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Is there another discussion forum for this already in place? I was thumbing through my copy of the manual…and comparing it to the SS teacher manual…how did we miss that not every CFMfHF will have a corresponding lesson on Sunday (except for primary kids)?
The CFM for H&F manual has weekly lessons.
The adult SS manual has weekly lessons.
We only have SS at church 2 Sundays a month.
I don’t know why, but that rubs me the wrong way…especially since we are spending the other half of our Sunday time going over hand-picked GC talks on Sunday. I dread those lessons.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I once met with a wonderful group of women each week and we read through and discussed every GC talk. The insights, the discussion, the friendships, the spirit of those meetings were more beneficial to us than 3 hours of church on Sunday. I miss those days. But regurgitating the GC talks in RS is horrible. Regurgitating them over the pulpit on Sunday is horrible.
Since my husband is bishop, I have pleaded with him to stop handing out talk assignments with the “please reference this GC talk” note. We will see how successful I am with my campaign.
I think that at least for me, I miss the days of having to research my SM topic. I miss studying the assignment and making it my own. Those are the days that I experienced the most growth.
What if our members had to do their own research again?
How would that change the trajectory of the Church?
Also – – – remember the book “1984?”
Remember how everything that was written down had to be put into the little slots that were tucked into every wall? Nothing printed must be kept. At the end of 2018, each ward will receive instruction on which items to destroy. We will be putting our printed material into the little slots and letting it get sucked to the furnace.
Why?
Why do we have to destroy these things?
Are we in the George Orwellian time of erasing history so that it can’t be proven later on?
You know, we don’t have to do our own thinking anymore…just read the GC talks over the pulpit and put a personal story in there and we are done.
If we all talk the same, and think the same, and walk the same…is that Zion or something else, ya know?
QuestionAbound wrote:
Also – – – remember the book “1984?”Remember how everything that was written down had to be put into the little slots that were tucked into every wall? Nothing printed must be kept. At the end of 2018, each ward will receive instruction on which items to destroy. We will be putting our printed material into the little slots and letting it get sucked to the furnace.
Why?
Why do we have to destroy these things?
Are we in the George Orwellian time of erasing history so that it can’t be proven later on?
You know, we don’t have to do our own thinking anymore…just read the GC talks over the pulpit and put a personal story in there and we are done.
If we all talk the same, and think the same, and walk the same…is that Zion or something else, ya know?
I think just about all organizations take similar Orwellian steps to maintain their power.
-Doublespeak
-Doublethink
-Memory Holes
-Thoughtcrime
-Goodthink
-Crimestop
-Unperson
The Church has their variations of all of these, but in fairness so do most Chuches, businesses, nations, and other groups. It’s not the first time, nor will it be the last when we “burn books”. It’s going to be a little tougher, with the internet keeping an eternal record of everything. But in practice it does keep things a little more consistant, if folks aren’t bringing up questions like “Why were those who married a non-member considered unworthy for a temple recommend?”, “Why aren’t blacks and whites allowed to get married?”, “What’s with the Adam-God doctrine?”, etc, etc. We abandon and change doctrine, but try to maintain the illusion of consistancy. After all, we have the exact same Church as Adam and Eve did.
I’m a bit hesitant to say this… and mean no offense… but I do think the Church places conformity and compliance over free-thought. Keep in mind, half of the TR interview questions have nothing to do with “sins” and everything to do with “correctness of belief”.
I do think it interesting that there are weekly reading “assignments” but SS is every other week. All I’ve heard local leaders say is that SS teachers will be doing two weeks of readings in one lesson. If the goal really is home centered, church supported (and I think it is) this make perfect sense. You do your study at home either individually or as families and have discussions at home (or with a group of like minded people) if you like. Every other week we get together for 50 minutes and discuss what we have learned in SS. In my view, that is church supported, not church centered. The common study topics/scriptures are primarily for ease of discussion, sort of like a book club – it could get unwieldy if we’re all reading and trying to discuss different things. This is interesting to me because literally the week before Conference when this was announced I was conversing with a friend who said he thought his job as a parent was to support what was being taught his kids in Primary and I told him then he had it exactly backwards. I think that’s the tradition we’re up against. I think the new curriculum is much closer to what Joseph envisioned where we learn and understand for ourselves as opposed to being “taught” a correlated curriculum (although clearly the correlated part is not totally gone). Of course, the other thing I find interesting is the PH/RS every other week thing. I have long been a fan of the idea of a two hour block and I am indeed overjoyed. I literally smile every time I think about it (just like the emoji).
Here’s the thing about those GC talks and lessons and SM talks. I’m going to be my blunt self (feel the power of the dark side
😈 ). Most people don’t do it right. Neither the lessons nor SM talks are meant to be regurgitations or recitations of those talks. They are references for research and discussion, not the talk/lesson itself. All of my HC talks (6-7 per year in my stake) have such reference talks, usually two per assignment. I rarely quote more than a paragraph, and about a quarter of the time I don’t quote them at all. They are the impetus for the research, not the research itself (although they can be part of the research just like any other talk). The same is true for lessons. I think what we’re really meant to do is take the point (or a point) from those talks and have a meaningful discussion about that point. It’s really pretty simple. I have told my own EQP that I will walk out of a lesson if we start reading through a talk and his response was that he’d do the same if he could. I have not had to walk out of a lesson yet.Please don’t take any of this personally, it’s not meant that way. (Stepping off soapbox.)
QuestionAbound wrote:
If we all talk the same, and think the same, and walk the same…is that Zion or something else, ya know?
It doesn’t necessarily mean were correlated but that we’ve missed the point or as DJ pointed out, we’ve not done it right. I’ve had enough bad sacrament talks and EQ lessons that were just regurgitations to last me a lifetime. But every so often someone takes the time and effort to craft something that’s worthwhile, like happened in our SM yesterday, and I was glad I came and stayed awake. Let’s face it, we’re a do it yourself church and what shows up any given Sunday is what we get. I’m fine with correlation as long as it doesn’t mean publicly swearing fealty to JS and polygamy, multiple first vision narratives, BoA, etc. as long as what counts are the first and second great commandments. I’ve had one foot out the door for awhile now, but it has more to do with history stuff than with good people trying to do their best.I also think one of the challenges with the church changes is how to keep some continuity among the membership. As we move toward the church support model we are going to find some gaping holes. For 150 years we have been spoon fed. We have walked and talked the same. This is a great first step to moving away from the lemmingness that became the standard. As for regurgitations – I get why they happen. I don’t like them but I get it. None of us signs up to speak in church. We get called/told to. General Conference talks became a 90’s fall back and standard. I don’t think it it was intended to be a rehash, just some source material. The sooner individuals model something different, the better off we will be. You can be one of those. Create talks, ask your husband if you can speak quarterly or every six months. It could be very refreshing for the ward.
If the conversation comes up again with your husband, tell him there are Bishops and Stake Presidents who give talk assignments by topic title, not GC suggestions. My Bishop and SP both do it that way – they are both in their 40’s.
I can’t wait to watch SS try to cram 2 lessons in each 50 min event. We haven’t been able to finish a book of scripture properly on the old style. This could be fun.
mom3 wrote:If the conversation comes up again with your husband, tell him there are Bishops and Stake Presidents who give talk assignments by topic title, not GC suggestions. My Bishop and SP both do it that way – they are both in their 40’s.
I can’t wait to watch SS try to cram 2 lessons in each 50 min event. We haven’t been able to finish a book of scripture properly on the old style. This could be fun.
My SP is like that as well. He’ll give a topic like “Coming closer to Christ by attending the temple” and then give a couple reference talks. He is also in his 40s. It’s been a while since I’ve been asked to speak in SM not as a HC, but my bishop does strive to have Christ centered talks and we rarely get the regurgitation so they must be ding something right (and I know our SP constantly talks to them about Christ centered meetings).
To the second point, I agree, there will be a learning curve for most teachers as well. Those who are already in more of a discussion mode will have less trouble I think.
The only complaint I have heard so far about the two hour block came from a Primary teacher who said 20 minutes isn’t long enough. I said that realistically, the adult attention span is only about that and kids are far less. She didn’t seem to think that applied to the kids in her class. Indirectly I have heard only murmuring from the old guard.
I think part of the problem, as you point out Mom, is that we have a long history/tradition of prepared correlated lessons where the worst teachers simply opened the book and read from it. That isn’t possible anymore. So those people, and others, want to try to make programmize things (and this doesn’t only apply to SS/Primary) and make them less simple. Let’s not over think or over do this.
Quote:So those people, and others, want to try to make programmize things (and this doesn’t only apply to SS/Primary) and make them less simple. Let’s not over think or over do this.
That is exactly how I am seeing it. The old way was safe and routine. I think over time though people will see how much better this will be. This lag time of getting to it is opening the doors of frustration.
DarkJedi wrote:
If the goal really is home centered, church supported (and I think it is) this make perfect sense. You do your study at home either individually or as families and have discussions at home (or with a group of like minded people) if you like.I did read in the instructions something along the lines of “this is not meant to replace the good things that you are already doing” or something to that effect. I know many members are confused on how to implement this and hopefully that won’t be stuck in the mindset that they have to add this on top of all that they are already doing.
I see it as one lesson that SS and the other if I need during the week, DW and I woul probably do it on our own as we have been looking for something to read together during the week.
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