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The following was from our Stake PEC training this month. It relates directly to the current post about sacrifice, but I want to post it separately for discussion. I have bolded the parts that jumped out at me. Elder M. Russell Ballard said the following in a talk he titled “O Be Wise”:
Quote:The Lord in His infinite wisdom has designed His Church to operate with a lay ministry. That mean we have been charged to watch over one another and to serve one another. We are to love one another as our Father in Heaven and the Lord Jesus Christ love us. Our callings and circumstances change from time to time, providing us with different and unique opportunities to serve and to grow. Most of the leaders and teachers in the Church are anxiously engaged in fulfilling their responsibilities.
Some are less effective than others —it is true; but almost always there is sincere effort to provide meaningful gospel service. Occasionally we find some who become so energetic in their Church service that their lives become unbalanced.
They start believing that the programs they administer are more important than the people they serve. They complicate their service with needless frills and embellishments that occupy too much time, cost too much money, and sap too much energy.They refuse to delegate or to allow others to grow in their respective responsibilities. Elder Ballard then listed six things we need to do in order to serve wisely and well:
Quote:1) Focus on people and principles—not on programs;
2) Be innovative (which he explained does NOT include embellishment, complication or expansion but often means to simplify);
3) Delegate;
4)
Do not use guilt as a way to motivate; 5)
Thoughtfully allocate time, income and energy; 6) Extend appropriate responsibility to members and recent converts.
The High Councilor then quoted Pres. Uchtdorf in his recent talk about being the Lord’s hands:
Quote:Our Hands Can Comfort.With this in mind, let our hearts and hands be stretched out in compassion toward others, for everyone is walking his or her own difficult path. He then quoted Elder Wirthlin’s “Concern for the One” and focused on the part about valuing those who are different.
It was wonderful training.
Great ideas to teach at at training meeting. Quote:They complicate their service with needless frills and embellishments that occupy too much time, cost too much money, and sap too much energy.
If I can comment on this, one thing that threw me in my last calling was how our Bishop interpreted this, and levelled it at one of my initiatives.
We had a ward that was an “overgrown thicket”. The records had been neglected for some time so they were all inaccurate. There had been some effort to reach out to people, and find out where they stood as far as the church went, whether they wanted a home teacher, etcetera.
I found a way of using our data to create a database that provided a code for each member that indicated the level of contact they wanted from the Church. It also provided a comment indicating who had visited the person last and when. It was a huge boon to my sense of order and knowing about my stewardship. I was able to run lists, etcetera.
I pulled an all-nighter in the beginning to set it up, and get it updated with all the various scattered meeting notes and other paper-based data we had on these people, until finally I was able to run a report that shows the percent of the people in my stewardship who were wiling to accept home teachers, who had written a name-removal letter, which records were people we’d tried to move out but who were sent back to us by Salt Lake, etecetera. And yes, there were people who wanted only a letter, or no contact. It also highlighted people about who I knew nothing, and needed to visit each month with a welcome packet. I was able to run mailing labels and send letters to the people who wanted not contact, but said a letter would be fine. it required about an hour of maintenance monthly.
Our Bishop quoted the quotation above, and cited my database as a case in point of embellisments that were too time consuming etcetera. I can’t tell you how demoralized I felt about this. Here I felt I was only doing what any good shepherd would do — figure out who was in my stewardship, and what level of contact they wanted. It provided structure and helped me feel in control — and satisifed myself I had at least done the minimum.
So, when I read that statement above — that’s what I think….
This was another reason I eventually quit.
SD, I see your initiative as following the counsel to simplify and serve. I would have been ecstatic if a leader had presented something like that to me. Interesting how different people can interpret the same thing radically differently.
As usual, there’s a great lesson in there for lots of things.
Yeah, that sounds really cool SD! Seriously. C/P’d to share. Great stuff.
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