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dande48 wrote:
With point #3, though, I’m interpreting that to mean the Church has not, and most likely will not be able to fulfill your needs (specifically, your need for leadership and meaningful service). Is it possible to be “satisfied enough”, if the Church isn’t meeting those needs? Because service and leadership (priesthood) are both core fundamentals of the Church. If the Church itself is not able to fulfill those needs, can you be “satisfied enough” with the Church, even if those needs are filled elsewhere?If the other fundamentals were there — a revitalized testimony, time to forget the negative, traumatic, residual hum or previous experiences, and the other items then I think I could be satisfied.
The achievement of the whole thing is part of it. For example, if I were fully committed, I would be trying to do a number of things:
1. Improve the quality of teaching in our Ward on a much grander scale than I am now in my “calling”.
2. Working to have a “good Sunday experience” rather than chasing after less actives in the ministering program.
3. More effective forms of measurement and use of results than we currently have.
My biggest obstacle, even if all the fundamentals were back in place, would be the tendency for leaders to slap people down who think outside the box. The church, unfortunately, is not the place for administrative IDEATION. It gets labelled as not the Lord’s way, deviating from the inspired program, not the program of the church, and someone always invents a reason why your idea is no good — particularly if you implement the idea and there is a problem. These would be hard for me, but I would also take it as a challenge to be an ideator in spite of an inflexible, bureaucratic structure.
Another thing I would enjoy doing is keeping the STake at bay. The local stake people come out of the blue with off the wall programs all the time, and I would kind of enjoy that balancing act, at least for a while.
SilentDawning wrote:
The church, unfortunately, is not the place for administrative IDEATION.
Perhaps some of the reason for that is because when you are wandering in the desert, it isn’t about how to wander more efficiently or more creatively. More creative ideas don’t necessarily get you to the promised land.
I guess it is hard to know when we are supposed to come up with creative and smart ideas, or when we are supposed to wait for the Lord to lead us into the promised land. I guess it depends on what he purpose is for what we are doing when we meet on Sunday.
Sometimes it certainly feels like we just wander about. Any leader will do. Not much matters, anyway. Just how I feel lately. So, I’m not so motivated to seek new ways to teach or lead…it just is what it is. Take it or leave it. Not all that wander are lost…sometimes we just do it because that is what we do.
Heber13 wrote:
Perhaps some of the reason for that is because when you are wandering in the desert, it isn’t about how to wander more efficiently or more creatively. More creative ideas don’t necessarily get you to the promised land.Not really in my case — this was a problem throughout my TBM experience in the church. I would come up with new ideas and they would be shot down routinely.
The one that stands out is when I felt a sign at the front of the church would be useful in attracting people to specific programs. I asked our Bishop, who was a manual thumping person, with a bureaucratic military background. His eyes lit up and said he’d consult the manual about why you can’t have a sign. He came back to me, almost delighted, a few minutes later and explained why you can’t have a sign — with a certain enthusiasm. It was at that point I realized that any ideas outside of current church culture would have to be used elsewhere.
That’s been my experience at church too. It is like they have a little box a leader is allowed to play in…they want them to be creative with new ideas within that little box…not out of the box. Everything else gets shot down.
I would agree Heber and SD. And I think it’s primarily due to correlation – the church’s desire to have uniformity. The days of innovations that brought about such things as Primary and Sunday School are gone. I think the little box analogy is fitting. Heber13 wrote:
That’s been my experience at church too.It is like they have a little box a leader is allowed to play in…they want them to be creative with new ideas within that little box…not out of the box. Everything else gets shot down.
This video is fitting for the little boxes analogy — short, entertaining, and memorable!! Not to be missed.
DarkJedi wrote:
I would agree Heber and SD. And I think it’s primarily due to correlation – the church’s desire to have uniformity. The days of innovations that brought about such things as Primary and Sunday School are gone. I think the little box analogy is fitting.
I think the church is not as correlated as back in the 90s and that is a good thing. I think it encourages sterile meetings
The uniform architecture has been commented on. It’s not the prettiest design, but it probably saved a lot of money using the same template for different chapels and I respect that. So in the balance of things, that’s maybe one area they were right.
SilentDawning wrote:
Heber13 wrote:
Perhaps some of the reason for that is because when you are wandering in the desert, it isn’t about how to wander more efficiently or more creatively. More creative ideas don’t necessarily get you to the promised land.Not really in my case — this was a problem throughout my TBM experience in the church. I would come up with new ideas and they would be shot down routinely.
The one that stands out is when I felt a sign at the front of the church would be useful in attracting people to specific programs. I asked our Bishop, who was a manual thumping person, with a bureaucratic military background. His eyes lit up and said he’d consult the manual about why you can’t have a sign. He came back to me, almost delighted, a few minutes later and explained why you can’t have a sign — with a certain enthusiasm. It was at that point I realized that any ideas outside of current church culture would have to be used elsewhere.
We wander around within our buildings!
I think it is a way to catch out visitors, the semi-active and returnees. When I started coming back a decade ago, Id didn’t have a clue which room to go to. Was sacrament meeting first? Or last? Were the priesthood in the cultural hall or the chapel? 10 am or 10:30? Or later? And so on. If I was away for six months, I would probably have the same issues, because all of these change regularly.
“I would come up with new ideas and they would be shot down routinely.”
Me too, so many times. I have asked repeatedly why our Family History Center shuts down when our tourist season is at its height. Many of these people are seeking their roots.
Sometimes the solution is to freelance. When I find inspirational quotes I like and find positive, I stick them up on our board. I even stuck up a leaflet from another church with a Bible quote & nice picture of Jesus, and it has stayed up for over a year. Sometimes the bureaucracy is a boon – people assume I had official permission. But I’m careful what goes up there – I try and put up positive things but which won’t upset anyone or be seen as false doctrine.
What I don’t do:
* Criticise clothing. Unless it is very revealing. I’ve never been a white shirt man.
* Enforce rules I see as stupid or inflexible e.g. taking sacrament with the right hand.
In church today we had a lesson on Old Testament #27 about leadership. They read this quote:
Quote:Encourage class members to be good leaders by giving service, trusting and obeying the Lord, having faith in him, teaching from the scriptures, and following the prophets.
I think this is the training and emphasis for leaders in the church.
It’s about service and obeying the Lord to have blessings, and that is how they view good leadership. They have a purpose. It’s not the same as other organizations.
Just something that struck me about leadership.
Heber13 wrote:
In church today we had a lesson on Old Testament #27 about leadership.They read this quote:
Quote:Encourage class members to be good leaders by giving service, trusting and obeying the Lord, having faith in him, teaching from the scriptures, and following the prophets.
I think this is the training and emphasis for leaders in the church.
It
‘s about service and obeying the Lord to have blessings, and that is how they view good leadership. They have a purpose. It’s not the same as other organizations. Just something that struck me about leadership.
This is very vanilla. In my view, they need to share a) how to engage volunteers in their work b) how to identify talent and merge it with the needs of the Ward c) how to balance ward and individual needs d) how to create a vision for the Ward, how to measure progress toward such vision, and how to review and adjust it to stay on track e) how to delegate f) some basic project management principles, like how to define a project, set milestones and work toward it.
Stuff like this gets shot down as the way of the world, but it works!!!!
Yes, we can blanket this with a constant search for inspiration, but that alone, is not enough when there are so many practical things leaders can do and learn — and most of it easily accessible.
Heber13 wrote:
“Encourage class members to be good leaders by giving service, trusting and obeying the Lord, having faith in him, teaching from the scriptures, and following the prophets.”
Just to emphasize the point I believe Heber is making – “be good leaders by giving service” ok fine, “trusting and obeying the Lord” trust in the Lord can also be measured by trust and obedience to the Lord’s servants. Trust in the Lord can mean satisfaction in the Lord’s revealed program. “having faith in him” this is somewhat redundant from the previous point. I believe trust and obedience is synonymous for faith. “teaching from the scriptures” This is fine as far as it goes. It can also be a reminder to not use unapproved sources our outside materials. “and following the prophets.”
To paraphrase: Be good leaders by serving and teaching from approved materials while never deviating from nor questioning God, His Church, and Prophets.
I suppose that is not results oriented leadership.
Makes me wonder – would the church rather have 100 good men to transcribe the scriptures or 1 good “ideator” to invent the printing press?
SilentDawning wrote:
This is very vanilla.
Exactly. The lowest common denominator across the body of saints is the easiest way to standardize it all. Not the most effective. If you want to push new ideas, it takes a lot of patience, nuance, and developing social capital to slowly turn the ship a smidge from the course the volunteer captain is told to drive the ship. There is little incentive to rock the boat. “Stay in the boat” is the call. I don’t see it changing much.
The plain vanilla is what makes so much of it boring and safe. Mint chocolate chip is a sin.
Roy wrote:
Makes me wonder – would the church rather have 100 good men to transcribe the scriptures or 1 good “ideator” to invent the printing press?
Bingo!
Sometimes I think with their priorities (getting people involved is a higher priority than efficiency or effectiveness), they would rather share the load with a 100 people doing it in a ridiculously slow and archaic way. As you said so well…it’s not a “results oriented leadership” focus. Not to say they don’t try to train and have people with business acumen help generate new ideas…but it isn’t their highest priority and often gets shot down in favor of supporting the “Lord’s way” aka…the handbook or whatever comes out of SLC. Many great ideas are lost in the values to teach humble subservience.
Many great leaders are untapped in favor of the zealous obedient A-type personalities climbing the ladder as they quote general conference by heart.
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