What to do when close family or friend leaves church?

[creekster]

Every time I see the thread title I have the urge to post:

"A fruit basket is always nice"

but I know that would be inapprorpiate.

[Portland Ute]

Every time I see the thread title I have the urge to post:

"A fruit basket is always nice"

but I know that would be inapprorpiate.

Probably more appropriate than sending a "Congratulations!" card from Hallmark.

[NorthwestUteFan]

What if it is a Kinkade Card?

[SteelBlue]

My mom had a Thoreau quote hanging in our home the entire time I lived there growing up. It was also on display in her parents' home. It reads: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away." I love it and that's how I've always treated those who move on including 2 of my own siblings.

It's easy to forget that at some point in the family tree of every LDS member there was a time where an ancestor did the same thing.

[Eddie]

I have a niece that for all intents and purposes has left the church. She feels like she is judged by aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. So she has quit coming around to extended family gathers for the most part. She is very comfortable around the other side of the family, where most family gathering consist of passing the beer and bashing the Mormons.

Truth be told, there probably is a little judging that goes on. But while she is upset about it and blames it on religious beliefs, she is greatly mistaken.

She got pregnant for the first time when she was 16. Had another child when she was nearly 18. Promptly moved away from home and got wrapped up in drugs. Her parents are now caring for her two children, who she has very little interest in ever parenting. She does help care for her daughter a couple of times a week in the afternoon, but refuses to help her with homework, read to her, etc. She is the epitome of the lowest level of babysitter possible.

One of her aunts and uncles took her into their home, helped her get off the drugs, helped her get a job, basically helped her get her life turned around. She started blowing off her job, etc., and basically making very poor decisions while expecting them to bail her out financially. They had made an agreement that she would need to take certain steps to show she was progressing towards something in order to continue living with them - with clear timelines and deadlines. She blew those off as well and is still angry that she was asked to move out when not complying with their agreement.

(I still laugh at this. She is angry that they wouldn't continue to pay her way through life when she was not willing to do anyhing for herself.)

So now she has moved in with her Grandmother on the other side of the family, who is content supporting her while allowing her to work one day a week for her own spending money - with no plans for the future. Of course, this fits with a couple of Grandmother's grown children too.

And in the end she is bitter towards folks that she feels are judging her for not being religious, while completely ignoring the fact that:

- While no longer using drugs, she is still a drunk.
- She refuses to take any responsibility for her own children, but also refuses to allow them to be adopted by someone who would.
- She is a complete leach, expecting others to support her and pay her way through life. Not temporarily while she plans for the future; that is her plan for the future.

I don't have a problem with people leaving the church. I may have a problem with some of thier lifestyle changes that led to their leaving. I don't have a problem with people drinking. I do with drinking too much and drugs. I don't have a problem with smoking. I do think it is stupid - and don't mind when they hear my kids say so (they are getting this in school now, not just church). And I do mind folks who feel entitled and refuse to take responsibility for thier own future.

So is my niece being judged? Sure. But she is also loved by everyone. And they would do anything they could to help her - but it would be to HELP her, not become her next sugar daddy/momma.

[Portland Ute]

What if it is a Kinkade Card?

Well, he is the "Painter of Light" after all. Everything he does is good...

[I.J. Reilly]

Honestly, when it's someone I'm close to, I'm sad.

When it is someone not as close I can take a much more intellectual view of the whole thing.

Either way, I try not to treat anyone differently, although I am not above having a little chat with those that are openly antagonistic towards the ones that love them, just because they know they can get a rise out of them, or at least try to.

It's odd that you should raise the topic b/c off and on now for the last few months I've been thinking about my different reactions towards those that I am close to v. those that I watch from a distance and I can't really figure out why the difference. Anyone else have this sort of reaction? Why?

Maybe I just care less about people I don't really know.

[FMCoug]

Most active LDS would eat their young for the Church. Looks like you're in the norm. The constant implicit or even explicit threat of rejection and bloodletting by the tribe if you turn your back on it is the glue that holds LDS together. You're all agents of your Central Comittee one way or another.

Now there is one I didn't see coming.

[UtahDan]

Place people before ideas and love those people without conditions.

[grapevine]

SWK was always calling his son to repentance. His son would of cut off all contact but did not want to break Camilla's heart. She was saddened by his choices but did not call him to repentance. Ed and him agreed to disagree on religion. Were both Law proffesers and had good relationship. Spence even asked Ed to pray over food during visits. Lived not too far away for some time.

It is devastating to have wayward children. I would say do what you can to help them return to church. And don't alienate them.

I would think that people offending them and other reasons are excuses. Many just don't want to keep the commandments and use other excuses. I know a family that has a hard time wanting to come to church. Or go after Sacrament Meeting when they do come. Just don't find the whole meeting all that important is what I get.

[YOhio]

It all depends on the person. I joke with a friend about his excommunication, I have productive discussions with my brother who has left the church and I don't get anywhere near the subject with my disaffected SIL. As far as how to treat them, I honestly cannot fathom treating them any different because of their church activity. The Mormon life isn't for everybody.

[scottie]

I've always liked this:

"People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost." - Dalai Lama

[Uncle Ted]

I have a cousin that is openly gay... but it is more like the church left him. I stay in contact with him, have friended him on facebook, send him christmas cards, etc. Every now and then we get together when I am in town. We are still very much cousins and I have no plans in trying to change that. I can't say that the rest of my family has done the same. I have read that the new CHOI advises to leaders to be a little more tolerant of gays so maybe there is a chance he will come back.

[Moliere]

These are interesting quotes given the theme of this thread.

You parents of the wilful and the wayward! Don't give them up. Don't cast them off. They are not utterly lost. The Shepherd will find his sheep. They were his before they were yours-long before he entrusted them to your care; and you cannot begin to love them as he loves them. They have but strayed in ignorance from the Path of Right, and God is merciful to ignorance. Only the fulness of knowledge brings the fulness of accountability. Our Heavenly Father is far more merciful, infinitely more charitable, than even the best of his servants, and the Everlasting Gospel is mightier in power to save than our narrow finite minds can comprehend.

The Prophet Joseph Smith declared--and he never taught more comforting doctrine--that the eternal sealings of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity. Though some of the sheep may wander, the eye of the Shepherd is upon them, and sooner or later they will feel the tentacles of Divine Providence reaching out after them and drawing them back to the fold. Either in this life or the life to come, they will return. They will have to pay their debt to justice; they will suffer for their sins; and may tread a thorny path; but if it leads them at last, like the penitent Prodigal, to a loving and forgiving father's heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain. Pray for your careless and disobedient children; hold on to them with your faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God. (Conference Report, April 1929, p.110

We cannot overemphasize the value of temple marriage, the binding ties of the sealing ordinance, and the standards of worthiness required of them. When parents keep the covenants they have made at the altar of the temple, their children will be forever bound to them. President Brigham Young said:

“Let the father and mother, who are members of this Church and Kingdom, take a righteous course, and strive with all their might never to do a wrong, but to do good all their lives; if they have one child or one hundred children, if they conduct themselves towards them as they should, binding them to the Lord by their faith and prayers, I care not where those children go, they are bound up to their parents by an everlasting tie, and no power of earth or hell can separate them from their parents in eternity; they will return again to the fountain from whence they sprang.”

("Our Moral Environment," Ensign, May 1992, p.66)

[CardiacCoug]

I agree with you Jay, that of course the true believers would be devastated with a friend or family member leaving the Church, so you have to cut them some slack if they act like idiots.

I tend to think it's a little bit selfish for somebody who married in the temple and whose spouse still believes to leave the Church. But a lot of people feel like they have no choice but to leave when they lose their faith and I sure wish the Church made it easier for people to stay.

But in the end, the Church isn't for everyone. People have to do what they feel is right, and there is no right answer for everybody. I really admire what John Dehlin is doing in trying to help people who want to stay find a way to stay in the Church.