Simplify and Reduce

This last weekend President Nelson dedicated the Concepcion Chile temple.  The evening before the dedication, President Nelson “addressed the 28,000 youth in the temple district” in a devotional broadcast across the nation.  This meeting, it appears, was done in lieu of a cultural celebration that have become so familiar to us.  The Church News explains briefly, “As part of the Church’s initiative to simplify and reduce, the event marked a shift away from the youth cultural celebrations that have been associated with temple dedications for more than a decade.”  I have recently been able to witness one cultural celebration—for the temple in France last year—and thought it was incredible.  So I was saddened to see that these will no longer be a part of temple dedications, but I believe that this effort “to simplify and reduce” is indeed happening in various aspects of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and will in the end be a blessing to the members.  In a world that is ever more demanding on our time, the leaders of the Church want to make sure that we can find the time to do those spiritual activities that are essential.   

               Many recent changes show that this is a consistent effort by the Church.  Here are some of the other ways I see that this is happening:

·        General conference weekend is now only one weekend—it used to be two weekends because of the women’s meeting the week before the rest of the sessions

·        Home and visiting teaching have been simplified so we don’t spend unnecessary time doing reports or making mechanical visits

·        The two priesthood quorums were brought into one unified Elders Quorum

·        The Church is discontinuing its partnership with the Boy Scouts; I believe what we will see from this is a more focused program for youth that concentrates on what is most essential spiritually

·        Church meetings will be reduced from 3 to 2 hours starting next year

·        Large Church pageants are now discouraged

Clearly it is a time of change in the Church, and I don’t believe a change in something like the cultural celebrations indicates that it was wrong to do them when we did.  As the writer of Ecclesiastes said, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).  Our world is becoming increasingly busier and it seeks to focus our energies on a thousand different pursuits.  In that environment, we need to learn in our own lives to “simplify and reduce” so that we can focus our greatest efforts on that which matters most.  Sister Nelson put it this way when asked about the prophet, “He's not afraid to do something different. If we're really preparing the Church and the world for the Second Coming of the Savior, he is sincere about that. He doesn't want us spending money, time, energy on anything that isn't really focused on that. It's pretty stunning.”  All of these various changes are a call for each of us to concentrate on the essentials of the gospel: faith in the Lord, covenants, service, temple work, and gathering the house of Israel.  Like Esther, I believe that President Nelson came “to the kingdom for such a time as this” to help lead us be spiritually ready for the return of the Savior (Esther 4:14).