The story of the unification of the peoples of Mosiah, Alma, and Limhi does a contrast between the desire and value for unity and the strength and necessity of redundant parts of the whole. All the people unified under the banner of a single king and a single name. They also unified under a single belief system as taught and lead by Alma. At the same time, Alma broke the church into several redundant units last any be to large to be manageable in the Lord’s individualized way of doing things.
We have the same thing today with wards operating independently within a stake and stakes operating independently within their sphere – only seeking input from higher authority in isolated instances.
More and more we are also being judged toward family-level independence. Our leaders understand that each family needs as much as possible to be able to stand independently in living and teaching the gospel. As families we will need to learn to operate independently while keeping ourselves consistent with the universal gospel principles that bind us together and bind us to Christ.
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