I cringe when I hear those words at church.<\/p>\n
Usually, they are spoken by a Gospel Doctrine teacher when introducing a topic. I’m sure on any given Sunday, those words are mentioned a couple dozen times in any average ward.<\/p>\n
The reason why I cringe is mostly because of my dear wife. She joined the church after her 18th birthday. She had very little exposure to the gospel before that. Her knowledge of things taught in primary could probably fit in a large thimble (ok, well, she probably knows more than she lets on, but it’s nowhere near what us BICers have encountered). Usually after a lesson in which those words are mentioned, she asks me about the story that the teacher was referring to. I do my best to explain it. She usually mentions something like “well, knowing that would have helped to make sense of the lesson”.<\/p>\n
Another variant is the phrase “We all know…”. This one is even worse. It’s not just a story, but usually some cultural church practice or perhaps some meaty chunk of doctrine. The instructor usually glosses over the important parts and dives right into his \/ her analysis, leaving my poor wife in the dust.<\/p>\n
I’ve noticed it’s lessons or discussions \/ talks like this that make church services so unpleasant for my wife. After a consecutive string of Sundays like this, she usually wants a break and we all take a rest from going to church.<\/p>\n
I guess what really baffles me is the fact that we are suppose to be a missionary minded church. We are suppose to be ‘inviting others to Christ’, but when they get here, we treat them as if they’ve been here all along and end up frustrating the heck out of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"