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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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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.

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.

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.

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 · 21/09/2026

I love the approach Adam Miller takes here:

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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.

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I think an easy move for Deseret would be to publish a multivolume (4?) compendium of Teachings of Presidents of the Church books to serve as companion volumes to SAINTS. Lump 4 or 5 of the manuals together into each Volume. Arrange Chronologically. Only reason not to is if they're updating them.

And years ago, I came across a fancy shiny leather-like bound edition of Hymns (1985).

Deseret's deluxe editions of SAINTS are gorgeous.

A version of the Dignitary Edition of the Book of Mormon has been released to the public as the Legacy Edition, and it also carries that Tree of Life mark.

Like, the (2017) Church Employee editions of the Scriptures were fire, but I'm assuming there's going to be some new edition in 2030 because of course there will be. (My theory is that the tree of life was going to roll out as a Church logomark before the Christus was decided upon)

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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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"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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Right now, apart from that one time in an official YouTube video a few years ago, the only way members are seeing Temple clothing outside the Temple is contextualized by antagonists. This is an unforced error, y'all.

And honestly and seriously, the Church desperately needs to commission artwork depicting modern ceremonial Temple work and clothing for a devotional audience. You can make the shading cool and dramatic and evocative and connect it to ritual of the past.

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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 · 31/08/2026

You can buy anything in this world with money. Buy up Armies and Navies, False Priests Who Oppress. Philosophies of men mingled with Scripture. Blood and Horror on the Earth. None can oppose me.

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But since kneeling has been completely eliminated from the Endowment (no more witness couples), the only time it occurs in one's formal liturgical experience now (minus the Priest blessing the Sacrament) is in Sealing.

David T @improvementera.com · 31/08/2026

Yeah. But having attended some Episcopal services with the back of the pew benches, those who can and wish do & those who can't or won't don't. I found it incredibly meaningful to kneel during the General Confession in the Ash Wednesday service, but appreciated the notes that it wasn't required.

It was all over the place! But finally resolved in 1901 with essentially that there's not enough space in our buildings for it to be practical at the time. Elder Merrill of the Twelve: “[I]n our circumstances...the whole congregation cannot kneel.” Great article here: rsc.byu.edu/sacred-time/...

Like, the uniqueness of having a key part of our Temple Liturgy being deliveted via filmed presentation, especially in the digital age, makes unison worldwide implementation of change possible and feasable.

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It's far, far easier to make recognizable connections between public Church life and the symbols of the Temple than ever before. We can keep much of our public culture while adding a little more participatory Christ-centered liturgy in our weekly experience.

"Put Ye On the Lord Jesus Christ", a talk by Sister J. Annette Dennis of the Relief Society Presidency.

I think the recent overhaul of the Temple was the first step, as well as the de-tabooing of Temple language, structure, and content, as well as the pro-active explanation of key Christological symbols inside and outside of the ordinance proper.

If there's a good relatively inexpensive and easily available but still decently tasting one to brew, I'd love to know! I just settle for these when I come upon them in the wild from time to time.

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The idea looks to be it's on the ground level center, beneath the podium, with seats on either side. All the same would remain above, but with the Altar front & center, and w/ pews oriented towards it with a center aisle.

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

As I've said before, we're now comfortable enough with our own core identities and doctrines, let's re-incorporate good venerable Christian practices in our public worship liturgies. Easier also to conceptually move between Sunday experience and the Temple.

Latter-day Saint Sacrament Table witj Cups and Bread under White sheet

Temple Endowment Instruction Room with Altar in the center, and gold curtain behind it.

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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.)

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Stapley's book 'Holiness to the Lord' is fantastic. Best thing written so far. You should absolutely read it! Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling was good too, and then the JSP added even more access and material and made it available to everyone. And Clayton journals are coming next year. Let's do that.

We believe in the progress of revelation. We've opened up the vaults for the messiest of our early revelation texts. There is a respectful way to do this with the Temple, and for it to be all out there.

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Think about it - an antagonist is more likely to be willing to read older leaked transcripts, and to watch videos of earlier editions of the Endowment than a highly orthodox member is. There is literally no way, from official resources, to response to anyone citing or explaining earlier iterations.

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My dream is a book presenting an official history of Endowment, complete with transcripts of the ordinances to the present (with precise targeted redactions), along with commentary. It's all out there. Audio of pre-1990 is easily accessible. Let's present it as a rough stone rolling, being refined.

It's the last essential true foundational missing link text we don't have access to, with the Joseph Smith Papers completed as they are. We have photos of the [extant] Book of Mormon Manuscripts, and pre-publication early modern Revelation Texts pre-D&C.

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

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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Anyway, I took that as a sign, and to challenge myself as I've challenged my son, and to compliment my current working through the Greek Bible, I'm working now on memorizing this Psalm in its Old Greek Septuagint form. This will be the second passage I've memorized in Greek (first is Lord's Prayer).

ΚΥΡΙΟΣ ποιμαίνει με καὶ οὐδέν με ὑστερήσει. 2 εἰς τόπον χλόης, ἐκεῖ με κατεσκήνωσεν, ἐπὶ ὕδατος ἀναπαύσεως ἐξέθρεψέ με, 3 τὴν ψυχήν μου ἐπέστρεψεν. ὡδήγησέ με ἐπὶ τρίβους δικαιοσύνης ἕνεκεν τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ. 4 ἐὰν γὰρ καὶ πορευθῶ ἐν μέσῳ σκιᾶς θανάτου, οὐ φοβηθήσομαι κακά, ὅτι σὺ μετ᾿ ἐμοῦ εἶ· ἡ ῥάβδος σου καὶ ἡ βακτηρία σου, αὗταί με παρεκάλεσαν. 5 ἡτοίμασας ἐνώπιόν μου τράπεζαν, ἐξεναντίας τῶν θλιβόντων με· ἐλίπανας ἐν ἐλαίῳ τὴν κεφαλήν μου, καὶ τὸ ποτήριόν σου μεθύσκον με ὡσεὶ κράτιστον. 6 καὶ τὸ ἔλεός σου καταδιώξει με πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς ζωῆς μου, καὶ τὸ κατοικεῖν με ἐν οἴκῳ Κυρίου εἰς μακρότητα ἡμερῶν.

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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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I'm a fan of tying the two together! I wish for Hosannah Shouts every Palm Sunday & tie it to the Palm Sunday Dedication of the Kirtland Temple. Mutual remembrances of Jesus arriving to his Temple that would only add to value of their use in Dedications, pointing back at each other.

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Oh, nice! I hadn't seen that particular essay - I do have Standing Apart - got it when it first came out, and was really excited by it. NAMI's Ancient Christians was the first big thing I saw trying to bring those ideas to a more popular audience in a robust way.

I don't know exactly what's going on. But I think they're experimenting with those locations in Utah right now, and I think next year is going to be big. I think some of the approaches, care, focus, and artistic links applied to Temple ordinance rooms will now begin to be applied to meetinghouses.

While the reverence/awe given is particularly understandable given their beliefs in forms of Transubstantiation/Consubstantiation/Real Presence, our relationship to the Sacrament can be formally elevated without needing to adopt that understanding. This is why news of the revised Chapels excites me.

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I feel holy envy towards many common practices in Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, etc. Some personal devotional ones I incorporate into my own personal observance. But I absolutely feel holy envy for the treatment of the Sacrament/Eucharist.

This is why the book Ancient Christians by the Neal A Maxwell Institute is so radical for us, and also so needed. It tries to connect us to and respect and learn from Ancient Church History instead of diatribing about how Apostate everything Catholic-looking is, or looking for scattered proof-texts.

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