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This is probably more therapeutic than anything else as making change like this is difficult from a grass roots level. But I have often wondered how we might redesign church to make it more interesting. We violate the principles of “engagement” that good teachers use all the time in the structural design of our church experience on Sunday. We use one-way communication in Sacrament meeting. We create meetings that are absolute torment for young children because they are not “age appropriate”. We hold the 3 hour block format “sacred” (at the least, the local leaders do), not allowing any changes to it, and even holding it up as the be-all, end-all approach to the Sunday experience — inviolate, with strict rules that prevent any local modification of the meetings — even with the goal of finding a better way. It’s long. Many people complain about the three hours worth of meetings.
Other than reducing it to two hours (something I’ve heard over and over again on this forum), how might you alter the Sunday experience to make it more interesting and engaging?
As a father of two young children my pet peeve is the primary. There is significant emphasis on teaching them songs and having them do memorization. I do appreciate that some of the songs allow for some movement – but even then we are cautioned against movements that might make noise and disturb the administrative offices below us. The sharing time lessons may not be age appropriate especially if there is not a split between junior primary and senior primary. Even the lessons in the manual for the classes do not seem very age appropriate and could use significant improvement for ideas and crafts and object lessons to engage the youngsters.
Beyond that there does not seem to be anything for the kids to do outside of church until the kids turn roughly scouting age.
Of all the churches where we have visited/participated, the LDS is perhaps the least appealing to children under age 10 (except the JW’s – also not very child friendly).
Ironically, many of my answers can be summed up in the current leadership focus: make Sunday more worshipful and engaging. There are a lot of cultural things I would change, but I am more hesitant to make sweeping organizational changes – for one simple reason: I like to remember the law of unintended consequences whenever this sort of disucssion occurs – like the effect of shortening the time members can spend together (by eliminating a meeting on Sunday or scrapping HT/VT, for example) on the members who need association and communal time the most (like widows, new converts, the only members of their families, the abused at home, etc.). Many of the things we might like to eliminate are the things that constitute lifelines for others.
I would rather do what we do much better than eliminate them because they don’t work for us.
I absolutely would open the doors for more involvement by women. I think Elder Oaks’ April 2014 General Conference talk on the Priesthood set the stage for that to happen, albeit more gradually than many people would like.
1) I would first implement some kind of measurement/sampling process where members rate the extent to which they feel the Spirit, and feel church is worthwhile for them. Each Ward or Stake gets a quarterly report and is given resources for improving the quality of the experience on Sundays. They are also free to implement their own methods. One question on the member engagement survey might be “I routinely feel bored at church” which people respond to one a five-point Likert scale ranging from Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree, Strongly Agree. 2) I would let people opt-in to speaking, teaching etcetera. Rather than conscripting people who don’t like it and often, aren’t good at it, and feel no passion for it, I would work with the people who like doing it. I’d resort to near-conscription (which is our system of calls and releases on leaders’ own timelines) only when we didn’t have enough people who wanted to do it.
3) I’d run web-based training in gospel teaching and self-paced courses so interested people can grow as a teacher and speaker.
4) I’d implement itinerant, guest teachers and speakers — people who are gifted at it in the Stake and would like to go around to different Wards speaking and teaching. This would give teachers a break, provide variety, and improve quality. Kind of like High Councilors do, but in SS and PH/RS and Youth classes.
5) Naturally, I’d cut church to two hours. I’d cut out the Sacrament talks and go straight to Sunday School and Priesthood/RS after announcements, sustaining and the sacrament, but allow for Ward-wide meetings when local leaders consider it necessary for communication or administrative reasons.
6) I’d require some kind of training for new teachers, probably online or on a stake basis that teaches them how to make their classes engaging with panel discussions, interactive lessons, group work, skits, videos and other things.
7) I’d publish the topics and agenda of Stake meetings before the meetings. Weak attendance gives the leaders some indication their topics were duds.
I’d phase out home teaching except for families who request it. Families would have to specifically request a home teacher or visiting teaching. And then, I would assign HT/VT only to brethren/sistern who are willing to do it. If demand outstripped supply of HT/VT, I would then ask people to be HT/VT. I would measure best efforts to visit these families, and stop making everyone feel like a failure when they tried to visit people and get rejected. If we could even just adopt the RS method of reporting contacts and visits, that would be better.I would allow local leaders to ask people to visit less active people who want home teachers. No more involuntary, forcing of the program on people. It would be a voluntary program driven by expressed need/desire on the part of the families in the Ward.
9) I would increase the amount of musical selections, and broaden the range of instruments allowed in sacrament meeting, and go beyond hymns to popular LDS music that has the right feel and message to invoke the Spirit. Most members don’t know that guitars and flutes and other instruments are allowed.
10) I’d provide the Ward with a list of musicians/groups in the stake they can call on, and invite to perform in their sacrament meeting (shortened, with no talks), or even come to SS/RS/PH/Youth/Primary or combined meetings.
Then I might feel interested in coming to church again
For me the number one thing I would change is how we teach and call teachers. Like you said often teachers hate their calling and so the class suffers. Call only those who are interested (myself included)and you will have better classes. Now on to the manuals, they’ve not been updated in forever and teachers often just read out of them (cough rs cough ). I don’t know how to change them, but do we’re tired of hearing the same stuff every four years. I really dislike the teach ing of the president’s manuals but I think some of that is the teachers.
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