Relationships/Courting

Trapped · 04-16-2018, 11:38 AM

Drake, I am truly glad you are unfamiliar with what I am describing. I know churches in different areas of the U.S. are very different. Where I grew up (I cannot be specific at the present time) it was like this. I know many church kids from my area who have had a lot of unnecessary struggles into adulthood because of it. Most of the church kids I know who married outside the church are no longer in the church (not because the marriage took them out, but because the mental shackles they had to break in order to marry outside the church were the fear-related ones keeping them in to begin with).

Again, I am very glad there are places where what I have described isn't the case. I do know, and have heard messages to this point, that some brothers over the YP work in the U.S. have realized they were "too much" in previous years. For example, on the friends thing, (which I know is a little off topic for this thread so I'll keep it short) they have stated they should not have taken a heavy-handed "Who are your friends? STAY AWAY!" approach, but should have taken a "Who are your friends? Invite them over!" approach. Their reasoning was that they realized they could use the YP in the church as seeds of the gospel ("propagation rather than preservation"). In other words, how can YP preach the gospel to their friends if they don't have friends? I am not the biggest fan of this thought because it uses the YP as tools to increase the church and places, in my eyes, unnecessary pressure on them to "witness" to their friends before they have enough solid, genuine experiences of the Lord to actually witness to their friends, but it is a step better than what I got growing up.

I am in a different area of the country now than when I grew up and I can see that many things have softened and relaxed in a normal, yet still proper, way (although I'm not sure if the softening is area-specific or just softening from the passage of some years), and the young people here are generally growing up in the LC much more well-adjusted that I was able to. I envy them greatly.

04-16-2018, 11:38 AM	#13
Trapped Member Join Date: Mar 2018 Posts: 1,523	Re: Relationships/Courting Drake, I am truly glad you are unfamiliar with what I am describing. I know churches in different areas of the U.S. are very different. Where I grew up (I cannot be specific at the present time) it was like this. I know many church kids from my area who have had a lot of unnecessary struggles into adulthood because of it. Most of the church kids I know who married outside the church are no longer in the church (not because the marriage took them out, but because the mental shackles they had to break in order to marry outside the church were the fear-related ones keeping them in to begin with). Again, I am very glad there are places where what I have described isn't the case. I do know, and have heard messages to this point, that some brothers over the YP work in the U.S. have realized they were "too much" in previous years. For example, on the friends thing, (which I know is a little off topic for this thread so I'll keep it short) they have stated they should not have taken a heavy-handed "Who are your friends? STAY AWAY!" approach, but should have taken a "Who are your friends? Invite them over!" approach. Their reasoning was that they realized they could use the YP in the church as seeds of the gospel ("propagation rather than preservation"). In other words, how can YP preach the gospel to their friends if they don't have friends? I am not the biggest fan of this thought because it uses the YP as tools to increase the church and places, in my eyes, unnecessary pressure on them to "witness" to their friends before they have enough solid, genuine experiences of the Lord to actually witness to their friends, but it is a step better than what I got growing up. I am in a different area of the country now than when I grew up and I can see that many things have softened and relaxed in a normal, yet still proper, way (although I'm not sure if the softening is area-specific or just softening from the passage of some years), and the young people here are generally growing up in the LC much more well-adjusted that I was able to. I envy them greatly.