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I think many of you are becoming aware of the church’s “new” self reliance program. It’s not actually new, but it’s new to North America and currently being rolled out in our stake (as I assume it is in other stakes). Here’s a link: https://www.lds.org/topics/pef-self-reliance/manuals-and-videos?lang=eng&old=true ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://www.lds.org/topics/pef-self-reliance/manuals-and-videos?lang=eng&old=true I don’t really have a problem with self reliance itself. Yes, part of me has always wondered how and why we’re supposed to be self reliant but rely totally on Christ/Heavenly Father at the same time, but that’s a different conversation. Another thing I sometimes wonder about is how this self reliance is really directly related to the Gospel of Christ – it’s not clear to me that he said much about it, especially in a physical sense (perhaps it was just assumed that everyone knew to take care of themselves). But the idea that we should provide our own means of living and caring for ourselves and our families is fine with me. And I certainly know people in my ward who would benefit from learning how to manage personal finances or how to get education for a better job.
So here’s the rant: Why does anyone think we need another program? There are social service organizations out there that can help people with these same things. Why does the church need to do this? We recently had a council discussion about being overwhelmed with programs and things to do (partly precipitated by this program) and we all agreed there’s already too much to do and we don’t have to do it all. In a nutshell, this program, besides the administrative part, requires participants to take part in a twelve week program in their area of interest. There’s homework and other contact outside the weekly meetings, too. THEN (and I don’t see this anywhere in the manuals or materials I have read) the stake leaders of this program (a committee) tell us the expectation from the Q15 is that every adult member will take part at some point! I just don’t need something else to do, and I don’t see the benefit of a professional with a master’s degree taking part in something he or she has no need of. Full disclosure: I was not one of the “invitees” but there are certainly those who think I could have been. I also didn’t and wouldn’t go to the kick off event (AKA devotional), nor am I keen on doing a twelve week program.
I could go on, but I will end the rant here. For those who got through it, thanks for listening.
There are two positives I can see: 1) it’s not about the standard food storage and garden self-reliance–this is much broader in terms of spiritual and life skills, so I think it could be a real benefit, particularly to new members and in some areas of the globe, and 2) it’s another organized program that lends itself easily to something ward leaders can use if they don’t have a lot of other ideas. For example, the old style FHE manuals the church used to do really helped families who didn’t know what to do for FHE. Same with this type of thing. It could be used for monthly RS meetings or 5th Sunday lessons or even talk topics. And it has broader appeal and application. I think the general thing is a good idea. We live in a society that encourages debt. Amen on the debt being bad. This did make me wonder what the “other” motivations of the church for pushing this might be. (Yes, I am being a
😈 advocate). I could see if people handled things like finances better that the church would have less people draining money from fast offerings. I could see the ROI on such a program being positive.That thought made me wonder if they pushed any type of program like this before the church had the more formal welfare program that it started in the great depression.
And on a related topic, I have heard a few cases where people said they lived off their year’s food supply when they lost their job for a while. Given how many $ I have flushed on food storage gone bad for many different reasons, I would have been able to live for months (including mortgage, food, and other bills) with the money stocked away in a safe investment. Maybe this new program should look at teaching investment fundamentals – Oh wait – Dave Ramsey already has that gig.
But I am 100% behind 72-hour kits. Everyone should have those.
For all my gripes with the Church, this is an area I am very pleased in. Implimentation will never be perfect, but I am grateful the effort is being put in to help everyone become “self reliant”, avoid debt, manage finances, and save for a rainy day. Those are doctrines I can believe in. I don’t really have a problem with this one at all. I mean, I know that the church wants to minimize the amount of money dolled out to people who are not trying to look after themselves. I also know from being a HPGL that the Providing the Lord’s Way Manual said welfare funds were for “members and non-members” in the Ward boundaries. But I rarely if ever saw non-members served by our Bishop’s distribution of funds in Welfare meeting conversations. That part bothered me, along with how the very poor might have an $8 per month Netflix account or a $14 a year magazine subscription, and he’d want them to cut out those “luxuries”. All that bothered me with that particular BP. He was more concerned about reducing his welfare distributions than other things I thought were important…. But the manuals seem interesting — starting a business, getting a better job, getting more education — all these things are good things. To the point I’d like to read them to see what substance they provide, if any.
Where I could support a rant is if Stake leaders start insisting on implementation of the programs without an assessment of whether they fit the needs of the people in the Ward.
hawkgrrrl wrote:
There are two positives I can see: 1) it’s not about the standard food storage and garden self-reliance–this is much broader in terms of spiritual and life skills, so I think it could be a real benefit, particularly to new members and in some areas of the globe, and 2) it’s another organized program that lends itself easily to something ward leaders can use if they don’t have a lot of other ideas. For example, the old style FHE manuals the church used to do really helped families who didn’t know what to do for FHE. Same with this type of thing. It could be used for monthly RS meetings or 5th Sunday lessons or even talk topics. And it has broader appeal and application.
I agree about the conflation of self reliance and things like doomsday prepping, gardening, etc. I do garden but because I like to and want to, not because the prophet said so (and I’ll note the prophet hasn’t said so in quite awhile).
Some of the principles of the program could be useful in fifth Sunday and other lessons, but that’s not the design of the program. The program is a 12 week commitment to weekly meetings and other activities.
LookingHard wrote:
Amen on the debt being bad.This did make me wonder what the “other” motivations of the church for pushing this might be. (Yes, I am being a
😈 advocate). I could see if people handled things like finances better that the church would have less people draining money from fast offerings. I could see the ROI on such a program being positive.That thought made me wonder if they pushed any type of program like this before the church had the more formal welfare program that it started in the great depression.
And on a related topic, I have heard a few cases where people said they lived off their year’s food supply when they lost their job for a while. Given how many $ I have flushed on food storage gone bad for many different reasons, I would have been able to live for months (including mortgage, food, and other bills) with the money stocked away in a safe investment. Maybe this new program should look at teaching investment fundamentals – Oh wait – Dave Ramsey already has that gig.
But I am 100% behind 72-hour kits. Everyone should have those.
There’s no mention of things like 72 hour kits or food storage in the program materials. The 4 areas are personal finances, finding a job, getting education to find a better job, and starting a business. Some people were given invitations by their bishops, but anyone could attend the kickoff devotional. Our stake was organized into regions because we’re geographically large (central, east, west). We have 8 units and 7 buildings. We ended up with 13 groups, mostly the budgeting one and at least one of those meets in each building. The next most popular was the job search one. There is only one start a business one in the stake this go round. In 12 weeks there’s another devotional where there will be new invitees and anyone else who decides to come and new groups. The SP says we’ll do 3 rounds of 12 weeks each per year, avoiding November/December holidays.
My main beef with this is the idea that somehow all members are supposed to do this at some point (need or want it or not) and the commitment. We did use food storage during my first unemployment period, but this is not about that kind of self reliance.
SilentDawning wrote:Where I could support a rant is if Stake leaders start insisting on implementation of the programs without an assessment of whether they fit the needs of the people in the Ward.
And that’s my gripe, SD. I’ve known the program was coming for months. I’m not sure where they get the idea this is supposed to be for every member, I’m thinking it is probably something they got from an over zealous trainer (there’s a church employee who came to train the committee multiple times) and then got over zealous about it themselves. It probably stemmed from some off handed remark made by a member of the Q15 saying something like “everybody could benefit from this program” and has morphed into an expectation that everyone therefore should take part. next thing we know it will become a revelation and a commandment.
Some of my surprise in discussing this here is that we seem to be the only ones rolling this out so far. It is being rolled out across the USA and Canada, you’ll all get your chance. Your mileage may vary in how exactly your stake does it (the 12 weeks and areas are firm, how often is less firm I think) and how zealous your leadership is about it.
DarkJedi wrote:
So here’s the rant: Why does anyone think we need another program? There are social service organizations out there that can help people with these same things. Why does the church need to do this? …
I may contradict myself, but here goes…
In places with a high density of Mormons church programs may be the community programs. In places with a low Mormon density there may already be a community program that makes more sense for people to attend. Take addiction recovery as an example; in the MorCor the church’s addiction recovery programs might be
theprogram for the area while in Tennessee AA may be running a community addiction recovery program that people can attend. Then there are areas with no existing programs, LDS or otherwise, where running a church program could provide a needed community service.
I agree with you though. At church I don’t really feel like our programs are there to serve people with interests, there’s more the attitude that everyone needs to participate in every program. A “man was created for programs” approach.
For example, we have a three/fourfold mission of the church. We don’t say people that are passionate about genealogy – go do temple stuff, people that are passionate about missionary work – go do splits with the missionaries, people that are passionate about visiting people – go do home teaching, people that are passionate about helping the poor – staff our food kitchen. We tend to expect everyone to be gung-ho about everything. Go do temple work to become passionate about genealogy, go do splits to become passionate about missionary work, go do home teaching to become passionate about visiting people, go to the soup kitchen to become passionate about helping the poor. Become like god, passionate about all these things, it’s a part of becoming perfect.
Fine… but there’s too much for any one person.
I honestly don’t know how much of this is an expectation leaders have of members and how much of this is members having expectations of themselves. For example, would opting out of doing home teaching make me feel like I’d be losing virtue points in my community or would it be the launching point or being on the other end of a lecture from my SP? A little of each?
To phrase it another way, do leaders expect people to participate in every program down the line or do I believe it’s necessary for me to participate in every program that comes down the line? What happens when someone that believes they should participate in every program that comes down the line gets a leadership calling? Do they project that expectation onto others?
It’s good you are having those conversations in your council… even though it sounds like the Q15 expect every adult member to participate in this one.
My additional programs bring all the boys to the yard, and they’re like, it’s more boring than yours, darn right it’s more boring than yours, I can teach you, and since we’ve got lay clergy we can’t charge.
It’s odd, but when I was a young adult, back in my early twenties, I could have really done with something like this. Instead I’ve learned things the hard way, and it’s a bummer. Like the Addiction Recovery Program and Employment Services, there are good positive things to be reaped from this which are not exclusively churchy.
There’s definitely the everybody do everything attitude involved. Of course we all come to a realization that nobody can actually do everything. In fact one of the points an SPC made in our last council was that we don’t have to do everything or attend every activity. There is also always the pull to provide enough activities so we aren’t only Sunday saints. For some people the church is their whole life – social and otherwise. For those people it’s great they have activities, for the rest of us it just becomes too much. And I recognize that living in a liberal northeastern state we probably have more (taxpayer funded) social programs than some other places. I live in a fairly small town, but when I was checking out ARP I also looked at what was available in the community as far as AA goes. There were no less than 6 options, many more if I was willing to drive 10-15 miles.
Quote:even though it sounds like the Q15 expect every adult member to participate in this one.
I’m still not seeing where this is coming from. In the materials I have read, including the FP letter, there is no mention of everyone taking part.
SamBee wrote:
It’s odd, but when I was a young adult, back in my early twenties, I could have really done with something like this. Instead I’ve learned things the hard way, and it’s a bummer.Like the Addiction Recovery Program and Employment Services, there are good positive things to be reaped from this which are not exclusively churchy.
Church employment services is practically nonexistent here. The “office” is 2 1/2 hours away. They don’t seem to provide anything our local labor office doesn’t provide except their jobs list is curated to not contain jobs where there are normally Sunday hours. I would dare say the employment counseling provided by the professionals at the Labor Dept is likely much more valuable than that offered by the missionary at the church office.
That’s no to say that people in the church can’t or wont benefit from this – I certainly think
those who need or want itwill. I see the upsides but I am a bit more with DJ on this. I am on the Just Serve team. I love the idea. I would love to see it grow, but my Bishopric councilor and I were discussing it and he was shaking his head because we have to find time to cram one more thing on the calendar. His other valid complaint is the same 12 families do all the stuff. Perfect set up for church burn out. Additionally in the past quarter I have heard pitches at church for the Pathway’s Program (we even have a select couple called to encourage, nag, facilitate the program). Addiction Recovery Program (Missionary couple for that too). Two fifth Sunday meetings on Name Extraction and Temple attendance – Youth were included in this). My head is just spinning. Add in quarterly blood drives, regular calling things, VT – HT, ward/stake temple nights. And Wow. Just Wow.
This weekend I had a family member who was hospitalized. They were in a Catholic Hospital. As I left the building one night I thought – why doesn’t our church pick one or two area’s only and really focus on them. Over a long haul. It could be anything Self-Reliance, Just Serve, etc. But one or two. Let us really grow them and become proficient – not just for ourselves but for the communities. I believe we would be a much better city on a hill if we did that, then this splintered, ADHD style thing we have.
My rant now done.
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