drumdude wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 5:46 am
https://www.reddit.com/r/latterdaysaint ... h_leaders/
I, and I think many fellow young members of the church, feel like I'm in a constant wrestle with the church. I love the gospel. I love Christ and his teachings, I believe we're all children of God, I've seen miracles and felt things I cannot deny. But there are people who have been truly hurt by the church and its leaders on a church-wide and local level. Growing up it was easy to ignore it, in fact I was taught to ignore it. But I really can't anymore. I feel so heavily the pain that has been caused. I know that the members are imperfect, and I'm working on forgiveness. But a lot of what the church does as an institution feels like it goes against the very things it taught me to value. Taking accountability, improving on our weaknesses, justice against wrongdoings and advocating for victims and the marginalized. It's really disheartening. Please don't come at me in the comments, I just want to express how I'm feeling. I feel like there's no avenue for me to voice these concerns. I can and do talk to my Bishop, he's amazing. I can talk to my Stake President, which I have, and which was not nearly as validating. But it stops there. I don't think my Stake President is passing that on to anyone else, unless I'm wrong about how that works. I just want to be heard. I wish that there was a way to express concern in a sincere, non-threatening way to our higher up leaders. Does anyone know of any way to do this without being labeled as antagonistic to the church? TIA
This seems like a sincere post from someone who is struggling with how they can be a part of the restored gospel while sometimes getting rubbed the wrong way by certain aspects of the organization. This is hard. The person seems like they are at a loss and are not sure what to do. Yes, letter writing normally gets routed back down to local leaders. The individual may feel like the word doesn't get past the stake president, but it does. I haven't been a stake president, so I don't know too many details, but stake presidents take things to their coordinating council and discuss them with area authorities which get passed onto area presidencies and up to other general authorities. If a stake president feels like multiple members are struggling with certain issues in general, I'm sure there is a way they can pass that along. I know personally that specific cases also get passed along. I was once asked by our area authority to start up a correspondence with a member in a completely different coordinating counsel (on the other side of California) who was struggling with a particular issue regarding their testimony. I guess the area authority felt like with my background in science I could help. Unfortunately, as many of you know, there usually isn't a silver bullet for these sorts of struggles. I was able to help a little, but not a ton.
It may be that we could do better at letting members know they are heard. I know these sorts of things get passed up to general authorities, but there may be no feedback to the members. They may not know that their concerns were heard, discussed, and acted upon. Of course, it may be that this happens most often in aggregate and just doesn't have much traceability back to individual members.
Anyway, thanks for passing this along DrumDude. When I read stories like this it reminds me that there are sincere people who are struggling and really aren't trying to be antagonistic, but they still have serious issues that should be heard. There is always so much more we can do to improve people's experience with the gospel.
