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Melody Warnick is an author and freelance journalist living in Blacksburg, Virginia. Her book, This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are, investigates and experiments with the sense of connection that binds some of us to our cities and increases our physical and emotional well-being. Melody lives in Blacksburg, Virginia, where her husband serves as a stake president.
Highlights
5:30 Serving in Melody’s stake in Virginia 8:20 How the book came about 10:50 Experiments in loving where you live: micro-action steps you can intentionally take to create positive experiences for yourself 18:45 Applying these principles to wards and stakes
- 19:20 Creating a community based on geography creates a situation where we can practice being more Christlike
- 21:50 Benefits of “instant community” in the ward, as compared to moving for people not in the Church tribe: familiarity and similarity
25:45 When you struggle fitting into the community
- 26:25 Leaders need to pay attention to these people
- 27:30 The more engaged you are, the more you will feel at home
- 28:30 Everyone can feel left out or like they don’t fit in
- 30:10 Being proactive can have a big impact
34:00 Serving in callings and outside of callings: have a personal ministry from a desire to be of service
- 37:35 Taking your talent to the community
41:30 Do we have to participate in the Church community?
- 43:30 It can be easier to socialize with Church members
46:10 Serving in a Church community within the larger community
- 50:55 Being the mayor of your street: building social cohesion in your neighborhood
54:40 Cliques and community: creating horseshoes, not circles 59:00 Detaching from your ward and going forward: moving or changing callings 1:07:00 Choosing to live near family… or not 1:13:00 Finding joy wherever you live 1:15:00 Two-hour church and missing connections: You don’t have to ask permission to create community 1:17:45 Asking, “Where are we needed?” 1:20:00 Building relationships with people and finding ways to serve them is key to living a Christlike life
Links
melodywarnick.com This is Where You Belong, by Melody Warnick
Please, if you haven’t already, revisit the whole “social cliques just might be good” idea that was touched on in this podcast. As a military wife, I’ve lived in fifteen wards in twenty-five years, and in my experience it’s a big problem in our church culture. A big, huge, hairy problem. However, it’s a great idea to address in an upcoming podcast!