January's Bishopric Message: Change

As many of you may know, the bishopric divides the monthly conducting responsibilities for sacrament meeting throughout the year (along with doing sharing time in Primary and writing the bishopric message for the newsletter). Each of us also determines a general theme for the months we conduct to help our sacrament speakers focus on the gospel principles most needful for our ward. Of course, we do our very best to be inspired in our theme selections and speaker invitations.

In recent years, we’ve put together a list of our themes for the entire year to make it easier for Sister Nedra Christensen, our ward music chair, to select hymns that reflect those themes. We feel very blessed to have a tradition in our ward of spiritual sacrament meetings—thanks largely to speakers who always prepare well to give us the inspired messages the Lord would have us hear. I feel the Spirit in every sacrament meeting and also learn something I need to do personally to change my life for the better.

Usually, Sam and Jerry get their themes together way before I do, but this year I beat them both, much to their surprise. I did something a little different, too, choosing one-word themes with accompanying scriptures to help augment those themes. Sam and Jerry followed that pattern in their themes, and I think we ended up with some very timely and inspired themes for 2009.

When we were reviewing those themes during bishopric meeting one Sunday morning in early December, Mike Keetch, our incisive executive secretary, paused on the theme I had selected for January—“Change.” He surveyed everyone in the room and then looked directly at me with that half smile he always gets when he finds a little humor in something and said: “The election has been over for a month now. Can’t you give it a rest?”

As you can imagine, nothing I argued in denial convinced Mike, Sam, Jerry, and Lynn that I hadn’t chosen that theme consciously in celebration of Barack Obama’s January 20th inauguration. Every protest I made was greeted with more laughter, so I know any attempt to repeat those denials here would be futile. Instead, I think I’ll just go with it and write about “Change We Can Believe In.”

Of course, the real “change we can believe in” has very little to do with politics or even nationalism. It has everything to do with Jesus Christ and His atonement. Accordingly, the scripture theme for January comes from Alma’s sermon to the people of Zarahemla on the absolute necessity of seeking and maintaining a constant spiritual rebirth. Alma poses some key questions for us to ponder:

“And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?

Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?” (Alma 5:14-15)

Alma’s questions here also imply a pretty good definition of what it means to be spiritually reborn:

1. We need to reflect the image of God in our countenances.
2. We need to experience a change of heart.
3. We need to exercise faith in the Savior’s redemption on our behalf.
4. We need to look forward with faith to the resurrection and final judgment.

All this relates directly to the Church’s primary mission—to invite everyone to come unto Christ—which, in turn, reflects the Savior’s own invitation, made at multiple times and in multiple places, to “Come, Follow Me.”

The invitation to follow Christ is fundamentally an invitation to change. This invitation extends to everyone, of course, but it has special application, as Alma teaches us, to members of the Church because we have committed ourselves by covenant to follow the Savior and to become like Him. We cannot do that without being willing to change—to rid ourselves of every attitude and behavior that does not belong in a Christ-centered life.

We have often heard the aphorism that “the only constant in this world is change.” My experience tells me that this is true. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night Malvolio (a comic and ironic figure) observes “[B]e not afraid of greatness: some are born to greatness, some achieve greatness, others have greatness thrust upon them.” Substituting “change” for “greatness” in Malvolio’s speech, I would write: “Be not afraid of change: we are born to change, we must achieve change, change will be thrust upon us.”

In our culture, the new year is a traditional time for making personal resolutions to change. As we do that, it’s important for us to remember that the new year comes just after Christmas, which should remind us that true change can come only through the Savior. So whatever resolutions we make for the coming year, let’s ground them all spiritually. We’ll have a much better chance of achieving them that way.

It’s our prayer that we’ll experience true “change we can believe in” throughout the coming year—as individuals, as families, and as a ward. Let’s renew our commitment to come unto Christ and to be perfected in Him. We know that we can live more Christ-like lives and that, through the atonement, we can each be given the power necessary to change—to transform our weaknesses into strengths and to enjoy greater inner peace and spirituality—whatever turmoil swirls about us in these troubled times.

Love, Bishop Snyder and the 12th Ward Bishopric