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I hope I don’t get eaten alive with this question. As you know, I’ve cut back on church effort significantly in the past five years. I’m really no worse off — in many ways, better. I spent so much of my time doing things that I would rather not be doing during my active years. Now, with no church to speak of except worship in the home due to COVID, I am questioning just how necessary all the busy work has been in the past. Has anyone had similar thoughts? Life seems to go on just fine with it all scaled back, in my view. Hometeaching was so important and now it is just ministering, a much better, but less intensive program, and everything seems to be running just fine without the formerly inspired, priority HT program…
Maybe it takes a while for the effects to show up in the overall well-being of members. For example, without the constant reminders at church about WoW, some people might get lax and start taking the occasional drink, for example. This could lead to problems for some people who go further than an occasional drink.
All the teaching about sexual purity could get lost due to absence from the church, and that could lead to problems for people….
But I see things like this happening over the longer-term, not a short-term problem, even one that lasts about a year or so (who knows).
Anyone else have these thoughts? Or is this simply fall-out from COVID that I’m thinking this way?
It was only as necessary as we made it. I don’t say that to be dismissive of the question, life is much more complicated than that. People taught us that all the programs and busy work were vital. People in the culture hounded one another to make sure everyone else was doing what was vital. The environment conditions people that way.
But I said that all of it was only as necessary as we made it. At some point we agreed with the culture. We bought in. We made it necessary. But it’s only as necessary as we make it.
I guess it depends, necessary for what? I don’t think any of the church stuff has ever been necessary for living a good, happy life. Perhaps it’s necessary to keep up the program though. I think there’s an idea in the church that if people are busy, they’ll be more engaged and feel like they’re contributing, keeping them coming week after week. The whole every new member needs a friend and a calling thing. But the COVID situation has shown that many people prefer to have their day of rest spending quality time at home with family. I’ve noticed many people have been enjoying the break from normal church activities. In the coming months the Church is going to have to try and answer this question about why it’s necessary. If they don’t give a satisfactory answer, I think many people may not return to their previous level of participation.
I agree that you can still live a positive, rewarding, selfless life without the church in it. I guess that’s kind of my point. I also want to say that I haven’t felt an increase in temptation above normal levels without all the teaching and training we get each week either. That’s just me…
Now, youth programs — I think those suffer due to COVID, but adult programs….?
The level of necessity varies from person to person. I don’t say that flippantly or dismissively. I think it is an important point.
Some people need things other people don’t. Some people, especially those who are alone or in unhealthy situations need it desperately, while, for others, attending is the unhealthy situation.
I have said for a long time that I don’t attend church primarily because I need it. I enjoy some talks and lessons here and there, but I enjoy helping other people – and I have been fortunate enough to have served in various positions over the years where I can do that. I love teaching Sunday School, especially with the youth, and I love being able to share a point of view others appreciate and/or need to balance the conversations.
Do I “need” that? Perhaps not – but perhaps. Even without physical church meetings, I do it online. I think that says something about how important it is to me – so it might be a real need for my heart / spirit / soul.
“None of it is”. With that said, some people need busy work, other people need structure. Since giving out busy work and structure and calling it a law gives you power, it makes sense that the church teaches to do so much. As long as there are still people who believe that the prophet is called from god and that the church is restored with god’s authority, there will always be people who will listen and obey to anything the leadership says to do, no questions asked For the rest of us, just get used to being “lonely” in the sense of not feeling like everything is right, but not being allowed to do anything about it
I think I came to these questions in my journey well before Covid-19. I think the others have answered it. I echo what they said.
grobert93 wrote:
“None of it is”. With that said, some people need busy work, other people need structure.
My teenage son doesn’t “need” seminary but it does help him study and he simply wouldn’t do it without the structure and he does like to be part of a group. He learns and feels better about himself. But he could get that same benefit in other ways, but this works without searching for other ways to grow and learn. Other people may not have those needs my son has. My son may not have those needs in 10 yrs from now. But for now, it is a good enough think to choose to do, but it is not necessary.
nibbler wrote:
It was only as necessary as we made it.
I do get that the social aspect of the church is important (necessary?) for many people. I think some people only participate for social reasons. For some people the church is their life. That’s not why I go to church,though, and I do not think it was a founding principle of the church. I also get many people believe in GBH’s old three things every member needs (gospel nourishment, a friend, something to do). I believe that to be true for most, but not all. I think some will recognize for themselves that they got on just fine without [fill in the blank] for a few months and give it a miss in the future. I do think the leadership will recognize there are some things we can just do without on the whole and some things we can do with less of. I don’t have youth at home any more and I’m happily not in a youth calling (actually I’m happily not in any calling at the moment
I think the driver of change back to business (pronounced busy-ness) in this case will be what the church sees in its health metrics. There are the time-honored metrics of % of endowed members with an active TR, tithing and donations levels, new member baptisms, etcetera — when theses start slipping this will be an indicator to the leaders that things need to change. These measures are believed to also indicate the spirituality of the members — and they may well suffer if our church services stop for too long. SilentDawning wrote:
— and they may well suffer if our church services stop for too long.
They may suffer when some current Missionaries request to go home instead of sitting in the apartment all day.
Or, future Missionaries delay submitting applications.
How does one measure spirituality? We attempt to measure spirituality but one of the fruits of that effort is putting the cart before the horse. Conditioning that leads us to believe someone isn’t spiritual unless they’re checking the boxes.
SilentDawning wrote:
I think the driver of change back to business (pronounced busy-ness) in this case will be what the church sees in its health metrics. There are the time-honored metrics of % of endowed members with an active TR, tithing and donations levels, new member baptisms, etcetera — when theses start slipping this will be an indicator to the leaders that things need to change. These measures are believed to also indicate the spirituality of the members — and they may well suffer if our church services stop for too long.
I don’t have real hard evidence, but I was privy to some data before I was released from the high council. At the time it did not appear that tithing had dropped off significantly (at least that couldn’t be attributed to unemployment), and TR interviews were being done virtually. Our SP said he had a report that our missionaries, teaching via social media/video, had 100 people they have been teaching within our stake that were progressing toward baptism. I am aware of one in my ward that has a scheduled upcoming baptism (he had been taking the discussions prior to the pandemic). It’s possible the metrics will drop, but only those in leadership positions will have access to it and they likely won’t share the negatives.
Minyan Man wrote:
SilentDawning wrote:
— and they may well suffer if our church services stop for too long.
They may suffer when some current Missionaries request to go home instead of sitting in the apartment all day.
Or, future Missionaries delay submitting applications.
I’m not at all sure about those submitting applications. If it were my own kid I’d advise them to wait a bit but that wouldn’t necessarily mean they would. As part of the pandemic we did have three in our area return early. One was close to the end and he was directly released. Of the other two, one had been out about a year and the other just a few month and both had the opportunity to choose whether or not to be reassigned stateside. The one who had been out longer chose not to, the other one is being reassigned. I know that’s a small sample and anecdotal but I think it’s a very tough time to be a missionary.
I will say that I probably would have gone to the ward Memorial Day picnic this year. I don’t go every year, and sometimes just because I don’t feel like it because it’s lame. It is however one of the two “main events” our ward has annually (the other being the Christmas party which I also sometimes skip). Other than that I can’t say I’ve really missed anything – and I’m not whining about the picnic, I could take or leave it. Any organization will impose more and more hoops to jump through in an attempt to squeeze a little more compliance from its members. We see this in many corporations where middle management sends down edicts of conformance, to justify the need for their existence. The church is no different. The more you get someone to buy into your authority, the more your authority is needed. Without the constant reinforcement at church of how important the leaders are, we may find people become less willing to conform to their edicts. People may realize they are doing just fine not jumping through hoops.
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