Shaming people that find church boring

It is a bit ironic that I am reading this during gospel doctrine

Last Sunday PH was reading a talk from this most recent general conference (a week after it was given). Two people took turns reading the talk from beginning to end, reading a third of it at a time. No pauses for questions or comments, just a straight reading involving only two people out of the entire quorum, then class dismissed.

In the spirit of “lord is it I?” shame on me for finding that boring or for not interrupting and forcibly interjecting an unsolicited comment or two but at what point do we start shaming lazy teachers (or curriculum writers for that matter) for phoning it in? 😈

Last Sunday I listened to three great, thought-provoking talks in sacrament meeting, and the rest of the lessons were not. About par – or better? – for the course.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/Eh4iQOn.png[/img]

Look, I get where they’re going, it’s just that I could do without all the shaming.

The graphic speaks volumes, unfortunately. I am sick to death of this fallback position: If you disagree or want something different, you don’t love Jesus Christ. How about the second head saying something like, This talk is boring. I wonder how Bro. Smith’s wife is doing? Or, this talk is boring. Let me find that scripture that just came into my head. But so often, we get this … what is it? Passive-aggressiveness? I don’t really know psychology. All I can say is that I am impervious to what feels like nothing more than a tactic.

Take a look at General Authorities… have you ever noticed how they all speak the same? Using the same inflections, the same wording, quoting a third source, sharing personal stories… They learned that. There are courses and books out there which tell them EXACTLY how to speak, because those methods have been proven to be effective. That’s not to say they don’t speak with the full intention of being led by the Spirit, or speak genuinely for our welfare. But I have no doubt many of them are in there position, while others of just as noble of Spirit are not, largely because they learned how to speak, influence, and persuade.

What I don’t understand about this is that I think the GAs are modeling for us (and I think they think that too) but so many people don’t get it. One of my first talks after returning to church someone came up to me afterward and said something like “That was just like a talk we’d hear in General Conference.” In my mind I said “And your point is…?” Out loud I just said thank you. Since then I do occasionally make note that I follow the pattern set by our leaders in the way I write and deliver my talks. It seems to matter little.

I think it’s partly valid to say that our attitude makes us more or less bored, but there are two other factors that contribute: 1) some speakers and teachers are totally phoning it in, and the manuals and assigning people to talk about talks or the same topics we’ve heard 50,000 times isn’t helping, nor is the injunction against using any outside sources–it’s practically a recipe for boredom, and 2) not every talk is for everyone. Sometimes the person who totally “gets” it has personal reasons that the talk resonates for them, and the one who finds it boring, well, that’s fine. Different things appeal to different people.

When Pres. Uchtdorf quotes “Can ye feel so now?” it’s something I have often thought about, and the answer sometimes is “No, I can’t feel so right now.” We have ups and downs and our interest waxes and wanes in the church. Sometimes I simply can’t muster the enthusiasm and other times the ward can almost do no wrong. But I feel generally good about anything regarding the teachings of Jesus. That’s just not what we are talking about 90% of the time and often when we are the insights are cliche and not very thought-provoking.

I didn’t mean to make this about criticizing people for giving bad talks, I was thinking more along the lines of it being perfectly okay to be bored. We can’t be “on” 100% of the time. hawkgrrrl said it better.

Here are some additional, contradictory thoughts:

Think of the children. I don’t know how it is in other places but I know a lot of kids in my ward that absolutely hate going to church and cite how boring it is, I also know some kids that absolutely love church. They attend the same classes. Rather than criticize their attitude is there something that can be done for the children that find church boring? Probably.

It’s like taking your family to a seafood restaurant. Some people hate seafood and aren’t going to like it, other people love seafood and will enjoy themselves. Would we tell the people that don’t like seafood that they just need an attitude adjustment? You can’t please all the people all the time. Maybe the family members that don’t like seafood can order the grilled cheese off the kid’s menu and they’re fine for a day… but the family always goes back to that same seafood restaurant every week and some family members are getting to the point where they’d rather stay home than go to the seafood restaurant again.

Take a look at General Authorities… have you ever noticed how they all speak the same? Using the same inflections, the same wording, quoting a third source, sharing personal stories…

Yeah. That’s what makes it boring. Different people respond to things differently.

GAs operate on a completely different plane of existence than the person that gives a talk during sacrament meeting.

1) They are a general authority. People are already on the edge of their seat to listen to them speak. They could be the most boring person in the room but people will pay attention, take notes, and remind other members about their counsel during classes for several Sundays to come. It can come back to our attitude. What if we gave that same level of reverence to the beehive that speaks during sacrament meeting? Can you imagine someone in priesthood saying, “Like Sister Abeja said in her talk two Sundays ago, we should…” BTW, occasionally I’ll hear that.

2) GAs don’t tend to do this during general conference but when they speak locally they often stick to telling stories about their exploits ministering to saints all around the globe. That interests people. Meanwhile the only thing us locals have is, “One time when my family when to Six Flags…” 🙂

3) Again, a local speaking phenomenon. GAs have got the inside track. What dirt are they going to dish? What deep doctrine will they reveal? What did they learn from Monson during their private meetings with him? Will there be a big announcement? That’s some real edge of seat goodness.

4) I was joking earlier but GAs can be just as boring. Not to pick on you DJ (this is me telling another bad joke) my first indication that I gave a bad talk is usually when people come up to me afterwards to tell me how good it was. 🙂 Yeah, some people really are that insecure. :angel:

5) You get a lot more practice when you give two talks per week as opposed to one talk every two years.

We have a bit of a celebrity culture thing going at church. It’s understandable, we’re human. Some people are dying to know what Rachael Ray made for breakfast but when I e-mail all my friends to tell them what I made for breakfast they put me in their spam filter. It’s what I call the Elisha and Elisha’s messenger effect. People might care about GAs more than the people sitting next to them in Sunday school even though they are saying the same thing. Again, this goes toward your comment about it being an attitude thing. Treat everyone like a GA. Treat a GA like everyone.

For those who are interested, I threw this into a blog post this morning: https://bycommonconsent.com/2016/10/17/when-church-is-boring/#more-83179