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David T @improvementera.com · 23/09/2026

If I don't have the words for 'pitching camp' and 'departing' drilled into me by the end of Numbers 33, then I have no one to blame but myself..

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Reposted by David T

So let's celebrate key days in the traditional Christian Liturgical Calendar, and find a structured and coherent way to do it. Lets add in our own unique days. Lets add our own traditions to the existing days (Hosannah shout on Palm Sunday, PLEASE!). We could add coherence without being clunky.

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Reposted by David T

Having a Universal Hymn Book is actually a big step. The ability to designate particular themed/programmed Sunday across the worldwide Church with the same Hymns instructed to be sung in every ward/branch is now approaching possibility.

Reposted by David T

The idea that off-to-the-side Sacrament Tables may be transitioning into Front Center Eucharistic Altars suggests movement. Genuinely would like to know if there was any attempt to get copies of Maxwell Institute's Ancient Christians into the hands of the 15 and actually read it and engage with it.

Reposted by David T

We're closer than we've been (Temple Reforms bringing symbols/language into much easier conversation w/ daily and weekly Church life, acknowledging Holy Week, etc). We have Good Material! But I frankly don't see much indication leadership has experience/knowledge of the traditions that do it WELL.

Reposted by David T

Oaks & the Church flirt with Liturgy-adjacent ideas without calling them such & without giving them coherent structure. Lots of scattered pieces that COULD work together, but without any explanation that DOES that work.

David T @improvementera.com · 21/09/2026

I get trying to make 9/21 "Moroni Day", but the midnight communications, first & subsequent Cumorah visits were on 9/22. Besides, 9/21 is already the Feast of St. Matthew. If we're having our own Feast Days now, lets let them be complimentary to the traditional ones ;) #SaintMoroni

Moroni delivering plates to Joseph in Stained Glass

Jorge Cocco's paining of Moroni delivering the plates to Joseph

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Was explaining to my kids last week that the Prophet Isaiah is hella woke. And the intro to this week's #ComeFollowMe doesn't hurt the stanning. Read Isaiah 14 as if presented to a modern Tyrant. It still tracks.

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David T @improvementera.com · 18/09/2026

"Recently, I have come to understand better the distress of other[s]...who feel that some of us are invoking ... free exercise of religion...to deny or challenge their own...basic constitutional rights." - Dallin Oaks. May understanding continue. newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/pres...

newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org

Faith, Freedom and the Common Good

President Dallin H. Oaks of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints delivered this speech on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, at Washington National Cathedral.

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David T @improvementera.com · 18/09/2026

This. Similar circumstances and realization in our family in Georgia. Lifelong moral anti-abortion absolutists suddenly became missionaries for reproductive rights. Change is possible, but it requires listening to learn and humility.

I hope @keepapitchinin.bsky.social is doing some Celestial fistbumps right now.

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Maxwell Institute at BYU is hosting a Book Club studying their book Ancient Christians. This is a very, very, very good thing.

Wy weakness is Pretty Editions of Official Church Texts, and I just discovered several of the TPC manuals were released in leather/hardbound editions for General Authorities and my collector's brain is now crying.

David T @improvementera.com · 12/09/2026

Morning Seminary drop-off.

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I'm considering a new pattern that uses the full Liturgy of the Hours for Advent and Lent, but during Ordinary Time using an adaptation in the lectionary, including subbing in some of our unique Canticles (2 Nephi 4:16-35, D&C 84:99-102), and adjust the Office of Readings to CFM and GC/TPC.

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David T @improvementera.com · 12/09/2026

"O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise." - Psalm 51:15 #Lauds

A book if The Liturgy of the Hours is opened up to Morning Prayer. Behind the book is a selection of books on a green piece of fabric. The books are a leather Latter-day Saint Quad, two volumes of the Septuagint Reader's Edition, the Greek New Testament, the Legacy Edition of the Book of Mormon, and the green 1985 Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On the left of the shelf is a pottery jar and a Nauvoo Brick. On the right is a Greek Orthodox Icon of Jesus with a lit Prayer Candle. Between thevforeground book and the books of scripture is a lit stick of insence.

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David T @improvementera.com · 06/09/2026

In addition to my Oft Spoken Of and Hoped For Official History of the Temple Book™, I also wish one day for a Temple wing of the Church History Museum devoted to the different forms of ceremonial clothing throughout the years. Our Temple ritual is filled with rich material culture and history.

2 Green fig leaf patterned Temple aprons. One on top more silky and with raised stitching with the bottom cut to match tleaves, and the bottom one more matte, lower stitching, and a stra8gnbl8ned bottom cut.

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David T @improvementera.com · 01/09/2026

Y'know, those two degrees of the CK in the presence of the fulness of God that don't require horizontal hetero sealings are wide open for exploration and motivating folks to look forward to, just sayin'.

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David T @improvementera.com · 30/08/2026

Oaks is the #1 person who has been pushing for formalization of ritual over the years (Prayer Language, Right Hand Sacrament) - but without a full liturgical structure to make sense of it and to contextualize it, they're just random policies. This could be changing.

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David T @improvementera.com · 30/08/2026

I hope part of a reformed Sacrament meeting (apart from moving the Altar to center which I think is very good!) is more liturgical participation by the congregation beyond Hymns. Many ways to do that, including a return to (optional) congregational kneeling during the Sacramental Prayers.

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David T @improvementera.com · 29/08/2026

Spring 1820, Palmyra, New York: bsky.app/profile/theo...

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David T @improvementera.com · 26/08/2026

I'm an absolite sucker for Deseret's fancy pretty display editions of Church published books. (Legacy Edition of the Book of Mormon is the latest acquisition.)

David T @improvementera.com · 20/08/2026

Reposted by David T

Sure, the Clayton journals will be cool, but if someone were to ask what would be my Holy Grail Church History text to access - one that is currently known to actually exist - without a doubt it would be the 1877 Temple Master Transcript prepared by Wilford Woodruff and Brigham Young.

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David T @improvementera.com · 20/08/2026

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David T @improvementera.com · 19/08/2026

I divide #ComeFollowMe into 5 daily readings per week. Today included Psalm 23, which I studied with my son, who agreed to work on memorizing it this week. After dropping him off at school, I listened, as I always do, to the Daily Catholic Mass Reading. Today's Responsorial Psalm was Psalm 23.

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David T @improvementera.com · 18/08/2026

Love the second edition (which I have), and also anything I've experienced from Amy-Jill Levine. Third will be wonderful! (Also love the Jewish Annotated Apocrypha, which adds Jubilees into the traditional collection as a treat, and to be a representative of the Enochic tradition)

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David T @improvementera.com · 18/08/2026

I get why changes in Temple Square, Hymnal, the Temple, observance of Holy Week etc. comes across to some as pandering, or 'trying to make others accept us'. I get that but don't believe that's the case. I think we're finally correcting for the over-compensation regarding distinction we once took.

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David T @improvementera.com · 17/08/2026

Fascinating that in this week's Psalms readings for #ComeFollowMe, it jumps from Psalm 8 to Psalm 19. What interesting is not that it skips Psalms (there's a lot!), it's that within 8-19 are some substantial re-writing of those Psalms in the JST. rsc.byu.edu/ascending-mo...

rsc.byu.edu

“Give Me Right Word, O Lord”: The JST Changes in the Psalms | Religious Studies Center

Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible (referred to in the Church today as the Joseph Smith Translation and abbreviated as JST) was a revelatory and educational experience that played an important ro...

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David T @improvementera.com · 16/08/2026

The Ha-Satan in the Job Frame story: #ComeFollowMe

David T @improvementera.com · 14/08/2026

So yeah, I'm a little hyper-fixated. But a Hymnal linked to the specific hour of the specific day of the Liturgical Year is just super cool. (Some hymns have different tunes depending on whether sung on weekday or Sunday!!!)

Photo of hand holding black cover of gold title gilded "The Divine Office Hymnal" with a cross symbol) in front of a copy of the green covered gold title gilded "Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" with a Tabernacle Organ symbol.

David T @improvementera.com · 14/08/2026

Details and policies aside (which are indeed messy and at times arbitrary), we adopted our second child, and had the opportunity to have him sealed, w/our oldest child (preschooler) present. I treasure that memory, and wish all who had kids could have a similar one.

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David T @improvementera.com · 13/08/2026

Oh, the New Testament Scripture helps put up a Second Edition, and it incorporated very specific feedback I sent in on a particular passage in John 1. Be interesting to see what else may have changed! www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual...

David T @improvementera.com · 12/08/2026

So in the Roman Catholic Church, the Latin Nova Vulgata is the Reference Text used for all reference liturgical books. It establishes canonical versions of scriptural texts (IE, longer Esther, Daniel, etc), standardized versification, and is a 'tie-breaker' in disputed translational meanings...

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David T @improvementera.com · 11/08/2026

With my interest in prayer books, and particularly the liturgical language reforms in English for the Catholic Church, I've been considering the different ways our own tradition's 'Official Normative Books' line up with the categories of those in Roman Catholicism.

A series of Roman Catholic Liturgical Books in English.

David T @improvementera.com · 10/08/2026

Reading LXX Job, and in 2:9 the Greek gives Job's wife quite a bit more to say. Translation below: #ComeFollowMe

Job 2:9 (Greek Septuagint Version)
And when much time had passed, his wife said to him, How long wilt thou hold out, saying, Behold, I wait yet a little while, expecting the hope of my deliverance? for, behold, thy memorial is abolished from the earth, sons and daughters, the pangs and pains of my womb which I bore in vain with sorrows; and thou thyself sittest down to spend the nights in the open air among the corruption of worms, and I am a wanderer and a servant from place to place and house to house, waiting for the setting of the sun, that I may rest from my labours and my pangs which now beset me: but say some word against the Lord, and die.

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David T @improvementera.com · 06/08/2026

LXX Book Completion reading progress: ✅️Genesis ✅️Exodus ✅️Ruth ✅️Leviticus ☑️Esther (full Greek version w/ expansions) Numbers still taking a while! 😅 #ComeFollowMe

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David T @improvementera.com · 05/08/2026

Reading Greek Esther, and realizing that the changes and additions made in that version (found in the Apocrypha/Deuterocanon) feel a LOT like the types of changes and additions made throughout Joseph Smith's Bible Revision (JST) - which, curious enough, doesn't touch Esther.

A page from Joseph Smith's bible he used as part of his Bible Revision Project, the page is from the Apocrypha, with the heading "The rest of the Chapters of the Book of Esther..."

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Kristine A @kristinea.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Rip Carol Lynn Pearson. Her work has gotten me through some pretty rough patches.

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David T @improvementera.com · 29/07/2026

It's here! www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual...

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David T @improvementera.com · 28/07/2026

Honestly, sometimes just plain manual transcription is faster than all the manual corrections required by OCR.