Let's engage in a bit of ark steadying shall we?

[gkearney]

OK and now for a bit of fun ark steadying...So pretend here that you are President of the Church and let's also pretend for a moment that for some reason you don't need to have the quorum of the twelve ratify your decisions. That's right you just became, for lack of a better word, a kind of church dictator able to impose your will. I know, this is Christ's Church and such a thing could never really be but stay with me here.

So what matters of Church practice, membership, policy or direction do you make? What things do you change?

[mahalanobis]

Pretend for a minute you are the president of your own mortal probation. What decisions would you make to improve your life and those of the people around you? How would you become a righteous steward of your dominion? What practices would you stop?

I know it looks like I'm trying to be facetious. But this actually shows how easy it is to talk about what one will do or would do - but how hard it is to do in reality. Because mortality. Because the natural man.

[RocknRoll]

OK and now for a bit of fun ark steadying...So pretend here that you are President of the Church and let's also pretend for a moment that for some reason you don't need to have the quorum of the twelve ratify your decisions. That's right you just became, for lack of a better word, a kind of church dictator able to impose your will. I know, this is Christ's Church and such a thing could never really be but stay with me here.

So what matters of Church practice, membership, policy or direction do you make? What things do you change?

Many of the things I’d change if I were the hypothetical leader of the church have been changed the last couple of years.
Get out of the BSA, check.
Make temple ceremonies more gender equal, check.
Two-hour church, check.
Policy of not allowing children of same-sex couples to be baptized rescinded, check.
Not focusing on being the Church of Jesus Christ of Home Teaching, check
Being more open about troubling history such as “Blacks and the Priesthood” and “Polygamy” via the online essays, check.
Being more Christ centered and focusing less on “the Pioneers”, check.

Some things I might change:
Bring back the Activities Committee to promote more of a sense of community/family within each ward.
Discontinue the members cleaning the building and bring back a paid janitor. The church can afford it and it would create jobs.
Stop asking temple recommend questions and just ask, “do you feel you are worthy to enter the temple?”
Create a policy of only allowing members 12 and older to bear testimony in Testimony Meetings. Kids can learn to bear testimony in Primary. So tired of the memorized, “I like to bear my testimony and I know the church is true…”. Sometimes it’s cute, but it’s not spiritual.

[nightlight]

Pretend for a minute you are the president of your own mortal probation. What decisions would you make to improve your life and those of the people around you? How would you become a righteous steward of your dominion? What practices would you stop?

I know it looks like I'm trying to be facetious. But this actually shows how easy it is to talk about what one will do or would do - but how hard it is to do in reality. Because mortality. Because the natural man.

Your post made me think of this scripture

“We will make an earth whereon these may dwell; “And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them” (Abraham 3:21–25).
------------------

[harakim]

I thought I responded to this. I would preach individual worth, how to learn the truth and building up Zion. I might take on the last topic by giving examples of previous teachings about the influence of the world by people like Brigham Young or maybe even Jesus.
I would try to get a bottom up leadership going and better organize as a community rather than boring sunday school lessons everyone has heard a billion times.* I would also consider how I could put my resources behind this and turn my hundreds of billions of birds in the hand into something in the bush.

* - I guess I would look at how the church inoculates people to truth and happiness by beating them to death with the boring stick and try and change that

[Rose Garden]

Ruin the economy by injecting an extra 100 billion dollars into it all of the sudden.

[JK4Woods]

I’ve been wondering for some time about church growth. Seems to me the gospel intention is to grow sideways into a family/friend/neighborhood/community kind of net. Meaning strong ties horizontally from person to person.

As the strong net is forged, the gaps become smaller and fewer fall thru the cracks. The net is resilient. It conforms to local conditions /economic level and capacity of the local society.

I’m not so sure the restoration of the gospel and early church was meant to be following an American capitalist business model. Sure it has brought great success when looking at certain statistics and metrics in certain areas, but has largely missed the mark in a whole ‘nother area.

Not quite sure I can convey my nascent observations and impressions into a coherent illustration. Since we have all been indoctrinated in the western capitalistic business
program, it is very hard to step outside the box of American culture and with an open mind look at the whole picture of the direction the church has been heading for the last hundred years.

The corporation of the current church is a typical business model. At some point in past history, someone in leadership foisted the business structure onto the church and thru diligence, hard work and endless might, has grown the business from a million members and practically broke from a hundred and twenty years ago, to the huge corporation it is now.

I don’t think the restored gospel was ever supposed to be as wealthy as the church is right now.

I’m not sure a centralized board of directors, and central command structure with central financing is really the true gospel way.

Sometimes I wonder if the current church is like the ladder of success with specific delineated rungs for each step of the way, and then we find out, we’ve been leaning it against the wrong wall all along.

If the second great commandment is to “love thy neighbor as thyself” the current membership of the church has failed miserably. We have a tendency to overlook all the odd/different neighbors to our left and right. Especially if they have different beliefs. Consequently, the knots of our net are spread out from member to member in our communities, and the gaps in the netting is large and many fall thru and are not caught up in the beauty of the gospel.

I just don’t think the American business model used for the corporation of the current church is truely inspired and was a result of Heavenly Father’s direction.

I think a different gospel delivery method could have been just as successful at harvesting fifteen million members.

I’d bet the fifteen million strong “love your neighbor” gospel church would have a much higher activity rate, and probably as many local community built houses of worship and indeed temples, to meet their own needs as the central command we now have.

There has to be a reason why the first Twelve spread out and lived far and wide.

Personally, I’d like to see the apostles sent out to every continent on earth and told to reside there spreading the gospel and organically build the church up. Remember when Pres Oaks spent five years in the Phillipines..??

Anyway, there are different and better ways to do things. But it’ll be hard to change this ships course...

[BeNotDeceived]

OTEC, OTEC, and more OTEC.

[cab]

I would label Freemasons and Shriners as secret combinations.

[mahalanobis]

Ruin the economy by injecting an extra 100 billion dollars into it all of the sudden.

Well technically, the 100b is already in the economy. But instantly liquidating it all on the same day then spending it all in one place might be able to do some damage... But hey I'm no economist.

Then again, maybe you were referring to printing money. The church could join the counterfeit money printing business with the mob. We could call it the Anti-Banking Society. Oh wait, I think we tried this already.

[Mindfields]

OK and now for a bit of fun ark steadying...So pretend here that you are President of the Church and let's also pretend for a moment that for some reason you don't need to have the quorum of the twelve ratify your decisions. That's right you just became, for lack of a better word, a kind of church dictator able to impose your will. I know, this is Christ's Church and such a thing could never really be but stay with me here.

So what matters of Church practice, membership, policy or direction do you make? What things do you change?

Depending on who's the current president I believe this already occurs. The rest of the 15 just fall in line.

[NewEliza]

OK and now for a bit of fun ark steadying...So pretend here that you are President of the Church and let's also pretend for a moment that for some reason you don't need to have the quorum of the twelve ratify your decisions. That's right you just became, for lack of a better word, a kind of church dictator able to impose your will. I know, this is Christ's Church and such a thing could never really be but stay with me here.

So what matters of Church practice, membership, policy or direction do you make? What things do you change?

Depending on who's the current president I believe this already occurs. The rest of the 15 just fall in line.

Agreed

It’s the old “pray to know it’s true” approach vs the better “pray to know IF it’s true”.

[XEmilyX]

The church is doing pretty good!

I would like to focus on building Zion and speak more about it.
I would also like to speak more about spirits and how they effect peoples daily lives.
I would also like to have teachers that are experts in the gospel teach in an online class people can take so they can study the gospel better.
I would like to prophesy more
I would like to have a safe space or class or just get the church to the point where they share spiritual experiences with others who have had really amazing experiences (it seems people arent allowed to see spirits, angels, have spiritual experiences etc)

That's all I can think of.
Lol

[David13]

I'm just glad to know it's Fantasy Week here at LDS Freedom Forum.
dc