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Someone I trust in the media world who would know said today there no longer will be a First Presidency message in the Ensign, and Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching no longer will include such a message. I think this is a relatively small but important change – but I think it is bigger than most members will realize.
I found the official announcement – at the end of the message. The message is orthodox, so some of you might want to skip it.
https://www.lds.org/ensign/2018/04/as-we-go-forward-together?lang=eng Interesting. I’m all for it and I haven’t used the FP message in HT in years. I think the “checkbox” HTs/VTs will be the ones who take issue with it – but that’s why I see it as a positive step. I won’t really miss it. Long overdue. I love that my favorite Uchtdorf picture is in there. I call it his praying picture, “Lord – I tried my best. Don’t let them screw it up to bad.”
I have heard some scuttlebutt about a coming revamping of the HT/VT program with more focus on ministering. Because I have seen more emphasis on ministering in the past couple years, I can believe the scuttlebutt – but I’ll believe when I see it. And I’m not optimistic enough to believe the change will be major enough that it will eliminate checkboxes. What do you think is the rationale for getting rid of it? I have a theory, but I haven’t used the VT message for years when I minister to my sisters. Mostly because I rarely found something to be passionate in talking about those specific quotes and I didn’t feel that it met the needs of my sisters. [But then, I am very poor at “checking check boxes” without heart. I would much rather figure out/judge what the spirit of the principle is and apply it than just obediently follow laws – though I am good at and love following laws once I understand why they are in place and what the principle is.]
I think that the leaders are realizing that their metrics were not working and were really depressing, so they went back to revise the metrics – and then took the next step by throwing out the message as well. I also think that between the advent of social media making information more accessible, and the increased diversity of family life, that the brethren realized that there were fewer “one-size-fits-all” moments, and that HT wasn’t one of them.
SilentDawning wrote:
What do you think is the rationale for getting rid of it?
I think they want us to minister, to take care of each other’s needs. I think that was the intent of home teaching to begin with and I think the message and subsequent checkbox (“Yep, I visited them”) got in the way, although I don’t think that was an intended consequence. Like the new priesthood/RS curriculum, I think this is a shift that many will have a hard time with. If my HT were to come (I honestly don’t care that he doesn’t) I full well expect he’d come with his own made up message from his favorite conference talk or scripture or something like that, if only because he doesn’t recognize the shift. That’s partly a training problem. I think they made the curriculum change pretty simple – yet I have seen few discussions in PH, they are mostly still the same old read the talk format with a teacher “teaching” instead of someone leading a discussion. In the case of home teaching, there has been less direction – no FP message but no direction as to what to do other than what they have been saying for some time, which is to take care of people’s needs. Maybe we’ll get something at GC.
And I think they have a huge dilemma. I think they’d love to get rid of reporting the numbers (‘Yep, I visited them”) but at the same time I think they want (and maybe need) to know that the needs are being taken care of or at least someone is aware of them.
SilentDawning wrote:
What do you think is the rationale for getting rid of it?
Correlation is impersonal and counter-productive…
Farewell, First Presidency Message We Hardly Knew Ye
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