Author Archives: guest

How to Give a Great Sacrament Meeting Talk – Part 1.5 of 5: Invention to Arrangement

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Part One here. Part Zero here.

This section became longer than I expected. So, I’m breaking it in half. Instead of discussing arrangement this time, I will bridge the gap between invention and arrangement by discussing what sources could and should be used when creating your talk.

So, now you have a topic for your talk. Now, you need to fill up 10 – 20 minutes. The standard practice is to find appropriate scriptures, General Authority quotes, and a few personal (or otherwise) anecdotes. As far as it goes, that’s not a bad place to start.

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How to Give a Great Sacrament Meeting Talk – Part 1 of 5: Invention.

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(Apologies for this being a day late. My Internet connection was down for a large chunk of time yesterday).

Invention, in the simplest definition, is coming up with the material to discuss – your topic, your thesis, etc. This is easy, right? After all, the bishop (or stake president, or whoever) assigns you a topic, and there you go. Invention is done for you. Now, all you have to do is find a few General Authority quotes, add a few personal anecdotes, and you have talk. Right?

Wrong. In many ways, invention is the hardest part of writing a talk, and it’s often where the talk goes wrong.

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The peace of a priesthood blessing

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My life is currently in a bit of an upheaval, with quite a bit of uncertainty and frustration and anxiety. (Believe it or not, it involves aliens from outer space and the CIA. Never let it be said that when my life blows up in my face, it isn’t interesting. If we meet in person at a bloggersnacker or other in-person event, I’ll share the sordid tale. By then I may even be able to laugh about it.) (And if you know of anyone looking to hire a totally awesome technical/scientific writer with almost 10 years of experience, please direct them my way. I’m looking for a new job.)

So anyway, with things falling apart, it seemed like a good time to get a priesthood blessing.

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Mormons appear in the most interesting places….

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In 1888, a utopian novel arrived on the scene that, for almost two decades, heavily influenced nearly every area of public life.  It spurred the creation of a political party that furnished the first socialist to run for national office.  Several hundred clubs formed around the idea of promoting the ideas in the book.  And it doesn’t once mention Mormons, which is not surprising.  So, in doing research on this book, the last thing I expected was to find a “defense” of Mormonism coming from a New York Lawyer. Continue reading →