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The Basics

Recently I gave a talk about the scriptures as a line of defense and it made me think about this... what is the absolute basic every member should know? Yes it is true that you need a testimony and not necessarily be a scriptorian, but where does it teach that? In fact, all the scriptures teach that we need to pay diligent heed to the written word... thus eventually we will become scriptorians, maybe not experts, but well enough that we could easily defend the truth with simple answers. Now, on with the purpose of this thread... what do you think are the very basic elements of the Gospel that everyone should know?

I will start with a couple and then you can continue with a couple more, but do explain why you think each member should know that in the very least.

At the very least a member should know...

1. Where Christ was born.
2. The meaning of the name 'Christ'

How can you worship and pay homage to someone if you do not even know their birth place or the meaning of their name?

Basics The

I think the essential basics are:
Faith
Repentance
Baptism
the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and how to activate it.

The last one, when activated, will lead to all things necessary for the individual.

NightHawk

The Basics Studies Doctrine Mormon

Of course the First Principles of the Gospel and also:

1) Who was Joseph Smith
2) Basic answer to the questions that usually anti-mormons or curious people ask (Plural Marriage, Blacks and the Priesthood, etc). I live in a country where most the population are african descendant and between the LDS community I never met somebody who knows why the blacks could not hold the Prieshood and they have a hard time when somebody talks to them about it and they don't know why.
3) Who was Jesus Christ of course and what he did when he was on the Earth.


More to come...

Basics The

Some general thoughts to pass to new members:

1. That you can't base your testimony on how someone else lives their life.

2. That you must read the scriptures regularly in order to develop a proper faith.

Some general principals they should understand because they are different from many other christian church beliefs:

3. Although we are saved by the grace of the Savior and can't get to heaven on our own merit, our actions do have a direct relationship to what measure of joy we receive both on earth and in immortality.

4. Heavenly Father loves us. We don't need to live our lives in fear of what happens if we don't measure up. Instead live our lives trying to please a loving father.

There will probably be more later, but these are for now my thoughts.

Reasons:

1. How can you believe something, if you don't know what it is? You need to read the scriptures regularly so you can find out for yourself what the gospel teaches. If you know it (or found out) for yourself and not because someone else told you, it is a stronger knowledge.

2. Often, new members look to someone who they think lives the gospel perfectly and they model themselves after that person. Then the that person doesn't turn out to be perfect (none of us are), they have a hard time accepting it. Also, much discontent can be avoided by not comparing ourselves to others but compare ourselves to our previous selves.

3. Sometimes we, as members of the Church, spend too much time worrying about if we are doing enough. Yet a lot of other christian churches would have you believe that it doesn't matter at all what you do as long as you accept Jesus as your Savior. This is not 100% true. Just like we don't reward people equally for less than equal work, neither does Heavenly Father reward us equally if one makes such a greater effort than another to live more righteously.

4. Many other churches encourage us to do right because if we don't we are damned. Is this how we teach our own children to behave? Probably not. Remember, our families here on earth are patterned after our Heavenly Father. He loves us more than we can imagine and wants us to be successful in our efforts to return to him. We can be much happier if we focus on the good not the bad. Positive reinforcement rather than negative punishment.

Basics The

1. The difference between a temple and a chapel.
Essential to know why temple preparation is necessary

2. The difference between Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood.
I am sometimes amazed to find out that the wives of the Brothers in Church do not know what office or sometimes which Priesthood they hold. This shows that it is not something discussed at home.