Taking our your own endowment in the temple
 

I've heard very dedicated, conservative members say that they don't think the church does a good job with temple preparation.

My own temple preparation class was simply an explanation of the purpose of the temple, and provided no insight into any of the actual events that would take place, nor any of the covenants.

During the actual ceremony--and I am not revealing anything that is not in the church approved public record--you are asked to make covenants. However, you are generally with a group of people who are also making the same covenants (often as proxies), and you are literally given a few seconds to respond. In other words, a careful deliberate examination and decision is not really possible, esp. from a social pressure standpoint.

The actual ceremony is arguably VERY different in appearance and custom than Sunday services in a chapel, or the ordinances of baptism, confirmation, and blessings.

All of these things put together, in my opinion, lead to a less-than-optimal experience for many, and a diminished desire to continue attending the temple in the future for many.

So what could be done that would make for a better experience?
1. Reduce the surprise factor. There was one point in the washing/annointing ceremony where I was filled, just for a moment, with great dread. I think some of you guys know what I am talking about. The dread quickly passed, because what I was afraid was going to happen, didn't happen. But wouldn't it have been nice, if I didn't have that thought in the first place, because I had been prepared? The Old Testament talks about special clothing--why can't we prepare members in the temple preparation class and very briefly explain some aspects of temple clothing.

2. The covenants should be known in advance to the participants. You can't tell people that these are among the most important decisions and commitments they will make in their life, and give them 3 seconds to make a decision, as well as make it incredibly difficult, from a social perspective, to say no.

In my own case, I became more comfortable with my temple experience later, after I had talked to some friends and gone again. But I doubt that my feelings on this are unique.

washing and anointing by old man that looked like the crypt keeper made me never want to attend ever again.

felt like it had nothing to do with my religious experience or religious belief almost. totally different -- and temple prep in my stake had nothing to do with preparing you for what actually happened. my preparation was limited to a strained, uncomfortable 30-second pregame from my dad as we were pulling up to the temple.

the temple remains a sore spot for me -- in part, because of the weirdness and general lack of Spirit, as compared with my other spiritual experience in church -- and also, in part, because i associate the temple with immediate family, a negative association.

i've served a mission and regularly attended church ever since. for most, but not all of that time, i've been temple worthy -- but i haven't done endowment, initiatories, baptisms, etc. since my mission. for now, it's just not part of my religious experience. maybe someday -- with added experience and more of an open-mind -- it will be.

It's interesting how different members can see it in such different ways. My wife went through for the first time not too long ago and about a month before we got married. She has a good testimony but has some concerns about some aspects of the church, which when talking through those with her we've concluded have little to do with teachings or doctrine but with cultural aspects and practices which don't make sense to her. Since she didn't grow up in an active LDS family, I can see her point of view on most if not all those concerns.

I think she had a few worries about the temple but it turns out it was a great experience for her as she told me she felt like that was where the pure gospel really was, and not about all the stuff we kind of throw around the edges. To her it was simple and clear, as the ceremony is about the creation and why we're here, agency, the need for a savior, and the covenants we make to get back to the Lord. That's what matters. Everything else we add along the edges is hopefully to point us to the center, but I think sometimes it can distract depending on what it is and how it's taught. I personally think we probably worry too much in the church about teaching all the specific do's and don'ts rather than explaining why we live the way we do and how it ties back into our covenants we make with Christ. I don't think we give our youth enough credit for understanding the whys and letting them use their agency to choose to live the gospel because they want to.

I fall under the side that believes the bishop should at his discretion discuss some things in detail if he deems appropriate and if the spirit is there. I agree with you on 1. As far as the covenants go, honestly, I don't think they should be a surprise to anyone who has been an active member long enough. It's not like they represent anything they shouldn't have heard before.

But I agree they would probably be a good thing for a bishop to discuss with the person before they go. Actually, that is what my bishop did. I don't think that's considered kosher today but at the time I went it apparently was and I think I benefitted from it. It also assured me that the content wasn't going to be totally foreign to me. It's not like I hadn't heard about things like sacrifice or chastity or consecration. I also think it makes sense to let the person know that the presentation and format is different, but not to be thrown off by that. There is nothing that says every meeting in the church has to be the same.

My experience was pretty different.

Our stake temple prep class gave a general overview of what types of covenants we would be making (basically nothing that isn't in the scriptures), the flow of the presentation, purpose of garments, etc.

I think the biggest influence on my not being surprised was my friend who went through a few months before I did. He explained it as being "brainwashed". That conjured up all kinds of notions which were way worse than the actual experience.

7 of 12 people voting in the poll so far were not 'comfortable'. Obviously not a representative sample from a scientific standpoint.

If people are uncomfortable w/ the temple, they will vote with their feet, i.e. they will not attend. They won't complain, they'll just not make it a part of their lives.

You could also say 8 of 12 people were not "uncomfortable." You can twist numbers to say what you want them to say.

i can't say what Mike "wants" the numbers to say. but, if we were talking about the ordinances of baptism or marriage -- i'd say that a ho-hum or neutral experience is falling short of the mark.

true, the purpose of a given ordinance may not be "to make the participants comfortable." also, maybe this informal survey is framed poorly (what if i was uncomfortable at one point and very comfortable / spirit-filled the rest of the time? heuristic biases may lead me to report "uncomfortable")

nonetheless, as with marriage or baptism, where we build up the experience for years, or even a lifetime, talking about how sacred / wonderful / spiritual it is -- and most people don't have a positive experience, I find it somewhat troubling. of course, the easiest (and most faith-promoting) finger to wag is: the problem is in that build-up and / or preparation.

isn't the endowment -- at least according to Bushman's take on it in RSR, which i think is compelling -- designed / advertised / restored to give individual members a significant spiritual experience analogous to ancient Israel hearing the voice of God. again, maybe that experience was not "comfortable" for ancient Israel -- but hopefully it was more positive than negative. (I understand you can criticize the assumption of a such a teleological quality to ordinances. But that's a longer discussion, and I've already pointed to Bushman's treatment of the history)

I've gone on the record several times as saying we could do much better in our temple prep.

Shouldn't the endowment ceremony be the spiritual high point of one's life, up to that point, in terms of ordinances?

I think a lot of people could say they were comfortable with every ordinance in the church they had experienced, UNTIL the endowment.

5 people are on the top side of your scale, 4 are at the bottom. And 5 are right down the middle. If you want to apply some objective analysis, you have to conclude it's pretty much a wash, as a 5 is as neutral as you can get. We do need better temple prep. I'm with you there. I'd love it if everyone could answer 8-10. I get it that much of the temple message is symbolic and not obvious. And yet...

My wife and I must be real oddballs. She grew up in not the ideal LDS environment. Her dad is not a a member and three of her four siblings are inactive. She's had a few hangups and doubts about the way some things are done in the church and how other church members act. Growing up outside of the model LDS family situation she has seen how others react to those who aren't so ideal. Actually, I did too, as my parents were divorced when I was 12. It got old hearing about how we were a broken family and there was something wrong with us. To be honest, most of the members in our ward were mean and nasty to us when it happened.

But this happens, IMO largely because in the church the basic purpose of the gospel we fail to teach or fail to learn because we're so busy worrying about the proper behavior. We get so many messages about what we're supposed to do and not do, and guilt seems to be a major tool that is used either purposely or maybe unintentionally. If you fail in your home teaching this month you must be scum. You're a loser if you don't have your year's supply, blah, blah, blah. Of course you're a loser if you're a wife beater, child molester or porn addict. But that's by far not the only thing we use the guilt motivator for, and I'm pretty sure we overuse that method.

And yet, the temple is totally not like that. To my wife, despite some of her life long questions and concerns, the temple was a great experience. Why? because to her she saw the pureness of the gospel rather than all the fringe stuff we get caught up in. It was like the temple brought out the part of the gospel and the church that in her core she felt a part of, rather than the three-hour sunday block, the mid week activities and meetings and all the cultural stuff that she hasn't always felt a part of.

Yes, the temple presentation is different, but I think it's unfortunate if we don't get the real message of it. We see a movie about the creation and why we're here. We see the fall of man and learn why we need a savior. We make covenants that help us get back to the presence of God. I guess I'm weird for thinking the temple actually is the one clear message we should be teaching in the church, which is that all we need to do is make our covenants and do our best to keep them. Everything else will be fine because of the atonement of Christ. Once we get that, home teaching, tithing, and everything else we are asked to do has more meaning because we see it as part of our imperfect attempt to keep our end of the covenants we make. Those individual things become the means (sometimes the imperfect means) to the end rather than the end itself.

We fail our members when we lose sight of that. We fail when we teach any one aspect of the behavior we're supposed to follow without teaching how it fits into the big picture. We fail when we don't teach enough about the savior and what he did for us so that our love for him and our faith in him is what motivates us to not want to drink or to do our home teaching, rather than the guilt trip from a church leader or parent. We fail when we don't teach the joy of doing good because we want to use our agency that way. Instead, any lesson about agency seems to focus mostly on all the horrible consequences of using it unwisely. We seem to be so focused on administration and organization and trying to influence and sometimes even strongly influence or force the proper behavior, that we forget to teach the basic tools that allow people to want to live the right way, such as faith in Christ or learning to recognize and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost. A lot of times I think the rules take away from the importance of using agency and listening to the Spirit to figure out the best thing to do. For example, heaven forbid would a guy in his 30s try to attend a YSA ward or activity. It's against the rules! And yet, when he is in tune with the Spirit and feels like he should be somewhere at a particular time he meets his EC there even if it's where "the rules" say he shouldn't be.

I'm very much in favor of being more open about the way we teach the importance of the temple. Unfortunately, it's not really at the center of our emphasis like it should be. If we taught youth more about covenants and less about all the individual dos and donts, we'd probably have a generation more able to see the big picture which would allow them to make their own good decisions rather than getting hung up on why it's hard to keep all the rules and then drop out because they don't understand the importance of one or two of them. To me, temple preparation fails because we look at it as a 3 or 4 week class in Sunday school. In reality, temple prep should be EVERYTHING we do in church. If you can go a lifetime of church activity and get totally thrown off at the temple, then it's not the crash course a couple of weeks before your temple trip that failed you. It's all your years of church teaching that did.

Sorry for sounding so hard core. I recognize I have a strong opinion on this and I respect the opinion of others, but it makes me wonder if we don't almost have two separate churches -- the church of the temple and the church of the three hour block. I'm definitely a temple guy rather than a three hour block guy. Maybe I'm just weird, but I get a whole lot more spiritual boost out of 90 minutes in the temple than I do in 3 months of Sacrament meeting and Sunday School. I wish we did a better job of unitiing the two aspects of our worship. My ward has recently had three different investigators decide not to come anymore after the shock of all the noise and irreverence in our Sacrament meeting. The bishop felt we needed to spend an entire three hour block recently teaching and talking about the importance of reverence in church. I'd say things like that as well as the actions of the members are at least as much of a problem as having a "weird" temple ceremony.

I think this goes to my point that if people can talk about the temple beyond the standard few phrases that people use, people that are reluctant about the temple may be persuaded to give it another try.

I found the temple to be pretty weird the first time, and little has changed over the years. I rarely go now because of that. I don't feel peaceful, I don't feel the spirit, I just feel weird. Thinking about the symbolism perks my intellectual curiosity, but as far as spirituality, I've yet to have a very positive experience. I think it's completely unfair, as has been pointed out, to not know what covenants you are going to make and then not really have a fair opportunity to decline to make them.

I don't remember having a temple prep class, though I guess I may have had one. My preparation was reading the Book of Moses, the pamphlet on the temple, and talking to my dad, who's recollections of the ceremony were only somewhat accurate. I remember thinking the first time, "This should be great but it's just not."

I remember feeling anxious during the endowment. I was worried that I was doing everything wrong, that I was going to screw up in the ceremony, etc. My mother, who was supposed to be helping me, left me hanging for most of the ceremony. Some stranger the row behind me finally took pity on me and helped.

It didn't get better the second time I went as I was met with rudeness by one of the matrons. Danimal and I had been married for just a couple of weeks. I didn't know where I was supposed to go once I got dressed because 1) it was the first time I had ever been to the Provo temple; 2) it was my first time going through for someone else and 3) it was the first time I had ever been without an escort showing me around.

I asked a temple matron where I was suppose to go next. She answered abruptly, "perhaps if you attended the temple more frequently, you would remember where you are suppose to be." I had been endowed a whopping 2 weeks! Her rudeness was surprising to me because all I ever heard was how wonderful the temple is, how it is the celestial kingdom on earth, how everyone is the same in the temple, no one is judged and how there are so many people there to help you, blah, blah blah... She made me feel stupid and defensive.

I also have issues with separating the sexes and the women covering their faces. I asked the Memphis temple president about this once when I saw him in the celestial room. He couldn't give me a good answer. If anyone has any insight, I'd love to hear it.

Getting to the temple is difficult. Temple dates suck. It is a great expense and effort to get a babysitter and then to spend the whole date on the other side of the room as your spouse unable to talk to or touch each other? It's a tough sell. I do like BlueK's perspective of it being the purest form of religion. I need to go back and take that attitude with me and see if it improves my experience.

I think it would've helped me if the covenants I was making were outlined in the temple prep class.

Here is a thought that I bet is common:

"Since I didn't have the greatest experience in the temple ceremony, there is something wrong with me. Maybe I am unworthy or flawed or just don't have the capacity to 'get it'."

When you think of the potentially lifelong impact of being a "temple Mormon" versus a "non-temple Mormon", it is frankly bizarre how we don't prepare people. As in stupendously head-scratching.

Of course, this is a church where asking for a suggestion box is likely to get you a nice industrial-carpet static shock as you get within arm's length of the ark.

Members vote with their feet. And temples that serve as catchment for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of members stand underutilized. No doubt, most of us have been pressured to go to the temple, in one way or another. Guilt trips are common. "No one is attending ward temple night." Or other more direct intreaties.

We shouldn't need to be persuaded through these means. It should be like Lehi's dream, an opportunity to taste of the fruit of the tree of life. And I believe it is actually like that for a lot of members. But for other members, hearing from these people is mystifying. And always non-specific and sometimes grandiose.

thanks. this is almost exactly how i felt and feel -- better than i was able to express it.

Hey guys, I didn't realize this site was still this active. I'll post more here I think.

I felt I was well prepped but two things I wasn't ready for was 1) the clothes specifically the hat and apron and 2) the pre-1991 oaths. I voted a 4.

edit: also the washing and anointing. I wasn't prepared for that either.

17 votes, and no one has voted their comfort level as a 9.

The response you got from that temple worker is inexcusable. I hate to draw lines in the church, but it does tend to illustrate to me what the 3-hour block type of mormon mentality is to me. It's task focused and judgmental with a generous helping of guilt, rather than covenant focused. Anyone in the proper spirit would be helpful, welcoming and not judgmental. Almost all temple workers usually are. I'm sorry you experienced that there, but that person probably makes similar comments to people in church.

Marsupial needs to review Elder Bednar's talk on taking offence.

Of course, I am evil, I might have said "**** you, I come as often as I can" to her and watched her jaw drop.