Approaching the church as consumers

I love living in Utah, but there is one part of being a Utah Mormon that I don't like.  It is the whiny syndrome. Take for instance visiting teaching.  I hear a whole heard of whiny syndrome comments about visiting teaching.  I won't name them as I don't want to offend the guilty, but you likely know the kind of comments I'm talking about.  Actually, I hope you don't.  I had no idea people were so whiny until I got this calling.

Here are some excerpts from an essay by Eugene England. I really liked the thoughts.

In the life of the true Church, as in a good marriage, there are constant opportunities for all to serve, especially to learn to serve people we would not normally choose to serve—or possibly even associate with—and thus there are opportunities to learn to love unconditionally (which, after all, is the most important thing to learn in the gospel).

Church involvement teaches us compassion and patience as well as courage and discipline. It makes us responsible for the personal and marital, the physical and spiritual welfare of people we may not already love (may even heartily dislike), and thus we learn to love them.

It is in the Church especially that those with qualities ("gifts") of vulnerability, pain, handicap, need, ignorance, intel­lectual arrogance, social pride, even prejudice and sin—those Paul calls the members which "seem to be more feeble"—can be accepted, learned from, helped, and made part of the body so that together it can all be blessed.

If we con­stantly ask, "What has the Church done for me?" we will not think to ask the much more important question, "What am I doing with the opportunities for service and self-challenge with which the Church provides me?" If we constantly approach the Church as consumers, we will never partake of its sweet and filling fruit. Only if we can lose our lives there will we find our­selves.