Why I haven't been to church much lately

"Even in the Darkness of our Suffering Jesus is With Us" by Elizabeth Wang

In the last few months, many of my friends at church have asked me where we've been. They've asked if they have offended me in any way because they haven't seen me as often at church. That touched my heart. One person even thought we'd moved away! I appreciate the love and concern of friends. Our friends have not offended me, I love our friends at church, they have been like family. I have avoided a direct answer to this question out of fear of offending my friends and my parents, who also ask about our church attendance. This letter is an attempt to answer their questions with love and yet honesty. Our family and friends have been tremendously loving and kind to us through so many years, I feel they deserve an honest answer. Please forgive me if I offend you. That is not my intent. Read my letter knowing I am very imperfect, flawed and could do better in a ton of ways. We still love God, we believe the scriptures, and we love our brothers and sisters in Christ. Our definition of following the Lord has changed as our life experiences have changed.

I am so grateful for the testimony of the Savior that was planted in my heart by my parents. They taught me to pray, to read and love the scriptures. They taught me to love and serve others. They took us to church almost every Sunday- wherever we lived as a family, and that was a lot of places! Now with 8 children of my own, I know better how much work preparing 8 children for church and then trying to make them behave for 3 hours was. Thank you for doing that, Mom and Dad!  Many of the spiritual experiences I had in my youth, had to do with the church. The church has been a blessing in my life, it is a big part of who I am today. The Lord gave me an experience that taught me to rely more on Him, and has brought us closer as a family. This experience changed my perspective on everything. I count it as a great blessing from the Lord.

In the fall of 2013 Edward and I were expecting our 7th child. One evening in the temple, I prayed and asked the Lord to teach me, whatever he needed me to know. The thought came “Are you willing to learn even through experience?” I agreed to learn in whatever way the Lord would teach me. A few days later we were in the doctor’s office for the routine ultrasound, around 20 weeks. They saw some concerns on ultrasound and with serious faces referred us to specialists. We saw the specialists weekly, and towards the end of the pregnancy twice a week.  The doctors told us our baby might not live. Every time we visited the doctors they saw more problems. Our children's daily prayer to Heavenly Father was, "Please help the baby to live." Our baby humbled me, making me realize what mattered.  I realized how completely dependent I am on God, and how much I need His help. Most of what I had worried about before now seemed meaningless. "Held in the palm of God's hand" was a phrase I'd heard before, now it described how I felt.

When I would go into the hospital for them to monitor the baby in my womb, her heartbeat was strong and reassuring. Her heartbeat let me know she was fighting to live. She was born and I felt God holding our hand, and giving us many miracles in her birth. The first year and a half she had 3 major surgeries, and many medical interventions. I prayed more fervently than I have ever prayed before- not knowing how to take care of her, pleading for her to be spared from serious complications. As Edward and I prayed, the Lord directed us in what to do to help her at home. I prayed for her when I took care of her medical needs, and we still pray for her healing daily. One day I was at the changing table caring for our baby, pleading for the Lord's love and healing power to be made manifest. I felt that the Savior was close by, that He had never left us, He had been with us the entire time. I began to feel more close to our Heavenly Father and the Savior because of the constant prayers for her and seeing the Lord answer our prayers so clearly. It was a time of trials and yet miracles and seeing the Lord's amazing love. I didn’t know the Lord was so mindful of us, and that He knew every thought, every worry, and cared so much.

I felt that the Lord took me out of the busy race I had been in, and made me sit out for a while, to take care of this baby girl. It was as if he was saying, "I need you to be still to learn what I want to teach you" To care for my daughter, I had to quit many of the activities I had been part of- working as a nurse, having a church calling, volunteering at school, even extra activities for our older children were pared down to a minimum. When illnesses came, they affected her more severely, she needed more of my time. I began to feel more of the Lord's direction and close involvement in my life and in the care of each of my children. I am definitely not special or gifted.  I was just searching for God's help more because I needed more help.

Our family and our friends at church loved us, fasted and prayed for us. They did so very many things with love to help us care for our daughter, we are so grateful to them. As our baby's condition became stable, I came back to church. Things that before had been normal looked different to me, my perspective had changed. I haven't been to church as much lately. Our friends wonder why I am not as active, and have asked many times.

 Part of the answer is that our child's care is still a lot of work every day. She is doing really well but needs significant medical care daily. You wouldn't guess by her beautiful smile what she goes through every day. After an hour and a half of daily medical care (or longer if she isn't cooperating), I don't expect her to sit still for church. Sitting still for too long has caused her to develop infections. She has already run a marathon just to get outside the home.  I am grateful for how well she is doing, and for the determined spirit in her that has helped her overcome many challenges. I am thankful for the Lord's help, His grace, His love that has helped us through her challenges. I am thankful my eyes have been opened to many people around me with physical challenges, many with greater challenges. Now I see people with special needs everywhere I look, I had not been aware of special needs as much before.

Taking care of our child's medical needs has made me realize how precious and short time is. When I consider taking my family somewhere, I ask myself, "Is this big expense of time and energy taking my family in a direction that we want to go?" When we do get to church, I am often disappointed that the focus is not on Jesus, but instead on church leaders, church programs and church traditions. The focus is on form but not substance. These things do not feed the spirit. Coming to the Lord individually is the substance I wish was taught. Prayer, repentance, faith, baptism, learning more about Jesus' life and miracles. How I long for them to teach of the miracles Jesus and his disciples performed! My heart needs the life giving words of Christ, I wish Jesus words were taught more than the words of the church leaders. When you are reminded every day of how fragile life is, and how quickly it can be taken away, it puts things in a different perspective. It strips the fluffy unimportant things out of your life. It makes me see more clearly the untruths and the distractions that keep me from coming to God. It makes me hungry for pure truth, for the light that only comes from God. It makes me hungry to know the Lord. 

The most important blessing of the gospel is coming to know Jesus personally. I believe the Lord is speaking literally to each of us when he says "Verily, thus saith the Lord: It shall come to pass that every soul who forsaketh his sins and cometh unto me, and calleth on my name, and obeyeth my voice, and keepeth my commandments, shall see my face and know that I am (D&C 93:1).  These verses describe a promise not intended only for the next life, but for this life. Seeing the Lord, is possible in this life- not only for a small group of people, but any willing to humble themselves and do what the Lord asks. The scriptures are full of examples of this. In thinking of the amazing goodness of Christ, I feel to say "Hallelujah!" and "Thank you Jesus!" for his love, his care and even for the trials that bring us to know His love better. I wish that joyful, happy praise of our God, our Savior was a common occurrence at church.

I felt that the Lord was giving me an opportunity to come to Him, to put aside all the distractions that had kept me too busy to really come to Him. He has given me a big reason to pray, to pray with deep yearning for a much desired blessing- the life of my daughter, and her complete healing.  Taking time to pray and praying with deep yearning were part of hearing the Lord more clearly. He feels honored when we use our time to come to Him. He shows his love to us every day, speaking to us in our own language- in whatever it is that would touch our heart, whether it is music, nature, walks in the park or anything that we love. Jesus has a sense of humor about the challenges of mortality, and laughs with us at times. He wants us to give ourselves for Him, as he gave himself, his life for us. I am amazed that the Lord I worship would walk and talk with me, and answer my prayers. He truly is a Wonderful Counselor, a Tower of Strength Unfailing, my One Sure Rock.

The more I know about the Lord Jesus, the more I want to know. How did he give his life with so much love and forgiveness, even in his last moments? Why did he do that for us? How did he have the strength to do what he did? What is it that makes him happy? What breaks his heart? How does Jesus see the challenges that frustrate me?  What in me keeps me from knowing Him more fully?

As the young rich man asked Jesus "What lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me." Matthew 19:20-21. Everything we teach should bring us to Jesus, to his great sacrifice for us, to having our sins washed clean through his blood, to having our hearts changed and becoming new in Christ.  

I am in awe of our God, what a wonderful God we worship! The more I come to know Him, the more I sense the nothingness of man, how fallen I am as a mortal. It is a fearful thing to see yourself in your sinful, fallen state, yet it is so wonderful to know that the Lord would work with us as we are, wherever we are.

It has been hard to go back to church and feel disappointed that the focus is not on worshipping Christ. Because of some experiences in our particular ward and stake, the focus on following the brethren and following the manuals exactly- is more prevalent than I’ve ever seen. We have heard the same teaching of “follow the brethren” from general authorities as well multiple times. We feel that leaders do not want us to speak up and share Christ’s love and miracles. Teaching about Christ is considered straying from the lesson if it is not in the assigned manual lesson. We have begun to spend Sundays at home having our own lessons with our family, worshipping the Lord in the way we would like to.

For many, attending the LDS church meets their needs, and that is wonderful. I am happy for them. That is where I was for a long time. I would not want to take away something that is meaningful in their life. There is so much good in the community of support and service at church that I am thankful for. We may still go to church once in a while because of the friends we have there. We would like others to respect our “privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience,” 11th Article of Faith.

When I do attend church, I leave with deep grief and sorrow in my heart, still hungry to hear His words, and hungry to hear a testimony of Him. The worship of the Jesus that I love has been replaced by the worship of men and the worship of an organization. Wouldn't it be amazing if more people shared their stories of how Jesus rescued them, and saved them? How the Lord answered their prayers when they felt the jaws of hell opening before them? I ask you: What experience was it that turned your heart to Jesus? Do you remember when Jesus turned a terrible, awful situation for you into something beautiful, when you felt Jesus' love for you, and knew that He was with you? When your tears were turned to joy? Do you yearn for Jesus' love, for his comforting presence now, like you did at the time of that trial? Are our hearts turned to God? Or are our hearts somewhere else? Only knowing Jesus matters, and it is possible in this life for each of us.

Some of the unintended negative aspects of church culture feel more glaring to me now- like the emphasis on outward appearance and outward obedience. The Lord looks at our hearts while we judge each other based on appearances (I Samuel 16:7). Appearance, nice clothing and position are given way, way, way too much credibility. The emphasis on outward appearance and outward obedience, and the judgement of others breaks my heart.

In Jesus' day, the Jewish church leaders had a long list of traditions and observances to follow. These traditions blinded the people to Jesus' majesty and divinity.  In Jesus and the many miracles he performed, the Jewish leaders saw a contradiction that was unthinkable to their mindset. How could Jesus be of God if he didn't follow their rules? They missed the most important event in their lifetime- Jesus' coming- because of their traditions.

Like the people of Jesus' day, our church culture has become full of man's traditions and rules. Trying to follow all of the church programs and traditions can keep us so busy we don't have time to listen to and follow the Lord's Spirit. We miss the point of it all- coming to know Jesus and following His Spirit. At church I sense a feeling of satisfaction that all is well, we are safely following our leaders and that they can't, and won't lead us astray. We expect anything that is of God to come from the prophet first, so as long as you listen to the prophet, all is well. This teaching is often repeated over the pulpit, but it is not found in the scriptures. In fact, it is contrary to what we see in the scriptures. In the scriptures, every prophet showed their propensity to make mistakes, to fall or falter greatly at some point in their life. Only Jesus was perfect, without sin. The infallibility of church leaders is an incorrect and dangerous teaching. 

We cannot substitute knowing the voice of the Lord and following Him with knowing our mortal church leaders and following them. John 10:27 says “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” One of the teachings of the temple is to be able to differentiate between God’s messengers and others who claim to be messengers of truth. We have to be able to tell the difference between what comes from God and what is of man or of the devil. Not everything that is spoken by a man in church leadership comes from God. Some of it is of God, and for that we are thankful to God, but some of it isn't from God. We have to seek the Spirit so that we can know if the words of our leaders are of God. We should look to the Lord for guidance in decisions, not to the leaders of the church.

The abundant praise and admiration heaped on church leaders is putting faith and trust in man, in flesh, instead of God. It feels like idolatry to me, with the church leaders and church organization being the idols. The Lord is the one that answers prayers, performs amazing miracles, and has power to forgive sins and save. Only the Lord is truly worthy of praise.  A true prophet or true follower of Jesus would never accept money, praise, or allow others to follow him instead of following Jesus. Anyone who truly loves the Lord would never profit personally from what the Lord Jesus gave freely at such terrible cost and great sacrifice to himself. A true prophet would put down adoration (Mark 10:18) and point people to Christ as our only Savior, our Salvation. Once you begin to know the Savior, you sense how fallen we all are in comparison to the Savior, how sinful we are, and how small we are before God. No one else comes even close to the Savior.

At church I see too much of church leaders telling stories about their own lives or the lives of other church leaders as the examples to follow, instead of pointing to Christ as our only perfect example. Our sacrament meetings and other meetings are based on conference talks. Even the church manuals for the last several years have focused on the lives of church presidents instead of the life of the Savior, or his words. I believe that our meetings at home or at church should be led by the Spirit, led by the needs of those we are teaching, not dictated by a manual or schedule from church headquarters. The manual should never take the place of the Spirit.  Moroni 6:9 says "And their meetings were conducted by the church after the manner of the workings of the Spirit, and by the power of the Holy Ghost; for as the power of the Holy Ghost led them whether to preach, or to exhort, or to pray, or to supplicate, or to sing, even so it was done."

  

All is not well with the church. We each need to seek and develop a personal relationship with Christ on our own. Salvation comes through Christ, not through church attendance. The Lord himself is the one that forgives our sins, the church leaders cannot forgive sin. It is not more time at church or in the temple that we need. We need more time conversing with the Lord, getting to know Him and His will for us. If the church becomes an obstacle to spending time with the Lord, and coming to Him then we need to think about why we are there.

Some of our friends have told us they worry about us spiritually when they don't see us in church as often. I also had this concern at first, and asked the Lord about it. He told me he could teach me anywhere, as long as my heart is turned to Him. I've felt such closeness from the Lord in taking care of my daughter, I no longer believe church attendance is a prerequisite for receiving the Lord's help or for coming to know the Lord. He is available anywhere, His amazing love is the gift, He is the gift. We just have to be humble enough to turn our life to Him, repent and receive Him.  Like Alma said in Alma 33:4-11, the Lord is merciful and hears our heartfelt pleadings wherever we are. 

  

After having tasted of the Lord's love and guidance in such a real way, how can I ever look to anyone else for spiritual guidance? Jesus has been the one to lead us through the storms safely, no mortal man, or church leader could have done that. Jesus said "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture"(John 10:9). He is our pasture, He is our rest.

In the days of Moses, some of the Israelites came to Moses complaining that some were prophesying in the camp. They expected only Moses to have the gift of prophecy. “And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them.” Numbers 11:29. In the Bible it talks of the coming time when the Lord's Spirit will be more present among his children, as Moses said. They will each individually receive the Lord’s guidance and an outpouring of his Spirit. It says "I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit . . . Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered" Joel 2:28. The Lord is speaking to many of his children- inside and outside of the church. He says to His people in Joel 2:27 "And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed." The Lord is doing His work with His children in such a way that it can only be attributed to His hand. The Lord's work is not confined to any earthly organization or religion. All people are alike and loved of God, all his children are given the same opportunity to receive his guidance and Spirit. Praise God for his love! Praise God for the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. All praise be to God!

I hope that even after reading this our family and friends know that we really do love them. My intent in writing this is to give an honest answer to the many questions asked of my family about church attendance. My friends deserve to know where I am, they have been with us, loving and helping us through the years. Our faith in the Lord is growing. Our family and children are doing well. We love our brothers and sisters at church. We are thankful for their friendships and love. We hope to continue in love, friendship, service and worship of God wherever the Lord leads us. We are grateful for the blessing the church has been in our lives. We enjoy seeing fellow church members when we do. God bless us all as we seek to follow Him.