Elders of the church are allowed to conduct all meetings as they feel guided by the Spirit but the Lord sets out some ground rules for various types of meetings. If a leader feels the spirit is telling them to do something contradictory to those rules it isn’t the Spirit of God.
- Public meetings
- Don’t cast anyone out of the meeting.
- These are described as meetings held before the world.
- I would assume this would be General Conference but perhaps stake conferences and regional conferences would also count. Other possibilities might include public groundbreakings.
- Sacrament meetings
- Nobody who belongs to the church should be cast out, nor should anyone who is earnestly seeking the kingdom. (That would include investigators but also non-antagonistic visitors even if they aren’t considering membership.)
- It is acceptable to prevent someone from taking the sacrament if it is known to the leaders that they have trespassed. Notice that this doesn’t say “deny the sacrament to anyone who isn’t a member” which I believed as a child.
- Confirmation meetings
- We don’t generally have independent confirmation meetings anymore—confirmations are generally performed at baptisms or in sacrament meeting but in either case any who are earnestly seeking the kingdom are not to be cast out of the meeting.
Also, do all things with prayer and thanksgiving in order to avoid being deceived either by the doctrines of men or the doctrine of devils. Also to about deception seek earnestly the best gifts while remembering why those gifts are given (they are given to edify and draw people to Christ, not to make a spectacle).
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