Church promises. Family Home Evening

fnawesome Mar, 2013

Does anyone remember the promise the church gave for family home evening.....it was something along the lines of if we have family home evening (religiously-pun intended) that NONE of our kids would fall away from the church! Is that just MY recollection or was that made up my my TBM [Mormon] parents to get us ready for the "control"?

As a kid, in My house, FHE was a COMMANDMENT....LITERALLY A COMMANDMENT!!!


anagrammy
I totally agree.
In retrospect, it was superstitious. Like a magic spell, if you do "x" then God will do "y."

Only in Mormonism are you lead to believe you can bind God.

Arrogant appeal to desire for power.

And I believed it. If FHE was skipped or if my husband didn't participate, I would burst into tears.

Anagrammy


francine
Re: Church promises....
I recall something along those lines. We religiously had family home hell every monday night.

That went on for about a year before my mother couldn't take it any more. I notice my father had signed up to teach a Monday night class at the college. Apparently he couldn't stand it either.


triplelove
Re: Church promises....
I actually felt, as a child, that because we didn't have FHE that I wouldn't go to the CK. In fact, I remember lying to friends and telling them we did have the Monday night ritual so they wouldn't judge me and my family. Sad :(
CA girl
Re: I totally agree.
I thought the concept of binding God was also a tenant of Satanism.

One good thing about having a nevermo dad was no scripted FHE's. Mom would try to get Dad to take us out to dinner or out on the boat or something Monday evenings so she could refer to it as FHE to her Mormon friends and look like she was complying with this mandate. And if Dad was out of town, then it was game on. But for the most part, she didn't want to make waves and so FHE was remarkably painless.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2013 08:22PM by CA girl.


axeldc
Easy out
The church always has easy out excuses from those promises.

"Did you ALWAYS have FHE? Maybe that one week you missed caused them to fall away."

"Did you start and end with a prayer? If you missed once, then that didn't count."

If you were not perfectly diligent, then the church can claim that you failed, not their promises.


Fetal Deity
I remember the same, unconditional promise.
I'd really like to find it, because even one exception to it adds to the list of demonstrable proofs that Mormonism is false.


axeldc
Just too much church
If you have 1 hour of FHE, that means an hour or two prep. You already have your 3 hour block, seminary 5 hours a week, a church calling, HT/VT, receiving HT/VT, plus activity nights, etc. Adding another evening of church means that you are just overwhelmed. On top of that, you have service activities, personal scripture study, writing in your journal, etc., etc.

They are just burn you out. No wonder people just get sick of it. After a long Monday at work, who wants more church?


checkingout
Re: Church promises....
http://www.families.com/blog/prophetic-promises-of-family-home-evening

1974: “We cannot impress too much the importance of having family home evenings once a week . . . that you may be rewarded by a fulfillment of the promise that if fathers and mothers will discharge this responsibility, not one in a hundred of your family, as has been said by the leaders who have preceded us, would ever go astray.” Spencer W. Kimball


fnawesome
Re: Church promises....
Omg, checkingitout, thanks for posting that! I'm glad to know that I was dead on! So, the "promise" is NOT 1 in 100 will go a stray. So my parents had eight kids (one was special needs - direct ticket to CK) - and it came to pass that my father had seven children of which three to four (depending on the day) have gone a stray....this seems to me to be a LOT more than "not one in a hundred".... And I literally cannot remember a Monday night in which we did NOT have FHE.

Hummmm....not so f'n awesome....


thedesertrat1
Re: Church promises....
I heard one member of a bishopric say
"If we dont keep them busy every night we will lose them"

breedumyung
Re: Church promises....
Does Monday Night Football count?


anagrammy
My kids called it "Forced Fun" 

fnawesome
Re: Church promises....
I can just picture faith hill singing, "are you ready for some....Monday night family home evening??!!"


rationalguy
Re: Church promises....
My first DW and I raised 7 kids who all turned out very well. This was through a somewhat stormy marriage with DW having emotional issues, my inactivity and only sporadic FHE, prayer, scriptures, etc. and included DW remarrying a transitioning F to M transsexual. (A very good person, BTW.) There's no proof or reason to assume that following the TSCC [this so called church] line is the only way.


Dorothy
Re: Church promises....
That "I, the LAWRD am bound" thing...he's such a hard little sucker to pin down. Family home evening was called family fight night at my house growing up. It was not optional and not fun. Two of six kids are still in the cult.


Tupperwhere
Re: Church promises....
my dad is a hoarder. When I was a teen I took it upon myself to organize our basement. I cleaned it up and made it into a Mormon library. I had all of the family home evening manuals lined up. I was so proud of it. We used it once and then my mom died. I never really went down there after that. My intentions were good though.


LK
Re: Church promises....
WE had the FHE every week with our four children all these years.
They acutally liked it.
However, our oldest son, currently 22, has done stealing, lieing, smoking pot, sleeping with multiple guys, and right now, he is alcoholic. What is next?
I suppose the FHE or any teachings at church he had received did not work with him. He has a very difficult time postponing his desires. He is after excitement.

The rest of our kids are good.


Dorothy
Re: Church promises....
Having a child with troubles is 10 times harder because TBM parents believe it is their own fault or at least their kid's fault, or maybe the devil's fault. If they'd been more obedient blah, blah, blah. Stuff happens. Kids come with trouble. Some more than others. I feel for you, LK. My child had bipolar and died by suicide at 18, Everyday I have to stomp out my Mormon programming that makes it my fault.

Tupperwhere
Re: Church promises....
that's horrible, my heart hurts for you. You sound strong though. And you were smart enough to leave the cult, that counts for something in my book :)


axeldc
Why was it so bad?
What did you fight over?
FHE is weird
If you think about it . . .
Except for the part about including a religious lesson, evenings spent together at home are just NORMAL for non-cult families. It's only in a church that takes up an unhealthy, unreasonable amount of your free time that you actually have to schedule family time.
Dorothy
Re: Why was it so bad?
It wasn't really fighting. It was my over-the-top a**hole dad yelling and threatening and posturing or actually smacking us for being imperfect. Yeah, he was quite a peach. My oldest sibling got the worst of it. He really was doing everything in his power to misbehave. He died by suicide last year. I know my dad was not a typical TBM and I know our FHEs were not typical--thank the LAWRD! (I'm an atheist.) Not hard to see why FHE brings up a bit up yuck to process.
Tupperwhere
Re: If you think about it . . .
that's true. I'm thinking about one of my bff's back in the day who was Lutheran. Whenever I would go to her house they would have family dinners and they ALL cleaned up afterwards including the dad. Then the dad would crack a beer and we'd either listen to music or watch a movie downstairs. They were a really nice family. Not TBM whatsoever, just a nice Lutheran family that had values.
Quoth the Raven Nevermo
Re: I totally agree.
anagrammy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> And I believed it. If FHE was skipped or if my
> husband didn't participate, I would burst into
> tears.
>
>
> Anagrammy

So glad you recovered, you are so much cooler, now! They did't deserve you.


LK
Re: Church promises....
Thank you Dorothy!
I cried and felt depressed billion, maybe trillion times because of my oldest son!
Dispite his high IQ, he has had developmental disability.
It has been so hard to raise him and I felt so guilty not be ablt to meet EVEY need of his. Often times, I did not know what to do at all. I have been hoping he will improve. But I have not seen the improvement yet.
Yes, I'm taking it hard and feel it is my fault and my in-laws are blaming the whole thing onto me.

I do not say anything about my family to anyone in the church.
RS is particulary a very dangerous place. I am very aware that the juicy news like this travels so fast there. Thank goodness I no longer go to the Mormon church. But then, I have no one to really confide my pain to. I do not want my neigbor to know what is wrong with my son either. I am afraid of being judged.

Being a parent is so hard.
But your case sounds so much harder. I do not know how you get through each day.
It is not our fault, right? we have done our best, right?

This gloomy Michigan sky makes me feeling even more gray and I feel I am trapped in the thick clouds,just as I am trapped in my son's life. I wish I can get out.

But, Oh, thank you, Dorothy, you lifted my soul!!


sonoma
Re: Church promises....
i guess that the children of tbm parents who have fhe, lose their free agency.

my tbm parents NEVER held fhe. a few time in my entire life, maybe. in the end we all pretended that witching tv and eating ice cream counted.

stupid cult


Mormon Observer
I remember that
I remember the promise that if you had FHE every week NONE of your children would "fall away".

I had a friend who did a prayer ministry over the phone. When you were troubled about something you could call this elderly gent and the two of you could discuss your concerns and then you two could pray together. He was very insightful and correct about naming what you were up against.

He used terms like "the evil spirit of dominion, or the spirit of pride" etc.
When I described FHE to him, he prayed a moment then came back with "That is ruled by the Demon Spirit of Religion"

You know, I don't think he was wrong...a "Demon Spirit of Religion" would come up with a narrow controling program for people to do and blame them for their failure of not brainwashing the next generation correctly!


donbagley
I think you should be suspicious when Family home evening is only one night a week
We knelt at our sofas with our faces where our asses would normally be. So we knew something was wrong. The "family" get together was actually a church meeting. And we had to smell our own seats. What fresh hell that was!
druid
It was soooo painful...
Boring! When not having a formal lesson, we would listen to the Book of Mormon on Records. They were gold records you could see through.

The narrator spoke in a deep slow voice that would put a can of Red Bull to sleep. IIIIIII NNNEeeeeePHiiiiii havinnnng beeen borrrrn offff ZzZZzzzzzzzzzzz..

I was in passive resistive mode and would slide off the couch and pass out in spite of repeated parental request, warnings to sit up.

OMG so glad I didn't do that to my kids....


Mr. Neutron
I don't believe that parents should interfere with their adult children's lives, but
...if he is open to suggestions in the future, you may recommend that he read "The Velvet Rage" by Alan Downs, a gay psychologist. It was an eye-opening book for me. I honestly believe it may apply to your son. Good luck.
Tupperwhere
Re: I think you should be suspicious when Family home evening is only one night a week
lol
peregrine
Re: Church promises....
According to LDS doctrine one third of Elohim’s children chose not to follow him. With that in mind I always thought it was the height of arrogance for TBMs to brag about how none of their children had fallen away. They are basically claiming that they are better parents than god. Maybe if Elohim had buckled down on his FHE we wouldn’t be where we are today. ;)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2013 06:38AM by peregrine.

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