Aimee K
Background
There is a Covenant Christian group that I’ve been participating in since August. The purpose of the group is/was to figure out how to reason together productively and then once we’d done that ask the Lord His part.
The organizer was trying to be as vanilla as possible and stay away from current hot button issues. Start with something easy. In retrospect, the chosen topic was inspired.
The first topic was “Is it OK to dispute?”
We started out (meeting #1) with a decent sized group and during meeting #2 we drew lots to determine who would argue which side of the issue. The first debate (meeting #3) was structured but lackluster. Unfortunately, some people decided to opt out, not even showing up to argue the side they were drawn for. I might be wrong, but at the time it felt like no one had prepared. The arguments both for and against were as compelling as boiled potatoes.
Those of us who weren’t drawn were silent observers.
By the end everyone had said pretty much the same thing and there was no real debate. The organizer sighed and said, “Ok, I guess we’ll just move on to the next topic.”
Although initially hopeful about the group, I was disappointed and was feeling like maybe I ought to just drop out. Why?
I did feel strongly about the topic. But that was mostly because I had dug into it months before and wrote out a blogpost to capture the things I had learned. Writing is how I organize my thoughts and make sense of the world.
Boxed In: Controversy
How does Zion resolve disagreements without imposing authoritarian control? Especially when we can expect that Zion’s inhabitants will come from every corner of the world, culture and religious background.
Boxed In: Controversy
How does Zion resolve disagreements without imposing authoritarian control? Especially when we can expect that Zion’s inhabitants will come from every corner of the world, culture and religious background.
Doing the Work
With continued inspiration the organizer called people (just) me afterwards to see how they I felt about the topic resolution. When she talked to me I answered her honestly; that I didn’t feel like it was resolved at all for me. And I felt pretty passionately against the majority consensus. [Update: the organizer let me know that I was actually the only one she called. I had assumed she called everyone.]
So she let me present an alternate view, which was just a PowerPoint presentation version of the blogpost, Boxed in Controversy.
At the end I asked, “Did I persuade you?” And one person responded flatly, “No” and asked a question that I hadn’t thought about. OK, I’ll need time to think about that. Good point.
But the patience that went into THIS process launched everyone into a real investigation. People came back the next week with scriptural examples of dispute and how it was used. We cross referenced the uses of dispute in the Book of Mormon showing how they were translated into modern language in the Covenant of Christ.
We countered with uses of dispute in the Covenant of Christ translated from the Book of Mormon, showing how most of them came from “contention”.
True to form, I dug into “dispute” again and drafted a second blogpost on the subject.
To Be or not to Be
Pray together in humility and together meekly present your dispute to me, and if you are contrite before me, I will tell you my part.
To Be or not to Be
Pray together in humility and together meekly present your dispute to me, and if you are contrite before me, I will tell you my part.
Armed with the new understanding of the different grammatical forms of dispute we reconvened and identified and color coded all the grammatical forms of dispute in both the Book of Mormon and the Covenant of Christ.
What we thought would be a vanilla topic turned ended up taking SEVEN rounds of debate to work through. By the ninth meeting on Nov 25th we felt like we had all come to a universal consensus and now it was time to ask the Lord His part.
We had planned on offering a formal prayer on December 11th for our 10th meeting. The plan was that we would all fast and come prepared with what we would say and all take turns contributing to the prayer.
I had every intention of writing down my portion of the prayer. I thought about it often.
Mostly I wanted to tell Him about the process we went through, where we landed, and tell Him that I appreciated the process even though it took longer than expected. I appreciated the patience of the organizers. I appreciated the effort everyone put in to researching and preparing, and being gentle as we disagreed and discussed. None of us ended up where we began. Every single one of us changed some part of what we originally believed was the right answer. I would have told Him that we had arrived at common consent and wanted to know His part.
None of this was actually written down until this very moment. But I talked with Him about it when I was alone. Hoping that I’d eventually get around to writing down my prayer.
Plans That Go Awry
Last Saturday evening my boss texted that he would be in town, which means that I would be going with him into the home office in the city. None of my team members are local, so if I were to go into the city everyday for work I would have to walk through downtown San Fransisco alone, in the dark, before the sun comes up. After Covid, the streets aren’t quite the same. They feel more dangerous with drug induced outbursts and aggressive behavior.
So God has been looking out for me. Whenever my boss is in town we always get a good show which reminds him of why he lets me work from home the rest of the time.
However, going into work means I get up at 4:30am to catch the 6am ferry. The ferry is lovely hour-long ride from Vallejo into SF. After that it’s a 15 minute walk from the ferry building to the office. Door to door it’s a 1-hr 45 minute commute — one direction.
Monday I learned that my boss is retiring in two weeks on his 70th birthday. It really ought not have been a surprise. He’s had a countdown timer running. But that timer has been reset and reset again for the last five years. He was my first boss after I graduated BYU and then hired me back again when I jumped back into the workforce, seven babies later. I can’t begrudge him retirement, but I will miss him. So yes, I am distressed over the news.
Then Tuesday I learned that my son who is out of state at college was making bonehead decisions on Sunday night and ended up falling, and potentially broke his foot. He had been sleeping for two days missing classes, was dizzy and sick on top of all else. I had to coordinate a trip to the ER for him with his friend who had no idea whose number was calling/texting.
Within the same hour my #5 child came to me with information that he had pain and burning that had been going on for “some time”. OMG why didn’t you tell me sooner?! I made an appointment for the next day to see the doctor.
THEN…a friend called. And asked if I had seen that Denver Snuffer had a scheduled talk this Friday. The rss notice for Denver’s talk went out from the Restoration Archives on Monday, Dec 8th. I asked if it was part of a conference or something, but no. He decided to give a talk all on his own. She asked if I had any guesses on what it might be.
I don’t know, probably calling us to repentance. I always want to throw myself off a cliff when he does that.
“No, that’s his job. He’s supposed to call us to repentance because we need it.”
Great. Denver is going to call everyone to repentance and now I have that to look forward to. 
And at that point my cortisol went over the top and I started breaking out in hives. My lips, eyes, and face started swelling in a red splotchy mess.
Fan-freaking-tastic. Now I look like Quasimodo on top of everything else. 
The Prayer that Was Not Offered
December 11th rolled around and I was an exhausted mess. Tired from getting up so early for work every morning. I know, boohoo I get to sleep in every other day. Poor me.
I forgot to start my fast but was feeling somewhat better that my children’s needs were addressed. Still… sad that I hadn’t written down my prayer. The kids are both fine, BTW. The redness from breaking out in hives had gone down …but I was still droopy from the swelling.
Everyone else could pray without me. I decided to skip the meeting. I was unprepared.
But then the organizer texted asking where I was. I gave my excuses and she persisted. I finally relented to get on but stayed off camera and just listened.
Key participating members of our group were missing that night. Some sick, some unavailable. Those who were able to attend decided not to offer the prayer and maybe coordinate with everyone at a later date.
OK by me! More time to prepare!
The Lord's Part
Denver Snuffer’s talk that was given on 12 December 2025 was indeed an answer to the prayer we did not formally offer the day before.
Is dispute OK?
Although the Lord’s voice wasn’t formally in the talk Denver gave His intention was certainly there.
And given the timing of the announcement for the talk, the Lord had already impressed upon the mind of His servant the portion that our little group had been seeking.
We did in fact receive the Lord’s Part after all the work that we had done in the body of the talk that I had ironically been dreading.
As for the prayer. It wasn’t offered. But we had all been thinking about what we would say. Independently drawing our hearts out to God toward the culminating finale. We finished our work and without realizing it, the Lord immediately engaged our intention and the prayers in our heart to respond before we could even gather and formalize the prayer.
And so I realize…
God let His part be known before our formalities. But scheduled the answer to come after the prayer that we had planned would have been offered.
…for your Father knows everything you need before you even ask Him.
3 Nephi 5:33 CoC
My Prayer
Father, thank You for hearing the intentions of our heart that has been drawn out to You. Thank-you for the things that we’ve learned during this process. Thank-you for the inspiration that this group was organized at all. Thank-you for the patience and long suffering that You’ve granted as we’ve worked through the “Is it OK to dispute” disagreement. Thank-you for preparing us in advance. Thank-you for revealing the importance of something that was seemingly so simple and silly at the outset. Thank-you for opening our understanding and knitting our hearts together in the process. I love You, and most of all I thank You for being tender with my heart. Although, I do think the hives were unnecessary. 
Thank you for revealing Your Part. You are the best Daddy ever!
This Post Has 2 Comments
I guess I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. Probably because I have the benefit and the curse of being a Covenant Christian of a fellowship of one. I don’t live in Utah. I know very few people there. I’ve tried to follow the drama and controversy but haven’t been very successful. If I wanted to be part of all of this discussion I wouldn’t even know where to begin or why anyone would care what I have to say. It just seems silly that, hundreds of miles away, some microcosm of CCs can’t stop bickering to the point that a public rebuke is necessary. /shrug
Hi Watcher, thanks for your comment. My takeaway from the Perfect Mousetrap was that God inspired Denver to deliver it after THIS otherwise unknown group had concluded our topic of discussion. We did not have expectations of how God might tell us His part. But we have all agreed that this unexpected talk was His way to tell us that He’s been a part of the process from the beginning and found satisfaction in the work that we were willing to undertake. The talk addressed our chosen topic explicitly, and touched on specifics that we discussed, like Ethos, Pathos, Logos, and even Telos in the persuasion process although Denver didn’t refer to them by those names the substance was there. Yes, it was applicable to what has been happening among the women. And perhaps it will soften hearts towards willingness to participate in the conversation. I too am geographically isolated, but I have participated in an online fellowship since 2018 and feel connected, known and loved. You’re welcome to join us! Shoot me an email from the contact page and we can connect.