Historic Mormon church closes citing dwindling attendance
I served in the Illinois Chicago Mission in the mid 1970's. Back then the mission took in all of Illinois plus some parts of Indiana. Logan Square was a prominent, and growing Chicago ward at the time. Our mission averaged 100 to 130 baptisms a month, with over half coming from the Chicago area.
Those were different times, and it was a different church. Correlation had not yet smothered the life out of local ward meetings. Local tithing stayed local. Members built and ran their own congregations back then. They held fundraisers, donated their own labor, and built adorable, non-cookie cutter meeting houses with sweat and love, and kept them clean without oversight from far away Utah. Youth conferences, roadshows, temple trips, Wednesday night MIA, church softball tournaments, and Ward conferences complete with the pot luck lunch on the church front lawn are all gone now. Swallowed up by a corporation that somehow believes it must maintain complete control to survive.
Back then, my pre-internet testimony was strong. I was a part of a growing, vibrant church. Or so I thought. I was told i was living in the last days, and that I part of the chosen generation, and that the wind up scene for the second coming had already started. changes were coming, and it was exciting.
Fast forward half of a lifetime, and now nothing Mormon is exciting. To say it was all lie or just a MLM sales pitch does not begin to acknowledge the damage this organization has caused. Utah families have their multi generation roots interwoven into the deception of Mormonism. It is a cancer that cannot be cut out without destroying the whole. Many Mission field converts exchanged old lives for a promise that largely can not be delivered.
I am finding that it is almost impossible to unwind Mormonism from a life half lived. Like many of you, I have experienced alienation of family and friends, loss of community, being marginalized in my profession. Most damaging though is the betrayal of trust. I trusted those leaders. I trusted the church. I made critical life decisions based on what I was taught by these prophets, seers and revelators. Many of those decisions have come back to haunt me. Perhaps this is why i lurk around on this forum. Many here have shared a similar journey.
