President Nelson has said “Once you and I have made a covenant with God, … we are bound together.”
We belong with each other. Each of us is a child of God, and we belong to Him. We belong to His family. We belong here in His church and are welcome in His kingdom.
In the October 2022 General Conference, Elder Christofferson spoke about the doctrine of belonging. He reminded us of the Apostle Paul’s explanation “that the Church and its officers are given by God ‘for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.’”
“It is a sad irony, then,” Elder Christofferson continued, “when someone… concludes that he …or she doesn’t belong in the very organization designed by God to help us progress toward the ideal” of unity and shared edification.
When my mother and I joined the Church in 1982, after about 16 months of missionary lessons, each of our experiences was different.
As a young man coming into the Church, I was easily welcomed. I wasn’t exactly like all the other youth, but I made friends easily, and I was interested in and embraced the gospel. The Word of Wisdom presented minimal changes or challenges for me, and merely having the potential that youth possesses, and the prospects of advancing in the priesthood and serving a mission, caused me to experience Church as positive, uplifting, and encouraging.
My mother came into the Church with the same interest and testimony, and probably even deeper faith. After all, she had many more years of seeking for God, His grace, and His understanding. She could appreciate more deeply than me the blessing of gaining a testimony of the gospel restored through Joseph Smith. My mother was a single mother. She had been through a difficult marriage, and like many single, working women of the 1960’s and 70’s, she had experienced her share of disappointment, discour-agement, and depression. Her life experiences didn’t |
The sisters in the Relief Society were not unwelcoming. Their arms were open, and their smiles were genuine; but for my mother the differences in their life experiences became a barrier to her feeling of belonging. They couldn’t seem to quite understand her, nor, perhaps, did she completely get them. To her, their easy acceptance of their more fortunate lifestyles translated to a lack of empathy and appreciation for the challenges presented by hers, and occasionally sounded like condescension or judgement.
My mother, as you might imagine, found it difficult to remain active in Church; she found it difficult to believe that she belonged. For long periods of time, she was sure that she didn’t, and so her prior lifestyle and choices became all that much easier to fall back to.
Her story has a happy ending. She ultimately was active and endowed; and although she probably never felt that she fully fit in, she certainly came to know that she belonged.
How can we help to ensure that each of us, and everyone around us, shares a sense that they belong here in the Lord’s Church? Elder Christofferson highlights two central principles that are foundational to our sense of belonging: One is the testimony of Jesus Christ; the other, is sacrifice.
When we come into the Lord’s Church – when we choose to join this community – we do so because we have come to know and believe in Jesus Christ. Neither our knowledge nor our faith may be perfect, and that’s okay; but there are certain things we are at least prepared to accept as true and as guiding principles for our lives.
We believe that Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of God, the Firstborn in eternity, the Jehovah of the Old Testament, the Messiah of the New, our Saviour and our Judge, our Creator and our Redeemer. We believe in His holy birth to the virgin, Mary. We believe in His ministry, teachings, and miracles. We believe that at the end of His ministry, in the Garden of Gethsemane, He willingly took upon Himself the burden of all our sins, sorrows, weaknesses, and errors. We believe He carried this burden, just as He carried the cross on which He was hung, till He died on the Hill Golgotha. |
When we believe in Jesus Christ, we recognize that He came into this world to save, not to condemn us, and, as He explained to His Nephite and Lamanite disciples, He came to draw all of us up unto Him. In fact, we believe He did all this not just for all of us, but for each of us: For you, individually, and for me.
Therefore, we believe that the impact of Jesus’ ministry and atoning sacrifice is as individual as it is infinite. And, therefore, we believe that His love, sacrifice, and salvation are extended to each and every person in the world, to each and every person in our part of the world, to each and every person in our community. And, therefore, we believe that it is to each and every one of those people that Jesus extends the invitation to “Come unto me” and to be a part of His kingdom both on earth and in heaven.
The Church is the kingdom of God on the earth, and each and every person is invited in. If you believe in Jesus Christ, you belong here; and if you don’t believe in Him yet, you still belong, because He has invited you in.
How might this understanding have impacted my mother’s story? Might it have inspired both my mother and the other ladies in the Church to have seen each other through their Saviour’s eyes? Might she have had the humility to see that their lives were not perfect, that their struggles were merely different from hers; and might they have had the empathy to understand how overwhelming and unwelcoming their differences caused her feel; and, ultimately, might both have recognized that each relies wholly on the grace and merits of Jesus Christ, who loves them all in all their varied ways of being, and might they have reached out to one another with uplifting arms and words of understanding to help bridge the barriers between them?
I don’t know what any of them, including my mother, really thought or felt most deeply, and I don’t judge any of them; but I know that the consequences of their circumstances were that my mother spent many years wandering even though the fulness of the gospel was close at hand.
Perhaps if we – you and I – can be more consistently conscious of our faith in and reliance on Jesus Christ as Redeemer of the whole world, who loves both us and each and every person we meet – perhaps we can be more ready to be more careful, more conscious, and more considerate, applying more charity, more understanding, and more kindness in order to help one other feel more welcome in His home.
Each of us needs this kind of consideration. Each of us needs to see and be seen by the other as a child of God. Each of us falls short of perfection and at times feels insecure and alone. Each of us is seeking confirmation of our place in God’s kingdom. Each of us needs to be shown and reminded that we already belong.
Helping one another to recognize that truth is what Elder Christofferson refers to as sacrifice, by which he really means, service.
He describes this sacrifice, or service, as a kind of paradox. That is, that while each of us wants and needs to feel we belong in God’s kingdom and church, we get that confirmation most certainly by focussing not on ourselves, but on the needs and desire for belonging of others.
“Although we rarely think about it,” he says, “much of our belonging comes from our service and the sacrifices we make for others and for the Lord. Excessive focus on our personal needs or our own comfort can frustrate that sense of belonging. …Belonging comes not as we wait for it but as we reach out to help one another.”
He quotes a sister whose inability to bear a child had made her feel excluded and different at Church. Her experience allowed her to learn that not only she but many, if not all, of us feel different, or even deficient, in some ways from what think is the standard or the norm at Church.
“In the Church,” she noted, “there are widowed, divorced, and single members; those with family members who have fallen away from the gospel; people with chronic illnesses or financial struggles; members who experience same-sex attraction; members working to overcome addictions or doubts; recent converts; new move-ins; empty-nesters; and the list goes on and on.” Elder Christofferson refers to this diversity of our experiences and circumstances as natural. It is the true norm of our church community. So, this sister finally concluded, “The Savior invites us [all] to come unto Him—no matter our circumstances. We come to church to renew our covenants, to increase our faith, to find peace, and to do as He did perfectly in His life—minister to others who feel like they don’t belong.”
This is the covenant that Alma taught about when he said to the disciples at the Waters of Mormon, that as they were “desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people,” they must be “willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; … to mourn with those that mourn; …and [to] comfort those that stand in need of comfort.” This is our calling as followers of Jesus Christ. This is what it means to sacrifice, to serve, and to minister.
“Ministry” is a wonderful catch-all word that isn’t restricted to our formal ministering assignments in the Church, though it includes them. Ministry applies everywhere in our lives. It is the meaning of our covenant to “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in,” and it is the realization of His commandment that we are to love one another, as He has loved us. As the Church’s General Handbook says, “Ministering means serving others as the Savior did,” who, as we know, gave His life for them.
What we give in service to others will differ according to our abilities and circumstances. Just as Jesus commended the widow who donated her two mites to the temple treasury saying, “That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living,” so, too, when each us does whatever we have the capacity to do, to express and bring to others the knowledge of God’s love for them, we do all that is needed. It may be a kind word; it may be an act of charity or other kindness; we may offer encouragement and support to someone in their calling; we may invite someone to an activity; even just the act of singing together the songs of Zion with their faith strengthening words and unifying harmonies: All these are ways that we help to establish that each of us belongs here, that we help to gather in one all the sons and daughters of God, with faith grounded and hearts uplifted by the grace, goodness, and mercy of Jesus Christ.
I bear you my testimony that each of us is a child of God, that each of us is welcome to and belongs here in His church and His kingdom on earth. I also bear testimony that as we set aside concern for our own needs and seek instead to invite others, both in and out of the Church, to come unto Him and to discover and have confidence in the love that God has for them, both we and they will receive that confidence and the confirmation of His grace. And I leave you that testimony with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.