excitement and suspense. "Elder Jones, after speaking to the Lord, you are (pause for suspense) NOT called as a member of the seventy. Congratulations Elder Thomas. Go take a seat with the rest of the 70s."

[_sock puppet]

This thread cracks me up. A bunch of former or disaffected Mormons telling those who continue to believe how they should do their own meetings. As though you’d all come crawling back on your knees with tears in your eyes and a testimony on your lips, if only general conference included a magic show interlude and better special effects. What a joke! I’m so glad folks like you don’t burden our meetings with your never-ending murmuring anymore. I just don’t understand why you can't manage to stop looking back to what you’ve left behind. Geez! Can’t you just move on? You’ve got a great and spacious building all to yourselves. Isn’t that enough?

If active Mormonism is so great, why is it you can't manage to stop looking on internet message boards at what those that left you and your church behind have to say about it? You should be engaged full-time in your church callings, reading scriptures, praying, making more money so your tithing checks can be larger. Oh, Nomad, you slothful and unwise servant repent.