The purposes of our meetings

I agree with most of this. I believe the quorum meetings should be based on fellowship and working together, however, it’s usually a lesson, and that’s the expectation. Personally, it wouldn’t bother me if it was almost like a planning and execution meeting. When HPGL, I did this once a month — the planning, and sometimes review meeting. No one minded — not even our HC. HOwever, I’ve heard some people complain that one is deviating from the lesson schedule when one does this in other wards. Personally, I think PH meeting is the best meeting for connecting with the brethren, building relationships, planning work of the quorum. Too often, it’s expected to do it outside of the 3-hour block, where only the committed brethren want to actually participate.

Second, for Sunday school, as a teacher and former Teaching the Gospel Course instructor, I think we should strive to augment our teaching techniques — well beyond lecture and discussion. If you check Teaching, No Greater Call, you find there are a TON of other methods that are even more effective.

Regarding Sacrament meeting — I guess I can live with Worship — I feel reluctant about that one only because the way we do it has become synonymous with unstimulating. Some different and “appropriate” (hate to use that word) approaches to worship would be much appreciated in that meeting — or, simply reduce it to taking the sacrament and then go to the other two meetings. I’d love that.

Now my brain is running in overdrive about all the missed opportunities and ways we could REALLY improve our meetings. As Katzpur said, it may well take 50 years….

The best ward I served in did not put much effort into reactivation until the person showed desire — by coming to Church, standing up in fast and testimony meetings, etcetera. The less active member had to make the first move (this was implicit, based on my observations about the leaders’ lack of motivation or desire to beat their heads against the reactivation wall).

But this Ward DID focus on making their programs GOOD. Church was always spiritual, talks well-prepared, Scouts was humming along with a ton of good things happening, youth program had heavy BPric involvement….imagine that, making Church a good, quality experience as an area of focus! That activated us (we entered the Ward as unknowns with uncertain commitment) and left the Ward having served in the Bishopric an leadership positions after I had just experienced 7 years of less-activity.

If you look at this from a business standpoint (as the Church is prone to do in so many other areas, like finances), you can see that GOOD OPERATIONS does a lot to attract new customers. I haven’t seen much iPad copy/advertising out there, but I read and hear about it all the time because it’s such a favored product among consumers. The number of times I’ve thought about buying one simply because someone showed me theirs, I read a review that popped up, or someone wrote an article about it, is astounding. No one ever called me trying to pitch it to me or ask my why I didn’t have one — the quality of the product speaks for itself. I think our Ward programs need to adopt a similar approach recognizing we are also working with volunteers.

This commitment to quality, or what the “customer” thinks is totally missing from many Wards, who think you can create a substandard Sunday experience and compensate by sending your most committed members out on sales calls to promote the weak product to people who have tried it and decided they don’t like it. Doesn’t make sense to me.

By the way, this Ward I’m talking about was full of people who had shown uncommon talent and hardworkingness and tremendous success in life, but also had remarkable humility and kindness. So, their lack of interest in hard-sell activation efforts was not due to laziness — it was a conscious choice about where one should be putting their efforts to get the most results.

I agree wholeheartedly. My son curls up on the floor and sleeps through sacrament. I’m a full-time teacher and I assess incoming teachers for their possible effectiveness in the classroom. It’s a foregone conclusion that one-way communication lecture is NOT the way to go. If they stand up there and blabber at us for 20 minutes, they always get coaching on how to do it better.

People want to be involved, to discuss etcetera. The only real exception is when you have someone with a lot of speaking talent who is gifted in uplifting everyone.