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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.
Just goes to show you can’t please all the people all the time. I dislike that song and hope they remove it.
DarkJedi wrote:
Quote: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.
Just goes to show you can’t please all the people all the time. I dislike that song and hope they remove it.
:thumbdown: I hate to bring this up again. I feel like Debbie Downer. If it is too much let me know & I’ll stop or move on to something else. This week was the annual Primary Program. The children were cute, pure & innocent. They were great.
The program was mostly music & short remarks the primary prepared. It was the usual program that most wards
and branches put on annually. This time it was short by at least 20+ minutes. Our Bishop had to fill the time.
I’m sure his remarks were good. I just don’t remember what he said.
This is what I’m wondering:
– When speakers go long the Bishopric can make adjustments such as warn the last speaker that they may have
to cut their remarks short.
– Reinforce the future speakers to stick to the allotted time assigned.
– Offer training on public speaking during the 2nd hour.
When meetings go short, can’t the Bishop have 2 or 3 members in his pocket who he can call on (with little or no notice) to make the final remarks? For those of you who are or have been in Bishoprics, has this happened in your ward? The
job of a Bishop is hard. I personally can’t imagine being in that position. At the same time I wonder what it would be
like for someone attending our sacrament meeting for the 1st time & experiencing what I’ve described. Maybe I am
being over sensitive. Everything else seems to be well scripted. From General Conference to Stake Conference.
Primary program is one of my pet peeves. I do not like how much time is spent in primary to prepare for this moment (making primary less enjoyable for the kids that do not enjoy sitting still, singing and memorizing new songs). I think of it as teaching to the test. An interesting case in point is when there is a primary program rehearsal on a Saturday. Ok, I will stand down from the soap box now. 
I think it goes to show that the length of meetings wasn’t the problem. It has been the content (or lack thereof).
But hey…less bad content is better than more bad content…so it is still an improvement in my book. Just hasn’t addressed the root issue, IMO.
When there is “extra” time, Bishops can do just about anything they choose to fill the time, including ending the meeting early. I dislike the SM Primary program as well and had hoped it would be done away with under Come Follow Me. No such luck. FWIW, I didn’t like it when I had kids in it either. Ours is also coming up, but, dang, I’m going to be out of town that Sunday! 
My wife is a Primary teacher. She doesn’t like our current president and while my wife is generally not critical of people, she does criticize this president all the time. There was a change under Come Follow Me (as noted above, not the one I wanted) in that the SM program is no longer outlined like it had been in the past. It’s totally up to the local Primary to come up with the program now. That could explain why it was too short (or too long depending on your point of view).
Like Curt says, the bishop can do whatever he likes when things come up short. I have seen some end early, which just gives people more social time while waiting for hour two. The small challenge in the current schedule is that this also leaves time for kids to get unruly because Primary hasn’t started and it is unfair to ask Primary workers to lengthen their stuff on short notice. But just ending early is my favorite option. I have known bishoprics to have a couple people with prepared talks “just in case.” I have known bishoprics who each have a talk prepared for those circumstances (from what I hear that happened in my ward this past Sunday, I wasn’t there). There is a branch in my stake where the BP assigns a topic each month and asks everybody to prepare a 5-10 minute talk on it, which he then can randomly call on to be given (I personally dislike the idea). This past Sunday was the exception – more ward tends to run over on Sundays and could use some of the options MM outlines (tell the last speaker to cut it short no matter how inconsiderate the previous speaker was, be clear and firm about allotted time, and give instruction on how to prepare a talk).
Do you think the old saying is true:
Quote:you get out of it what you put into it.
If it is my kid singing…I’m the proud parents watching how funny they are trying to sing. If it’s not my kids singing … Well…I can try to get something out of it if I try to just appreciate the effort without caring about the quality.
Same would go for SM speakers, I guess.
I dunno….I wonder how much is dependent on me and where my heart is going into the meeting. Lately, I have not put much effort into it.
Old Timer wrote:
When there is “extra” time, Bishops can do just about anything they choose to fill the time, including ending the meeting early.
I’ve never witnessed that happen, at least not more than a minute or two early.
Heber13 wrote:
Do you think the old saying is true:
Quote:you get out of it what you put into it.
If it is my kid singing…I’m the proud parents watching how funny they are trying to sing. If it’s not my kids singing … Well…I can try to get something out of it if I try to just appreciate the effort without caring about the quality.
Same would go for SM speakers, I guess.
I dunno….I wonder how much is dependent on me and where my heart is going into the meeting. Lately, I have not put much effort into it.
Up to a point. With the best will in the world, some speakers are more of a struggle than others. We had a speaker in from the stake once, who desperately tried to make his message sound profound by stretching out each sentence and pausing after every few words. I swear the duration could have been cut in half.
About a third of the way through the talk, I could hear people shifting in their seats (usually a bad sign), and every other sign of boredom.
Ironically, I had enjoyed the other speakers that day, but this stake speaker was tough going not just for me, but for others. I like to give him the benefit of the doubt and think that he was good at administration, but he was a rotten speaker.
Heber13 wrote:
Do you think the old saying is true:
Quote:you get out of it what you put into it.
If it is my kid singing…I’m the proud parents watching how funny they are trying to sing. If it’s not my kids singing … Well…I can try to get something out of it if I try to just appreciate the effort without caring about the quality.
Same would go for SM speakers, I guess.
I dunno….I wonder how much is dependent on me and where my heart is going into the meeting. Lately, I have not put much effort into it.
That’s kind of the ‘Old Guard” argument – you get out of it what you put in. I agree that’s true to some extent. On the other hand, there are some really bad talks, not to mention bad speakers. Like most things it’s not all black & white (or black or white) and every single one is different. I tend to decide pretty early if I’m going to listen to a speaker or not, and it’s very dependent on what they say and how they present themselves in the first minute or two. Honestly if the first line is something like “The bishop caught me in the hall last week even though I was trying to hide from him because I knew he was looking for speakers…” I tune out right then. But if the speaker starts out with something very Christ centered I’m pretty likely to look up from my tablet and pay some attention. With the new one hour format I’m also becoming increasingly intolerant of talks longer than about 15 minutes, especially if it’s the first talk and as I think I already mentioned, I am fairly intolerant of going over – and my ward does that pretty consistently.
DarkJedi wrote:
I tend to decide pretty early if I’m going to listen to a speaker or not, and it’s very dependent on what they say and how they present themselves in the first minute or two. Honestly if the first line is something like “The bishop caught me in the hall last week even though I was trying to hide from him because I knew he was looking for speakers…” I tune out right then.
My red flags are:
* “I was asked to talk on…” – Sounds begrudging
* “The Bible/… Dictionary defines X as” – a good speech doesn’t need that. Use your own words!
I also switch off often when they talk about families, marriage or children. I don’t hate children, I actually quite like them up to a point, but I’m a single man so they aren’t part of my own life at the moment, and I don’t have much to do with them because of that. These talks also rub my nose in my failure to marry and have kids.
SamBee wrote:
DarkJedi wrote:
I tend to decide pretty early if I’m going to listen to a speaker or not, and it’s very dependent on what they say and how they present themselves in the first minute or two. Honestly if the first line is something like “The bishop caught me in the hall last week even though I was trying to hide from him because I knew he was looking for speakers…” I tune out right then.
My red flags are:
* “I was asked to talk on…” – Sounds begrudging
* “The Bible/… Dictionary defines X as” – a good speech doesn’t need that. Use your own words!
I also switch off often when they talk about families, marriage or children. I don’t hate children, I actually quite like them up to a point, but I’m a single man so they aren’t part of my own life at the moment, and I don’t have much to do with them because of that. These talks also rub my nose in my failure to marry and have kids.
I also struggle with topics that are not applying to me. Nothing is more boring and loathful for me to listen to than talks on Temple attendance, temple stories, families can be together forever or even worse, social issues. I have endured them all over the years, tune out almost immediately. My family won’t be together forever, I don’t have a TR and only been once and I don’t care about your social stances. Prideful talk and preaching to the choir doesn’t help investigators and those who will never have all those great experiences that TBMs have.
I think sacrament meeting, in particular, should be taylored to people who are investigators, those who struggle and basic stories of Jesus Christ. No inside baseball talks, no terms that people outside of the community won’t understand and absolutely no talk of social issues. Basics should be talked about in terms that even Senior Primary would understand.
As a country and a LDS community, we are woefully uninformed about Jesus Christ’s ministry and time on the earth. I recently attended a Elder’s Q meeting where the High Priest said that he never read the New Testament and he was in his 60’s. He reads the Book of Mormon regularly and has read it cover to cover many times, but the Bible he just recently did. Amazing.. I don’t think I would admit that in public but it helped with his message (I guess…).
:problem: It is easy for me to make a list of topics I don’t want to hear at sacrament meeting. What are some topics you want to hear? This is a few of mine:
– What does it mean to live a Christ centered life?
– What did Jesus teach us about the way he lived his life?
– What are your favorite stories from scripture & why?
– What do the parables teach us? Which are your favorites?
– What are the most impactful experiences in life that testify that the gospel is true?
– More music & stories about the hymns.
Heavy_Laden wrote:
I also struggle with topics that are not applying to me. Nothing is more boring and loathful for me to listen to than talks on Temple attendance, temple stories, families can be together forever or even worse, social issues. I have endured them all over the years, tune out almost immediately. My family won’t be together forever, I don’t have a TR and only been once and I don’t care about your social stances. Prideful talk and preaching to the choir doesn’t help investigators and those who will never have all those great experiences that TBMs have.I don’t think you should be so sure your family won’t be together forever based on what you say here. I recognize that most members might believe that, but I don’t see that idea firmly planted in scripture.
Quote:I think sacrament meeting, in particular, should be taylored to people who are investigators, those who struggle and basic stories of Jesus Christ. No inside baseball talks, no terms that people outside of the community won’t understand and absolutely no talk of social issues. Basics should be talked about in terms that even Senior Primary would understand.
I agree to that extent that I believe SM should stick to the basics.
Quote:As a country and a LDS community, we are woefully uninformed about Jesus Christ’s ministry and time on the earth. I recently attended a Elder’s Q meeting where the High Priest said that he never read the New Testament and he was in his 60’s. He reads the Book of Mormon regularly and has read it cover to cover many times, but the Bible he just recently did. Amazing.. I don’t think I would admit that in public but it helped with his message (I guess…).
:problem:
I think this last point, at least for church members, is due to an overemphasis on the Book of Mormon. I do believe the BoM is a good book and can and does bring people closer to God and Jesus Christ. I have sad this a few times in meetings and from the pulpit: We’re supposed to feast on the words of Christ and the words of Christ are found in the four gospels – that’s where what he actually said and did are recorded. Were I stranded with only one book of scripture I’d prefer it to be the NT (and if only one book was there, I’d choose Luke).
Minyan Man wrote:
It is easy for me to make a list of topics I don’t want to hear at sacrament meeting. What are some topics you want to hear?This is a few of mine:
– What does it mean to live a Christ centered life?
– What did Jesus teach us about the way he lived his life?
– What are your favorite stories from scripture & why?
– What do the parables teach us? Which are your favorites?
– What are the most impactful experiences in life that testify that the gospel is true?
– More music & stories about the hymns.
Almost any gospel topic can be focused on Christ, and that’s what I want to hear. We had a visiting GA Seventy at our last stake conference and he did make the point in the Sunday session. It is admittedly harder to make a topic such as tithing Christ centered – my own SP has said in that situation where it’s hard to make a topic Christ centered the bishopric should reconsider the topic. That said, I still hear talks that fail to mention the Savior. Kudos to my own ward, they do pretty well, Some wards are much worse.
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