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Ellerbe wrote:
Wouldn’t inspiring meetings add to the experience though? I don’t see how that would hurt.
Yes, I agree BUT … who would be in charge of ensuring quality control for the SM? The bishop? Remember that he is basically a conscripted volunteer.Who would give the keynote speech or sermon? The bishop again? It can be difficult to ensure quality control will assigning regular members of the congregation to speak the way that we do.
These are not impossible questions to work out but we start to see where we might need to see changes in order for this to be successful. Is there the political will to make changes? Our senior leadership tend to be advanced in age and that means that they tend to be more comfortable with the status quo (RMN appears to be a standout exception to this trend considering the changes he has made recently). Our business model is that people attend our church meetings out of a sense of duty. We have a monopoly on salvation and if you want some you will have to sit through our boring meetings.
I want to cut Sacrament meeting back to sacrament hymn and sacrament, then announcements. Go to the one hour meeting after that and you’re done. SD, is this what you really want? or is it just sarcasm? My hope is: they (Bishopric) think it through, plan what they want, train the congregation and execute to the plan.
No more making an assignment in the hallway the Sunday before.
No more long winded speakers.
No more musical numbers that go on forever.
No more cutting down talks to meet a time schedule.
If we can’t or won’t do that, give me a drive up window & the deacons can pass the sacrament through the window.
(Yes, I know. I’m silly.) I talk this way our of frustration.
I have said for a long time that Sacrament Meeting should be a worship service, not another Sunday School class or PH/RS meeting. We need to be inspired by worshipful things occasionally. That is what Sac Mtg is supposed to provide.
DarkJedi wrote:I like your 15 minute speaker and the rest for music MM. I’ve long thought sacrament meeting should be more like Music and the Spoken Word.
Absolutely!
Our SM is: OS
OP
Sacrament Hymn
Sacrament
Speaker 1
Speaker 2
CS
CP
Sometimes the sacrament doesn’t take long (small ward). Our speakers overplan b/c sometimes they need to talk and talk and talk.
I miss the days of an intermediate hymn.
QuestionAbound wrote:
Our SM is:OS
OP
Sacrament Hymn
Sacrament
Speaker 1
Speaker 2
CS
CP
Sometimes the sacrament doesn’t take long (small ward). Our speakers overplan b/c sometimes they need to talk and talk and talk.
I miss the days of an intermediate hymn.
My ward fairly often has an intermediate hymn or a special music of some sort. Some other wards in the stake are very similar. I am not aware of any here that never have anything. I think there may have been a slight misunderstanding by some people (initially here as well) that the instruction was not that we couldn’t have intermediate hymns, we just don’t
haveto have them. SilentDawning wrote:
I want to cut Sacrament meeting back to sacrament hymn and sacrament, then announcements. Go to the one hour meeting after that and you’re done.
SD, my response to your statement above was way too harsh & I’m sorry. For some reason, the sacrament meetings in my ward are really getting
on my nerves & I didn’t mean to sound like I was taking it out on you. I wish there was an outlet for reporting back to the leadership (ward & stake)
how I feel or to make suggestions for improvements.
Minyan Man wrote:
Rumin, what kinds of achievements would be noted from the pulpit? Just curious.
The obvious ones are mission calls. We also recognize (mainly youth) members for achievements in school (excelling at sports or academics), etc. This does cause some heartburn from some parents whose kids were not recognized. But we tell them we can’t recognize kids when we don’t hear about the honor. Sometimes we will mention members affected by tragedy or ill health (with their permission). Our SP doesn’t like any of this kind of thing. But we want to humanize each other and share in cool accomplishments and share in the lifting of burdens when the news is less good. To me this is what the church community should be all about. Just reading about it in the RE or EQ newsletter isn’t good enough, and loses potency imo.
Katzpur wrote:
DarkJedi wrote:I like your 15 minute speaker and the rest for music MM. I’ve long thought sacrament meeting should be more like Music and the Spoken Word.
Absolutely!
I think with talks, it depends who is giving them. When I first started coming back, we had a lot of talks along the lines of “I got asked to speak on … by Elder …” in which basically an entire conference talk was parroted back. Now at least we have a variety of speakers.
On the downside, the counselor who chooses the hymns has very different musical taste to me. Some LDS hymn I love are never sung, and some of the ones I hate get sung regularly.
SamBee wrote:
On the downside, the counselor who chooses the hymns has very different musical taste to me. Some LDS hymn I love are never sung, and some of the ones I hate get sung regularly.
As a BP, we just discussed pulling our music director aside with instructions to “keep it to the hits” with hymn selection.
😆 Rumin8 wrote:
SamBee wrote:
On the downside, the counselor who chooses the hymns has very different musical taste to me. Some LDS hymn I love are never sung, and some of the ones I hate get sung regularly.
As a BP, we just discussed pulling our music director aside with instructions to “keep it to the hits” with hymn selection.
😆
He’s a great guy, but honestly we sing “Nearer my God to thee” at least once a month, and I always associate that hymn with the poor folk going down with the Titanic.
One of ones that I like – “The Morning Breaks” – never gets sung in our ward at all.
SamBee wrote:
Rumin8 wrote:
SamBee wrote:
On the downside, the counselor who chooses the hymns has very different musical taste to me. Some LDS hymn I love are never sung, and some of the ones I hate get sung regularly.
As a BP, we just discussed pulling our music director aside with instructions to “keep it to the hits” with hymn selection.
😆
He’s a great guy, but honestly we sing “Nearer my God to thee” at least once a month, and I always associate that hymn with the poor folk going down with the Titanic.
One of ones that I like – “The Morning Breaks” – never gets sung in our ward at all.
I didn’t know we were in the same ward!
😆 Seriously, our bishop loves “Nearer My God To Thee” and used to choose it all the time as the priesthood hymn and just like you I always think of the Titanic when I hear that song. Until we recently got a new music leader we also sang “In Humility Our Savior” at least once a month and I don’t hate that song but I do strongly dislike one line and it gets old (I stopped singing it). And there are indeed others I like that we never sing, even well known ones. I think the latter is at least in part because the skill of one of our two pianists is limited (although she doesn’t think so).The Romantic version of the story is that the band played that hymn as the ship went down. Personally I believe the truth would have been much more horrific. And yes, Dark Jedi, we do sing “In Humility…” a lot too!
There are some “hits” we never sing. We have sung “Hie to Kolob” only once or twice in ten years (horrible lyrics, great tune), “Adam Ondi Ahman” never, and “The Morning Breaks” never. “The Morning Breaks” has a great Wilberg arrangement on Youtube. I like it because there is a kind of optimism to it.
SamBee wrote:
Rumin8 wrote:
SamBee wrote:
On the downside, the counselor who chooses the hymns has very different musical taste to me. Some LDS hymn I love are never sung, and some of the ones I hate get sung regularly.
As a BP, we just discussed pulling our music director aside with instructions to “keep it to the hits” with hymn selection.
😆
He’s a great guy, but honestly we sing “Nearer my God to thee” at least once a month, and I always associate that hymn with the poor folk going down with the Titanic.
One of ones that I like – “The Morning Breaks” – never gets sung in our ward at all.
I’m looking forward to the Sunday after New Years.. I’ll be disappointed if we don’t sing “Ring Out, Wild Bells” .. Love that one! I’ll even risk having to sit through F&T meeting in order to sing it.
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