Nondenominational Mormonism

Establishing a church quorum with at least six people including an elder to administer the sacraments and ordinances.

Friends and family: This is a letter that I sent to my brother-in-law Dan.  It covers some issues that I think are important for all of us. --Mark Thomase

28 May 2000

Dear Dan:

Mark Thomase here.  Congratulations on your new baby girl!

Being a good brother-in-law, I thought I’d offer some nice unsolicited advice.  These are mostly some issues that I’ve been pondering for a while, and the new addition to your family is the first good excuse I’ve had to put them into writing.

I’ve been doing some thinking about the sacraments and ordinances.  Too often, I see people disconnect from the Church -- either the LDS Church or the RLDS Church or virtually anything else -- and in so doing disconnect from the sacraments and ordinances.  I myself was in this state five years ago.  I had stopped going to the RLDS Church and was only going to the 2nd Ward here occasionally.  Michelle was going to turn eight years old that summer, the time when she should be baptized. 

For some refugees from Mormonism, this wouldn’t be important.  They’d either turn the kid over to the bishop to be baptized or else they wouldn’t do it at all, letting the kid make his/her own choice when he/she got older. 

In my spirit, neither of those choices were an option.  Michelle had come to Christ and wanted to be baptized, and I began to study and reflect on why the Lord had given us the ordinances.  I came to find that there is a very real impartation of divine blessing associated with the earthly forms we call the sacraments and ordinances.   In the New Testament, they’re always associated with the special ministry of Christ, the apostles, the seventy, the seven, and the elders they ordained.  In other words, as the priesthood ministry went forth doing the works of Christ, they performed the sacraments and ordinances!  And I, the father, am designed to be the primary conduit of heavenly blessing to my children. 

So how could I minister these blessings to my children, apart from the established LDS and RLDS Churches?

About this time some old friends of ours quit going to the LDS Church.  There was some bitterness there, and as we met together someone, I don’t even remember who, suggested we meet together for study.  That began one of the most exciting summers of my life.  We sang a few hymns and spiritual songs and almost immediately we were worshipping the Lord in a way that was far deeper than I’d ever experienced in a Mormon meeting.  We alternated our meeting spot between their home and ours.  We took turns teaching and had some of the deepest Bible and Book of Mormon studies I’ve ever participated in. And we prayed for each other, and saw bonds of depression and generational curses fall off, as well as physical healings.

One of the things we learned is that the priesthood is eternal, but the earthly Church is not. The priesthood was established on this earth before the Church;  in fact, the Church was established by and through the Priesthood.  The Church does not control the priesthood because it cannot;  on the contrary, the priesthood should govern the Church. That meant that even though we were apart from the Church (meaning the organization), that we still had the full power of the Priesthood.  In fact, we were the Church!

The Articles of Faith and Practice of the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) say it very well: “We believe that where there are six or more regularly baptized members, one of whom is an elder, there the Church exists with full power of church extension when acting in harmony with the law of God.”

These words immediately resonated within our spirits as being true.  In fact, they resonated within God’s heart the same way, because in 1927 he sent an angel to a high priest in the Temple Lot Church, and the first thing the angel said was, “Don’t change the Articles of Faith and Practice, because the Lord inspired the men that wrote them.” There, sitting in the living room, were two families.  Excluding small children there were six baptized members.  Two of us held the Melchizedek Priesthood.  There, the Church existed with full power of church extension -- meaning we had the power right there to extend the work of the Church!

We began a program of missionary work and before the end of the summer we had four families meeting together.  We began carefully to perform the ordinances and sacraments in our meetings, beginning with the sacrament of communion of bread and wine.  On the Saturday before Labor Day we celebrated four baptisms, including Michelle’s, in an irrigation canal not far from one of our meeting places.  Confirmations took place later that same day.  Some time later, even after the group broke up, we came together to celebrate the wedding of one of the members of the group, a single mom.  It was one of the great honors of my life to be asked to officiate at this ceremony.

Where there are six regularly baptized members, one of whom is an elder, there the Church exists with full power of church extension.  It doesn’t say you have to be in a big brick meetinghouse.  It doesn’t say you have to have permission from your bishop.  If God is calling you to do something -- do it!

As we studied we came to the conclusion that we had the authority to perform any of the priesthood ordinances and sacraments.  Exception:  patriarchal blessings, and that only because none of us was a patriarch.  We even had a couple of people called to the priesthood, even though the ordinations never took place because the group broke up. But if we could call together six baptized members, one of whom is an elder, we would have that authority. 

We even have the authority to perform the ordinances of the temple.  We considered baptisms for the dead in that irrigation canal.  I have no doubt that we could legally perform anointings and sealings.  To quote John Taylor:

I was asked if certain ordinances could be performed in different places.  I told them, yes, under certain circumstances.  “Where?”  I was asked--”Anywhere besides in temples?”  Yes.  “Anywhere besides the Endowment House?”  Yes.  “Where, in some other house?”  In another house or out of doors, as the circumstances might be. * * * It is the authority of the Priesthood, not the place, that validates and sanctifies the ordinance.  I was asked if people could be sealed outside. Yes.  I could have told them I was sealed outside, and lots of others. (JD 25:355)

This means, Dan, that you can bless and name your new baby at home, without involving the institutional Church, unless, of course, you want to.  It means that when the time comes for Heather to be baptized or Ben to receive a priesthood office, all you need to do is call together family and friends and do it!

This means a return to 1st-Century Christianity.  Those early saints did not have meetinghouses and temples.  Their religion was focused on Christ, not His Church, and it took place in families and in small gatherings:  certainly seldom more than you could fit into a living room or back yard. 

Many prophetic people have foreseen a time when, due to persecution, apostasy, and/or economic and natural calamity, we won’t be able to meet in fine meetinghouses anyway. The Church will be underground.  It will meet in living rooms and the ordinances will have to be done in small settings.  We need to start preparing for this now!

God bless you and your family during this exciting time!

--Mark