How did your combined Priesthood meeting go?

[Anonymous]

Just curious how your combined priesthood meeting went…

Ours was OK. Bishop was a bit confused I felt, starting out the meeting with a question about who is in charge. That led to a kind of foray…After handing out new ministering assignments – massively long lists to everyone (but me and a couple others who must have asserted themselves about no more than 5 families). There was no frame up, rationale for the change, what it meant for us or question period about the whole thing as one would expect in a well-managed transition.

but I give even our bishop a break. He is a leader in a rather massive change for our church, which I suspect will lead to further changes. He did assume everyone knew about the change, which I thought was a mistake.

Then we all introduced ourselves and I realized how insular the separated quorums concept has made us all these years. There were brethren in the EQ I never knew existed. OR if I saw them around, didn’t know their personalities. There were about 40 of there.

How did yours go?

[Anonymous]

We just re-sustained our EQP and moved on to talk about ministering. That’s a singles ward for you. 😆

I was very vocal in my support of the changes.

[Anonymous]

I mentioned this in another thread. We had a, “Home teaching is dead! Long live home teaching!” moment.

It was expected. I’ve noticed many people feel really uncomfortable ministering without a net. They’re really looking to be told what to do and how to do it.

But in our ward, no new assignments. Everyone keeps their existing HT assignments. Visit with your families in their homes (which ironically was one thing Holland (IIRC) specifically said people didn’t have to do). It really was presented as a HT on steroids.

I hope/suspect we’ll settle in after a few months of looking towards the leaders for what to do.

[Anonymous]

We were fortunate enough to have a member of the SP today. He basically said we’re all in this together and we’ll learn as we go along, but also pointed out we’ve already taken steps in this direction (I referenced this in SD’s thread about how to minister). He did a good job at reiterating what Pres. Nelson actually said, including not necessarily visiting just to count a visit (since they don’t count any more). He emphasized serving and loving one another and pointed out prophets have been asking us to do this for 6000 years. And there was a decent amount of discussion. There was also some discussion about confusion some high priests have about their office (some thought it was going away and I still don’t think one of them really gets it).

Our wards combines a couple times a month for PH anyway because of low numbers in both groups. This was a planned joint meeting. We’re kind of used to this idea and it was a normal meeting for us. Our SP wants new presidencies sustained by the end of the month, and the reason his counselor was there was to call the new president and release everybody while asking that they continue to serve for the next couple weeks. FWIW, our SP asked that the groups continue to meet separately until the quorum is reorganized so not everywhere had combined meetings today.

[Anonymous]

I think there was a lot of confusion at ours. They didn’t address the new leadership, as one wasn’t yet called. They did pass out the assignments….I think everyone is getting used to how to do this. See what happens when you create a culture where everyone is told what to do? give them freedom and they are lost.

But this is a step in the right direction.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

I think there was a lot of confusion at ours. They didn’t address the new leadership, as one wasn’t yet called. They did pass out the assignments….I think everyone is getting used to how to do this. See what happens when you create a culture where everyone is told what to do? give them freedom and they are lost.

40 years of correlation will do that to you. 😆

I’m happy to see more autonomy. These changes may help to rebuild lost trust by giving more trust to the local level to be autonomous.

[Anonymous]

Beefster wrote:

SilentDawning wrote:

I think there was a lot of confusion at ours. They didn’t address the new leadership, as one wasn’t yet called. They did pass out the assignments….I think everyone is getting used to how to do this. See what happens when you create a culture where everyone is told what to do? give them freedom and they are lost.

40 years of correlation will do that to you. 😆

I’m happy to see more autonomy. These changes may help to rebuild lost trust by giving more trust to the local level to be autonomous.

I predict that either a) the head office in SLC will come out with more guidelines for how to minister, while making sure they don’t go back to the old system. b) in the absnce of (a), SP’s and BP’s will come out with what it means to minister. Just as local leaders were supposed to be empowered to dedicate fast Sunday to discussing local needs, and then SP’s and BP’s assigned topics for those meetings, so will people above start filling the void with “shoulds”.

I hope not, I think there is a chance that might not happen, but I fear that will occur. We have too much culture pushing leaders in that direction — too little trust in our members.

Even I’m a bit not sure how to proceed and I have life experience. I am not used to thinking for myself in this regard. Strange, for someone with ideas that flow like the Nile.

I think the objectives are the same — get people active, temple ready, paying tithing, sending their fam mems on missions etcetera. It’s just how we go about doing it is different. I think a monthly visit is one alternative for families that want it or need it, perhaps for a certain time.

[Anonymous]

Our discussion went very well. It was a more generic lesson focused on things we liked about General Conference, and we talked about the new focus as a natural part of that lesson.

Also, the current EQP led the discussion as the presiding person. It just happened naturally.

[Anonymous]

We did not change any assignments, and since we’ve been meeting in a fairly regular basis as a combined HP/EQ being together was natural. I preferred it so far, interestingly we have been doing many of the changes that have just taken place for a while now, so we were ahead of the curve . We’ve had couples doing home teaching, quorums have been meeting as councils rather than dissertations.

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