Don’t EVER do this!!!!

[Anonymous]

I have an appointment scheduled with my Bishop. Time to stop this endless flow. My biggest concern now is making sure I don’t disturb the delicate balance I’ve achieved with my Ward and my Bishop. He INVITED ME to ordain my son to the priesthood a few weeks ago. I have to make sure I don’t alienate him through my statements for future ordinances…

My objectives are this:

1. Get the 20 home teaching families reduced to a reasonable level, and stop any unilateral actions that commit me to church projects.

2. Express my needs right now, and that is greater respect for my agency when it comes to church service.

2. Help him understand why I am the way I am, without causing doubt problems.

My approach is going to be to share a brief overview of my challenges in the church over the last 30 years. I may even write it out for him to look at in the meeting so it doesn’t digress, but then take it back. I will emphasize the resulting pneumonia and depression which triggered my current way of thinking years ago. I dont’ care if it excludes me from leadership in the church — a concern at that time that prevented me from sharing it. I honestly DON’T WANT leadership in that organization any longer. So I am happy to share the medical and mental health aspects now, and any stigmas that go with it.

Then approach it this way — the church experience, while valuable to my family, was not making me happy, and that I have dedicated my time to helping others in different ways. The fruits of my service are evident in my family though — active daughter at BYU, active wife, semi active son who just received the priesthood, and my own activity in two or three a month attendance.

That I have certain things I am willing to commit to the church right now, and these are them (list them).

Let them know I will HT one family, and if that goes well, may ask for more.

NO EXPRESSIONS OF DOUBT!!!

Sound good??

[Anonymous]

I do think that sharing medical and mental health aspects is the way to go. Basically that because of your personality you cannot just “let things go” and not fulfill assignments that are yours. You are somewhat brittle and fragile because of your past experiences and you know that having these 20 HT families would break you. You are glad to contribute where you can, you just need to be very specific and deliberate about what that is.

(BTW, my wife is somewhat like you and we are finding that some callings will be just fine and other callings will eat her alive [i.e. callings where she picks up the slack for other people])

It may be that the bishop was not fully briefed on the details of what was going on. Perhaps it was the HPGL’s brainchild and nobody else really thought it through. I personally might not mind having 20 families with me as the principle contact should they need something – as long as the onus was on them to reach out to me. If any of them became too burdensome I would need to establish gentle boundaries about what I would and would not do for them.

Another important thought is to stay calm. I really doubt anyone did this to you personally. I really believe if you ask to be exempted from the program and state your reasons why then that will be the end of it.

[Anonymous]

SD, that sounds like a reasonable response. You’ve definitely got to address the issue, but at the same time don’t want to burn bridges. I’m wondering, is this a form letter that they sent out to all families, so people would know who their home teachers are, and how to contact them, if needed? Or did they only send these letters out to the families that are assigned to you?

Good luck with the meeting, and hopefully your bishop will be receptive and understanding to your concerns. I think any reasonable person would recognize that this is just not right.

[Anonymous]

Holy Cow wrote:

I’m wondering, is this a form letter that they sent out to all families, so people would know who their home teachers are, and how to contact them, if needed? Or did they only send these letters out to the families that are assigned to you?

I suspect it’s a form letter sent on behalf of everyone, but that doesn’t matter. They disrespected the agency of each home teacher in the HP group if they didn’t consult them before offering their services.

I am considering my meeting with the Bishop with this list of needs, easy to grant, in my view. What do you think of them?

Quote:

1. Respect my role as a volunteer and my personal agency. Ask before expecting me to do any assignment, no matter how small. Try to accept my answer with a good attitude.

2. Consider my background and try to be loyal and supportive, regardless of my commitment level.

3, Accept myself and others as a member of this community as they serve the best they can, even if you don’t’ agree with their coping mechanisms.

4. Realize I am doing the best I can right now. Try to bee thankful for those aspects in which I do contribute as I pursue happiness in and out of the church — the object and design of our whole existence

[Anonymous]

Great list. At work, we have an unofficial motto: Be fair, Be reasonable, Treat others as you want to be treated. It works well for us, and we cite it often. I see three occasions in which you have not been treated fair or reasonable: 1- Being assigned 20 home teaching families, 2- Having a letter sent to all of your families without your input/consent, 3- Having your phone number distributed with the promise of help. In a short period of time, you’ve had multiple occasions where you’ve been treated unfairly, and have had unreasonable offers made on your behalf. That would leave anybody feeling burned!! I think having this conversation with the Bish is completely fair and reasonable. I’m hoping this letter campaign was a misguided endeavor by a well-meaning HPGL, who didn’t quite think this through. But, regardless of intentions, they’ll never understand how wrong this was if nobody voices their concerns.

[Anonymous]

SD, did you ever ask them why you have 18 HT families in the first place? What is it they decided to do and change, and why are you being pulled into this?

My advice when you go to talk to the bishop is to have some questions ready for them to answer for you to understand what they are thinking. That way you don’t have to assume. If they don’t have any satisfactory or reasonable answers, then you go into your list of things you want to tell them.

But go in trying to understand what is happening. If possible.

SilentDawning wrote:

Is this the way things work in God’s kingdom? Disrespect for agency, taking people’s service hours for granted, and no thought for existing commitments people have, or their own expressions of volition after such commitments are forced on them without their consent??

No…I can’t imagine it is the way things are supposed to work…on the other hand…it never will run the way it is supposed to.

The other end of this is…how is giving feedback to them and ironing out differences and conveying problems supposed to work in God’s kingdom? That is the part you get to practice and model back to them.

[Anonymous]

I’m thinking you’re going to find out that this is a ward program to improve home teaching numbers. Everybody is assigned, regardless of activity status or desire for contact. If everything counts, sending out the letter like they did counts as contact and all of those people were therefore home taught under a very broad definition. The lady that contacted you will can be counted because she contacted you and you did a service for her, even though it was very minor and she could have very easily done that herself. The ward could look great on paper.

[Anonymous]

I would not present the list of needs. They do seem reasonable but they may also come across as ultimatums. I really would just share the burnout and accompanying health problems from before and then ask to be exempted from this one program (that you will HT one family for right now).

I also think it is helpful to remember that your bishop is also just a volunteer with no or very little training. The LDS program does seem to operate less professionally than some other programs because they are not professionals. At least half the time they are just regular people who would rather not be serving in the position that they are in but they are duty bound to at least make a showing of it. A little laughter and a healthy dose of forgiveness can go a long way.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

SD, did you ever ask them why you have 18 HT families in the first place? What is it they decided to do and change, and why are you being pulled into this?

My advice when you go to talk to the bishop is to have some questions ready for them to answer for you to understand what they are thinking. That way you don’t have to assume. If they don’t have any satisfactory or reasonable answers, then you go into your list of things you want to tell them.

I haven’t asked. I told the guy who sent me the list what I was willing to do, and he didn’t answer (surprise, surprise).

I also think there is no good reason for just sending it out to people without qualification. That ship has sailed.

Quote:

The other end of this is…how is giving feedback to them and ironing out differences and conveying problems supposed to work in God’s kingdom? That is the part you get to practice and model back to them.

The church would say you just do whatever the leaders ask — obedience. There is no model for resolving conflict in the Lord’s kinggom when that conflict is with the inspired leaders.

My own model is one of focusing on mutual interests, not positions. Being hard on the problem, easy on the people, staying objective, and focusing on options for mutual gain. Harvard collaboration stuff.

My approach is to start by telling the Bishop the purpose of my visit is to give him my background and to share how it has influenced what I’m willing to do in the Ward and what he can expect from me going forward. First, I would like him to make a sincere attempt to understand my background — critical to understanding where I am right now, and what he can expect from me in the future. Would he be willing to do that??? He will likely say “yes”.

1. I am giving the Bishop bullet points of my history in the church. Stuff he didn’t know about the challenges I’ve faced in the church. There are about five incidents. They tend to startle people. It should take him about 5-7 minutes to review, tops. I read them and timed them This is to prevent me from being overly detailed yet get the point across. It is on a piece of paper — he can’t keep the paper, I will take it back when he’s read it.

2. At that point I will get his reaction. He will likely ask questions. I hope there will be some empathy or statements of disagreement with the way leaders have behaved in the past — their actions have truly been extreme. Or he may just look and say, OK, now what? I will have to react to whatever he does. If he doesn’t get how the experiences have impacted me, I will briefly explain that to him.

3. At that point, I’ll mention that I’m doing my best on a reduced church participation model. That I have been happier than ever before, and that what I’m currently doing is working for me, even though it may seem minimal to him right now. He may have disagreeing comments and I will have assertive, polite answers.

4. Then I’m going to pull out my 20 families and ask if he knew anything about it. Explain how I received them, and explain how incredibly unreasonable and disrespectful it is. Get his reaction, for which I will have answers.

5. Then I will explain the phone call from the lady in response to the letters sent on my behalf, and express my concerns about it. Get his reactions.

6. I end with asking to have the HT list whittled down on the MLS, and what I will do if the leaders refuse to do so.

7. I will leave him with my list of needs in the previous thread.

After that, I’ll accept the consequences. I honestly don’t care one darn bit about whether he never lets me perform an ordinance, teach, or speak again, or get a TR. I’ve had it and its time these egocentric leaders and the system that makes them that way, understands the impact it has on people.

The world is full of people in and out of the church that can be served without the umbrella of the LDS Church, and the service is no less valid than service within the church. I don’t need the church to be happy!!! In fact, it tends to interfere with such happiness.

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

I would not present the list of needs. They do seem reasonable but they may also come across as ultimatums. I really would just share the burnout and accompanying health problems from before and then ask to be exempted from this one program (that you will HT one family for right now).

I also think it is helpful to remember that your bishop is also just a volunteer with no or very little training. The LDS program does seem to operate less professionally than some other programs because they are not professionals. At least half the time they are just regular people who would rather not be serving in the position that they are in but they are duty bound to at least make a showing of it. A little laughter and a healthy dose of forgiveness can go a long way.

I’ll consider that. Perhaps the list of needs is too demanding, particularly when I’m not contributing much in his eyes. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

I met with the BP. The 20 family approach was based on a conference talk from a couple years ago. I agreed to have five families, one or two of which I would see every month. The other 13-15 families will be removed within a reasonable time. There will be no more conscription into assignments, and no more letters sent offering my services without my consent. I had him commit to that, and he did.

It was a good convo, lasting at least 1.5 hours. I didn’t feel he was judging me. I followed my plan above and it worked.

Laying out my history was critical in softening his perceptions, I think. He didn’t talk much about the items in my history, other than to say much of it was just wrong and bad leadership.

There is a lot more, but I left feeling better that FINALLY I was able to bring someone into my world for a minute, who appeared to understand. He talked a lot, and tried to create the Spirit. I took much of what he said with a grain of salt though.

I don’t think there will be any negative fall-out.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

I met with the BP. The approach was based on a conference talk from a couple years ago. I agreed to have five families, one or two of which I would see every month. The other 13-15 families will be removed within a reasonable time. There will be no more conscription into assignments, and no more letters sent offering my services without my consent. I had him commit to that, and he did.

It was a good convo, lasting at least 1.5 hours. I didn’t feel he was judging me. I followed my plan above and it worked.

Laying out my history was critical in softening his perceptions, I think. He didn’t talk much about the items in my history, other than to say much of it was just wrong and bad leadership.

There is a lot more, but I left feeling better that FINALLY I was able to bring someone into my world for a minute, who appeared to understand. He talked a lot, and tried to create the Spirit. I took much of what he said with a grain of salt though.

I don’t think there will be any negative fall-out.

:thumbup:

[Anonymous]

:thumbup:

[Anonymous]

That is really great SD. Meetings like that make me nervous. I end up being very guarded in a vaguely hopeful sort of way to minimize the chance of negative fallout. I am glad that the Bishop was reasonable and not defensive. It also seemed that you compromised from your original position of only visiting one family – which is good.

BTW, did you even find out more on what the whole plan was with the 20 HT families in the first place?

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

That is really great SD. Meetings like that make me nervous. I end up being very guarded in a vaguely hopeful sort of way to minimize the chance of negative fallout. I am glad that the Bishop was reasonable and not defensive. It also seemed that you compromised from your original position of only visiting one family – which is good.

Of all the Bishops I’ve reported to in recent years, this guy is the best. He tries hard, makes mistakes, but is generally effective. He’d throw out the rule book if he could.

I respect his entrepreneurship, and your comment in a PM that he’s just a volunteer spoke to me. I only SORT OF compromised though. I said I would take 5 families and see 1 or 2 of them a month. But I would be available in case there were specific needs from people on that list at any time. I know from experience that if there is no HT infrastructure, all the needs bubble up to the leadership and I didn’t want to contribute to that problem. It’s not fair to the volunteer Bishop. I felt like half-miler with only one family when I reflected on how hard he works and what I’d want in his position.

But I’ll be seeing only 1 or 2 families a month. No more. That’ll keep everyone off the “not home taught in a quarter” list.

I have really high standards 😆 :clap:

Quote:

BTW, did you even find out more on what the whole plan was with the 20 HT families in the first place?

There was a conference talk he said, two years ago, that inspired the program — which seems to be driven by the Bishopric. I am not sure which talk it was, nor do I care — the idea is ridiculous when the ratio of HP’s to families is 1:20

But he did seem to take my comments to heart about the flaws of the conscription model, and how inappropro it is to send out letters offering my help without my consent.

Now, I am leaving myself open to the idea that this guy will do something crazy. Sadly, priesthood leaders in general can’t be trusted, I’m afraid, because their loyalties to the organization and the hierarchy above are so powerful. I’ve been in situations like this in industry where you share your naked feelings with a manager, and s/he seems to agree. Next thing you know the KGB is at your door forcing you to do the very thing they seemed to agree should not be happening. And the manager sent them.

Time will tell. I don’t know for sure, but his true colors will show eventually. Or maybe he’s open minded — not sure. but my “testimony” doesn’t depend on it. Only a bit of the commitment I have left.

The good news is that once you decide a TR is not essential equipment for a happy life, this gets a lot easier. And showing good activity without a TR can be a healthy role model for your family. 😆 I am actually somewhat serious though. Seriously, do I want my family signing over 75% of their retirement income to a church that doesn’t appreciate them?

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