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Let me start with a statement and then give some background. Statement: Home-teaching might mean something to me and my family if it was sincere and not statistics driven. I hate the business metrics model of church governance. Background: While I was out last night my DW received a phone call from one of our HT’s to see if he could come over tonight. My wife said that wasn’t possible as she was going to the temple with the RS sisters and wouldn’t be home. He said he would call tonight and visit with me. (We’ll see if he follows through) More Background: We received new HT’s 3 months ago and every Sunday this brother asks if he can come over during the week. We always say yes. He says that he will touch base with his companion and arrange a time. He has never made it to our home once. Further Background: This is the same brother that joked about how he had a friend who moved to a small town so his wife couldn’t work and make more than him. Our HT thought this was hilarious. (My DW makes double what I make) Even More Background: Yesterday afternoon the Elders quorum sent out an email to everyone saying to get their HTing done and numbers in by Saturday daytime. The Best Background: It was announced on Sunday that the following week there would be a special sacrament meeting at the stake center involving 6 wards (ours included). At this meeting ward boundaries and leadership would be changing. So the EQ was in a hurry to get all the HTing done and numbers reported before the ward changes. So what do you think the motivating factor for my HT is, a sincere concern and love for my family or meeting the numbers?
Numbers? This did not happen in our branch when I was an EQP. Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2
I have seen charts of monthly home teaching percentages over a 3 year period brought out during elders quorum to demonstrate which months had the worst %… It certainly can be just about the numbers and often is but not always. Ive seen my current bishop look at reports showing who hasn’t been visited in so many months and just agonizing when he saw who wasn’t being visited. Ive also seen a bishop not extend a big calling (YM Pres) simply because the person didn’t home teach. In his mind home teaching was the most important calling one can have. My family has benefitted many times from conscientious home teachers. One I was one a business trip and my wife sprained her ankle and the home teacher came by and helped tremendously w/o being asked. DW has benefitted many times from good visiting teachers too.
Ive also had a stake pres counselor who was an awful home teacher. If I had to estimate I’d say about 50% or less are good home teachers. AND I think that a good home teacher asks how often they should visit my family. For me its once every 3 months.
It is all about the numbers, except when it isn’t. I don’t mean that flippantly. I have been a lousy Home Teacher over the years. The numbers don’t motivate me, and that has had a bad effect on my performance, in a real way. I don’t want to care about the numbers, but I understand why some people stress them so much.
I don’t know why it works so well sometimes and not others. I know the man assigned to be our home teacher after a difficult move was simply doing his duty when he called, when he met us for the first time, when he helped build confidence in our family’s ability to weather the move, when he came back the next month, etc. But somewhere along the line he became a friend for life. Those things happen often enough to make it all worth it, in my opinion. It’s just not going to happen every time, and doesn’t need to. But, for better and worse, and LDS ward is connected. Sometimes we’re just “the friend in need” for a little while.
I really dislike home teaching. I do not like to go and I find it agonizing when they come to my house. I say let those sign up who want home teachers which also means you need to go home teaching. That would really get it down to the people who need it. What are these home teachers of which you speak? Ours is awesome. He only shows up at Christmas with goodies. Counts us as seen the rest of the year. Stake prez in my previous unit sent the PECs a quarterly ‘league table.’ Lol… He was a good guy and cared about ‘the one’ – but also had some very number driven initiates.
We were in a ward once that had very high home teaching numbers. They also asked all the priesthood who hadn’t been home taught during the month to stay after church for 15 minutes on the last Sunday of the month. One of the Elder’s quorum presidency would take attendance and teach a short lesson, then count everyone there as having been home taught. I can count on one hand the number of times my DH has been home teaching in our marriage.
I can also count on one hand the number of good home teachers we have had, that number is 3.
One of them did visit us very regularly, he also invited our family over to dinner, help us with things, and made an effort to at least say hi to us every Sunday.
The other two hardly ever visited, but were very friendly and caring and we knew that if we ever needed anything, they would be there in less than a second.
We have had really bad home teachers that visited us every month. A bad home teacher that comes regularly is the worst kind. At least when a bad home teacher ignores you, it doesn’t bother you much, but when you have someone to insists on coming to your house once a month and still doesn’t care about you…
In all, having a few great home teachers has made it worth all the other ones we have had to put up with.
Sorry this is so long….but the HT/VT program is, to me, what the Church should be all about. My mother joined the Church when I was 6 years old. She was recently divorced with several children still at home. This was in the 60s, and divorce was still considered shameful. Mothers, for the most part, did not work. Mine did, and we always struggled to make ends meet. Dad was out of the picture. So yes, we were the little broken home from the wrong side of the tracks. It wasn’t always easy to go to church. I thought everyone there had perfect families and I knew I didn’t.
BUT…..we had great HTs. They were always HPs since my mom was single. Often, their companions were their wives or sons. It was always nice when their wife would come.
Never was there a father/daughter activity that I was left out of. My HT would take me. When my bike tire was flat, my HT came over, threw my bike in his van, dragged me to his house and taught me how to fix it. When my mom’s car needed a tune up, same HT came over after work and did what he could. Again, he dragged me out of the house and pulled me under the hood. He said that my mom couldn’t always afford to go to the shop, so I could do a few of these things for her. So, he taught a 14 year-old girl how to change spark plugs, and a fan belt.
When my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, her HTs wife often took my mother to chemo treatments, and cared for her afterwards. I lived 2,000 miles away. What would I have done without them? And the VTs were God-sent.
I never wondered who would baptize me because there were several men ready and willing. One time when I was a about 18, my mom was lamenting that I didn’t have a dad to help me with college decisions. I told my mom that I didn’t have one dad….I had a least five. I was really looking for independence at that age, but every HT I ever had was still helping my mom parent me. LOL
Yes, they often did the irritating stop by without an appointment. My mom would always hate that. She felt they didn’t understand because they had stay-at-home wives that had dinner ready in the evenings and cleaned up afterwards. She on the other hand, had to do all this after work and she didn’t like unannounced visits when her sink was full of dishes. She just wanted to relax.
Statistics are certainly irritating. They are, however, an easy way to objectively look at the program. It is kind of like standardized tests that kids take. SATs can’t tell you about creativity or speaking ability. Same with HT stats, they can’t tell if the HT is good or bad, just that they went. But it is a starting place. It just does not do anyone any good if it is the ending place. My childhood HT would never have known our needs if they did no come to our house.
My old Sp said we had to HT with white shirts and ties. I got up and said that one older sister asked me not to wear that because she didn’t feel comfortable. He told me to wear it anyway. I don’t. I have found that many EQP and HPGL give false numbers all the time. My bishop is my HT and he might come and bring treats at Christmas (his wife is a great baker and it is worth the wait) but we never see him the rest of the year and we get counted 100% every month. I am a pretty good home teacher, but I don’t give lesions. I home teach a lot of singles sisters and I mostly just let them talk and do a lot of things for them around their house and yard. I figures they would rather have their gutters cleaned out that go over a Ensign story that they had already read. I would say that for most leaders the numbers are important just because they do reflect the efforts of the HT to some extent. Outofstep- That is exactly what the home teaching program is supposed to do. It doesn’t most of the time, but the fact that it works sometimes makes it worth keeping around, IMO. When I think about Matthew 25 (goats and sheep, when saw we thee hungry etc), I wonder whether it’s a way of getting some people to do some care for the need, who wouldn’t otherwise, ‘under duress.’ If number crunching means the elderly, widows and single mums get more attention and support than they would without it, then I’ll put up with the rest of the unpleasantness. According to Matt 25 when the Lord returns he’ll gather the nations of the earth and separate them into two groups based solely on the question of acts of kindness, service and consideration. Those who are his right hand are promised eternal life.
Not covenants, or performance or obedience to minutiae but how we treated each other.
I think every other program and principle in the church is (or should be) geared towards achieving this.
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