There is a Difference Between Attending and Worshipping

 

Welcome to the Church of Joy

By Elder Patrick Kearon

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Because of the loving plan of our Heavenly Father for each of His children, and because of the redeeming life and mission of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, we can—and should—be the most joyful people on earth! Even as the storms of life in an often-troubled world pound upon us, we can cultivate a growing and abiding sense of joy and inner peace because of our hope in Christ and our understanding of our own place in the beautiful plan of happiness....

We do not gather on the Sabbath simply to attend sacrament meeting and check it off the list. We come together to worship. There is a significant difference between the two. To attend means to be present at. But to worship is to intentionally praise and adore our God in a way that transforms us!...

We may have been conditioned to suppose that the purpose of the sacrament is to sit in the pew thinking only about all the ways we messed up during the week before. But let’s turn that practice on its head. In the stillness, we can ponder the many ways we have seen the Lord relentlessly pursue us with His wonderful love that week! We can reflect on what it means to “discover the joy of daily repentance.” We can give thanks for the times the Saviour entered into our struggles and our triumphs and the occasions when we felt His grace, forgiveness, and power giving us strength to overcome our hardships and bear our burdens with patience and even good cheer.

Yes, we ponder the sufferings and injustices inflicted upon our Redeemer for our sin, and that does cause sober reflection. But we sometimes get stuck there—in the garden, at the cross, inside the tomb. We fail to move upward to the joy of the tomb bursting open, the defeat of death, and Christ’s victory over all that might prevent us from gaining peace and returning to our heavenly home. Whether we shed tears of sorrow or tears of gratitude during the sacrament, let it be in awesome wonder at the good news of the Father’s gift of His Son!

Elder Kearon

 

Elder Patrick Kearon: Prepared and Called by the Lord

By Elder D. Todd Christofferson

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

One Saturday several years after having been called as a General Authority Seventy, Elder Patrick Kearon and his wife, Jennifer, were entering a supermarket as Elder W. Rolfe Kerr and his wife, Janeil, were leaving. They visited briefly, and then the Kerrs headed to their car.

Almost immediately, a man approached Elder Kearon and excitedly asked him, “Was that a General Authority you were speaking to?” Elder Kearon responded, “Yes. That was Elder W. Rolfe Kerr of the Seventy.” The man nodded, looked directly at Elder Kearon without recognizing him, and said, “You can always tell a General Authority, can’t you?” Then the man hurried off.

“I love that story because it so represents how I feel,” says Elder Kearon with a smile. “I could have the same experience today, and that man would still probably not pick me out of a crowd as being a General Authority.”

Come Unto Christ

"What can we learn from the shepherds, Simeon, Anna, and the Wise Men, all of whom were favored to come and see the Christ child with their own eyes? As we ponder their faithful responses to the invitation to come to Christ, we can learn to more effectively life ourselves out of our own inversions, out of any gloom and confusion we may be experiencing , and bring ourselves into the clear, pure hope offered by the Light of the World. It is there, with Him, that we come to feel who we really are and where we git into the eternal picture. Our own inversions are reversed, and proper perspective is restored."

Elder Patrick Kearon, "Come Let us Adore Him," Ensign, Dec 2011, 31.