Newsletter Sturff: How to Pay Attend in Sacrament Meeting

Oh, sacrament meeting. It supplies both the heights of spiritual revelation and ecstasy as well as the troughs of abject boredom. Unfortunately, it seems like those troughs are endless. The 30-45 minutes of talks just drag on. So, my associates (Chloe and Michelle) and myself thought of something during a particularly heinous (testimony? perhaps) meeting.

We call it:

The Sacrament Drinking Game.

Possible Rules:

Any time someone opens with “I’m so nervous,” take a shot. Nothing builds ethos like admitting inadequacy.

If someone opens their talk with a definition from the dictionary, take another shot. Because I haven’t heard that particular definition for “faith.”

"...and I love my roommates"= take another shot. If person is also crying, take two shots.

Mission story only peripherally related to the topic- another shot. Examples should demonstrate a point, if you please.

If the person giving the talk just stares at their notes the. whole. time., then you get to take another shot. Because apparently they missed the HS science class on sound waves and how they travel in a straight line, meaning you can't really hear them monotonously read their paper verbatim.

"...every fiber of my being" means you get to take a shot! This useless and empty phrase just makes me think of yarn people. Find a new way to say "I felt very strongly about such-and-such."

Any reference to C.S. Lewis, the 13^th member of the Quorum of the Twelve, gets a shot.

Also any doctrinal point given from Elder A. General Authority gets a shot. Actually, any unreferenced point of doctrine gets a shot. This means, if the giver of the talk is a particularly sloppy researcher, you may be taking many shots.

The use of the whole "the world does x, so by implication we do not" dichotomy (false dichotomy, I might add) merits a shot. Because the Mormon community is so perfect and the ways of the world are so entirely evil.

Anytime someone gives his or her testimony in his or her mission language, you get to take a shot. I appreciate that the talker went on a mission, learned a language, etc., but a testimony I can’t understand is not going to be terribly enlightening. The point of bearing testimony in public is to strengthen others. Giving it in a foreign language only gratifies your own vanity.

Atonement does not equal "at one ment." That's just a coincidence. So, every time someone says that, or alludes to how useful it is to think of the Atonement that way, you get to take a shot. Go you.

For every talk that goes over time, you get a shot for every 5 minutes over. Because really, when the time is up, the Spirit is gone.

And so on, and so forth. I’m sure you can think of more rules.

The point is to trick yourself into paying attention. As you listen for the ridiculous generic conventions of the standard Mormon talk, you will inevitably pick up those rare gems, the ones that not only cast light on doctrine, but change your perspective on them by coloring them anew. Of course, depending on what you are drinking, you may lose track of the meeting altogether, which may or may not be a bad thing, depending on who is talking.