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I must admit that I was surprised last night to have an announcement of some importance presented in the Priesthood session. It used to be that you always got some cool announcement that you could run home and tell your wife or family about but that hadn’t happened for years (though it’s probably for the best). But the combining of elders and high priests is certainly an interesting change and, in my opinion, a good one. These two groups had, over the years, been looking more and more similar. Coupled with the “status” issues that accompanied becoming a high priest (or NOT becoming one), it seemed like it was time to pull all the men together. I had made reference to this a couple of times on this board. Below is one of my statements from a thread entitled “ Quote:I’ve served in a number of elders quorum presidencies over the course of my adulthood and I have to agree with jamison. If elders were consistently men from 18 to 45 say and high priests consistently 45 and up (or whatever age ranges you wish to use), it would make some sense. The elders would be the ones responsible for service projects (wood cutting, yard work, snow shoveling, etc.) and the older high priests would do whatever it is high priests do (don’t know as I am an elder). In our ward, however, we have elders who are in their late 50s (one I believe is pushing 60) and we have high priests as young as 28 because they were called into bishoprics during their student ward days. It makes for a mish mash of types in the quorums and means that the young high priests are never asked to do anything physically rigorous when it comes to service projects and the older elders may feel compelled to participate in activities they are not suited for.
Let’s add one more fact. In our ward (and I think this is church policy but I’m not sure) high priests hometeach the single sisters (young and old). One rationale would be that a 70 year old brother is less likely to develop an inappropriate relationship with a 30 year old single mother. But what if a significant number of high priests are in their 30s?
And let’s not forget that status within the ward is inextricably tied up with the priesthood you possess. The idea that it is “all the same priesthood” is cold comfort for some 65 year old elder trying to fit in with a bunch of 20 something and 30 something elders still wrestling with babies or a 30 year old high priest attempting to find something in common with men in their 60s and 70s. I know their are doctrinal reasons for the separation but I sometimes wonder if some of these policies shouldn’t be viewed with a more practical eye.
It’s like President Nelson saw my post!
:lolno: Seriously, mine is just one of many comments I have come across on this discussion board decrying the artificial separation of Elders and High Priests.The only downside is that now I will have to listen to the inevitable enthusiastic discussions/testimonies/commentaries in my ward about how this is an important revelation and that this is irrefutable evidence that we are a Church of guided by God, etc. etc. etc. Okay, maybe it is that but it seems just as likely to me to be the result of some careful reasoning and observation by the upper echelons of the LDS Church. Dramatic announcements are not automatically revelations.
But revelation or no, its a good, sensible change.
This is a very good change. When I was HPGL, I noticed that almost all of the stellar home teachers were HPs. We hit 70% every month with no begging from me – the most I ever did was
thankthem. I never had to worry that someone wasn’t being taken care of. The HPs showed me time and again that they were on top of things when something went wrong. The elders, on the other hand… man.
There was way more to it than home teaching. The elders’ quorum’s best leaders and teachers were in YM. Half the time they couldn’t find an instructor. I’ve never felt as sorry for an administrator as I felt for our EQP. My job was so easy in comparison.
I would gladly have shouldered some of his burden if I could have. Also, it would have been great to pair up some of our best home teachers with elders that might have been great at it but lacked motivation or positive experiences. The administrative overhead of coordinating to share manpower was too high, though. It would have been just another thing on his plate.
In the present, this change will allow the Primary in our ward to solve its staffing problem.
It’s all good, for so many reasons.
For my snarky position on it, I’m going to take inspiration from something Old Timer said on the GC thread. The women have been doing this right for over a century, and now the men are finally catching up.
I’ve always thought it was weird that the men had to be separated at all – and potentially problematic that they had to separated by ‘status’ – so I see this as a good thing. Not earth-shattering but good. I agree it’s not earth shattering Joni. I don’t think it’s as big a deal as they’re making of it, but I also see that it is a change that some people are not going to like or agree with so from that perspective it’s needs to seem like a bigger “Thus saith the Lord” kind of deal. I don’t think we’ll see a major exodus, but I do know some high priests who will somehow feel slighted or whatever – but for them it’s about pride. Joni wrote:
I’ve always thought it was weird that the men had to be separated at all – and potentially problematic that they had to separated by ‘status’ – so I see this as a good thing. Not earth-shattering but good.
Back in the day, I didn’t see it as being problematic. Each office of the PH had a separate purpose. HP = temple work. 70’s = missionary work.
Elders = backbone of the Ward organization. Today it seems “Every member a missionary”, “Every member a family historian”, “Every member
clean the chapel”. There are no specialists & that’s fine.
I’ve said in other posts, I want to be challenged in church. There is nothing worse than being bored or complacent.
I’m looking forward to the next PH meeting in my ward. I anticipate a real discussion for a change.
There isn’t a chance that this is an April fools joke?
No there are very few jokes at church.
I am far less than enthusiastic about this. There seemed to be too much creative doctorin in EQ. But then maybe that why the combining. And I finally stopped hearing every othercomment begin with “when I was on my mission…”. Maybe because I didn’t serve and it’s a repetitive reminder. Just my unpopular opinion.
My father is almost 70 and is still an elder. I personally felt that the segregation and the barriers that this made for friendships and socialization were isolating and marginalizing. He had a job that took him away from home roughly half the time and therefore a leadership calling would be a tough fit. My dad never complained, but I noticed. I think it was Amateur Parent that shared how her husband was specifically prohibited from attending a HP social gathering because he was technically an elder.
I am glad that this particular division is going away.
I have been in a ward that was small enough to have a combined EQ/HP and we all liked it and kept that configuration even once the SP started nudging us to split once we were bigger. So I am kind of MEH, but on the positive side. Certainly doesn’t feel like “revelation” that needs to be cannonized in the D&C. LookingHard wrote:
I have been in a ward that was small enough to have a combined EQ/HP and we all liked it and kept that configuration even once the SP started nudging us to split once we were bigger.
We’ve been meeting together combined on and off for a few years now. Shrinking EQ and HP quorums numbers necessitated it for us, and we enjoyed meeting together more than on our own.Seems to me like a natural change, going with the times, etc. I understood how the HP and EQ were divided and their separate duties, but it never made sense to me that the HP were over the perspective elders. It only made sense because the HP were essentially aaronic priesthood quorums, but that’s it. The perspective elders should have been under EQ. So now it is as it should have been in my opinion.
I will not be one of the youngest group members anymore. 
I like the change, even though we had a wonderful HPG in our ward. Each age range has things to offer the other and things to learn from the other. It also will free up at least four men to help fill other callings. That is huge in a ward of our size.
I like the change. It increases the human resources by reducing duplication. The Stake wide HP quorum never made any sense to me anyway, Why I was a group leader when I had the same responsibilities as an EQ President roughly in terms of HT, takign assignments from the BPric etcetera. We had annual HP meetings with the stake that were basically a scaled down general priesthood meeting. There was never any comradery on the stake level among HP. Overall, it’s a good change. It does start to make the distinction between branches and wards a bit more blurry. Reminds me of growing up on the Mormonism frontier, and I think there is still plenty of room for downsizing in the average ward.
Reflexzero wrote:
It does start to make the distinction between branches and wards a bit more blurry.Reminds me of growing up on the Mormonism frontier, and I think there is still plenty of room for downsizing in the average ward.
I think that was part of it. The numbers are trending where membership will be declining, and probably has occurred in Europe and is at the tipping point in North America. It will be easier to allow wards to shrink without “demoting” it to a branch. And it frees up 3-4 “Priesthood” slots since you remove the HPG set of leaders. I wonder if they have adjusted the requirements to start a new ward down by 3 M. Priesthood spots.Now that some time has passed since the “combining” of the PH offices, I am wondering how you think the change is going? And, what you anticipate for the future?
The reason I ask is: there are some members of the “old” HP organization who were considered active in every sense of the word but,
would probably never be considered for Bishop, Counselor, Stake President or High Council member. Under the current structure, they
would be Elders for the rest of their life. I was wondering if, as time passes, the attitude of the church will be that the HP’s will be looked
upon as a “Higher Priesthood” compared to the office of Elder? In the future, all High Priests will either be (or had been) Bishops or
Counselors, Stake Presidents or Counselors, High Counselors or Patriarchs.
I hope that doesn’t happen. I’ve known many good men who, for whatever reason, were never called to the offices listed above.
But, they were hard working, good examples of spiritual priesthood holders. And they should never be looked upon as “less than”.
Has anyone had the same thoughts?
Similar thoughts crossed my mind when they first made the announcement. I think it does have the potential to cause the issues that you raised, though some of the issues might be mitigated. First a few observations:
Some stake presidents were very particular in that being ordained to a high priest was not a social “promotion” (something that automatically happened in your mid 40s or early 50s). There were only two paths to high priest- accept a calling that required the office or be an outstanding and hard working elder – kind of like how people earn promotions at work.
Other stake presidents did “promote” people to high priest based on age.
Either approach has the potential for hurt feelings. In the example where there is no social promotion it does create an elite class of PH holders, the only people that are HPs are the people that held certain callings and the people that could prove their worth to the SP. Think of the person that is never made HP in that environment, they are left with doubts as to their self worth – if not doubts of worth to god then doubts of worth to their community.
In the example of social promotion it becomes less obvious who the chosen were but the person that was socially promoted lives with knowing the only reason they were made HP was because they aged into it. It doesn’t help the ego.
I’ll break this up into a few posts to make it more readable, less of a text wall.
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