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I know I have been most crabby here recently. However, I do still look for good. The following is a huge good in my opinion. It’s a bit of a read but I couldn’t say it better than it is. Read it when you have time. It’s about New Sacrament Meeting Guidelines. I appreciated the direction from GC to minimize announcements in SM. So much of what we cover there is just minutiae. I’d like to think we will take this opportunity to have ONLY items that must be approved by the Ward (even knowing each ward will approve everything, with 100% of the ‘vote’). My preference would be to have the Sacrament at the end, as the culminating event.
Talks? Well, the blog says, “I’ve even suggested a few times that every sacrament talk should be about the sacrament itself in some way, or at least about the atonement and the death and resurrection of Jesus.” We have to be a bit careful here. I agree in principle, but if we followed this, it would be even more predictable than now. I mean, every other week, we’d be hearing someone start their talk with, “I’ve been asked to speak on the Sacrament.” I think, instead, my approach would be to say that each talk should try make a clear tie back to discipleship, atonement, faith… something like that. However the talks are managed, they should clearly be reflected in the Sacrament; talk about how we can take another spiritual step as members of the Family of Christ, then we have the Sacrament to commit ourselves to him and to receive his spirit in us.
I do wonder if we will wind up squeezing out youth speakers and musical numbers with 14% less time in the meeting. My hope is that we have more music and simpler, more direct, less fluff adult talks.
One final thought. As my FT has continued to move, I’ve gotten away from the idea of a “worship service”. To me, what is powerful about Christianity is our potential to become disciples and followers of Jesus’ teachings. I think ‘worship’ can sometimes get a little too far down path of what amazing accolades we can give to Jesus for his abundant love; forgetting that Jesus didn’t seem to do any of what he did in order to be praised.
We really need announcements. Firstly most of our ward is transient, so needs constant reminders and secondly, it’s the main way information gets about – particularly on events. Thank you for linking that post. I hope we do this right.
On Own Now wrote:My preference would be to have the Sacrament at the end, as the culminating event.
Agreed. Every Christian church service that I’ve ever attended places the eucharist/sacrament at the end. Having it first has always given me the impression of just getting it over with so we can get on to more important things.
GBSmith wrote:
Having it first has always given me the impression of just getting it over with so we can get on to more important things.
But then most members wouldn’t show up for the first 40 minutes of sacrament meeting!
😆 dande48 wrote:
GBSmith wrote:
Having it first has always given me the impression of just getting it over with so we can get on to more important things.
But then most members wouldn’t show up for the first 40 minutes of sacrament meeting!
😆
I think you’d be surprised. In the Episcopal church worship is divided into the liturgy of the word and liturgy of the table. The word is comprised of the lessons, readings from the psalms, OT, NT and finally the gospels followed by the sermon. Everything focuses to the eucharist as the high point of service finishing with the words “let us go forth to love and serve the Lord” or something similar. For a typical sacrament meeting you have to be spiritually ready and focused to get the most from the sacrament and then as often as not the following talks are a let down to one degree or another. I think we do it the way we do because that’s the way we’ve always done it and I wish someone would actually look at the possibility of a change or at least giving wards the option.
dande48 wrote:
GBSmith wrote:
Having it first has always given me the impression of just getting it over with so we can get on to more important things.
But then most members wouldn’t show up for the first 40 minutes of sacrament meeting! 😆
dande, I laughed and enjoyed your comment. It did make me think a bit. I think part of our problem is that SM today has a kind of “soft opening”. We start with a hymn, a prayer, a bunch of ward business that might take from a few minutes up to several minutes. This is all kind of lesser in the overall scheme. In a way, the meat of the meeting kicks off with the sacrament hymn. I think, in a certain way, this has conditioned us to be less concerned about being a few minutes late. I know that in my own mind, I think of trying to be on time first, but being there before/during the Sacrament hymn as a close second. If that’s not possible, then getting there sometime during the sacrament is OK as I can easily sneak in (along with the others) at the conclusion of the sacrament, and be there for the rest of the meeting.If instead, we had a a hymn/prayer to start, followed by very brief ward business (<2 minutes) and then went on to the first of a series of talks leading up to the sacrament hymn/sacrament at about the 40-minute mark, I don't think there would be the obvious breaks or a sense of a soft opening the same way we have today. Maybe I'm just an unabashed optimist, though.
SamBee wrote:
We really need announcements. Firstly most of our ward is transient, so needs constant reminders and secondly, it’s the main way information gets about – particularly on events.
I am actually in the camp of no or very few (read almost no) announcements. The point was made by Elder Cook that announcements can be effectively handled via a program or, for those of us who have kept up with the 21st Century, email or text. I do understand not everyone can access text or email, I think the Q15 does also – hence they mentioned the program as an option.
I’d rather we eliminate business in the beginning, too. Do it at the end or in the other meeting.
GBSmith wrote:
On Own Now wrote:My preference would be to have the Sacrament at the end, as the culminating event.
Agreed. Every Christian church service that I’ve ever attended places the eucharist/sacrament at the end. Having it first has always given me the impression of just getting it over with so we can get on to more important things.
I can’t say the majority of other churches I have been to do it at the end, but usually more in the middle. That, however, is their culture. Not that we can’t change our culture but baby steps are important. Maybe sacrament last is a future change.
Nevertheless, I like sacrament first if only because many times the talks are less than uplifting. It would be harder for me to focus on the sacrament in a meeting where I was already biting my tongue about a talk or just plain wishing I could leave (or maybe did leave).
I have such a fantasy about my perfect Sacrament Meeting – It’s dang scary. On a less scary note – My ward has been having more Christ or scripture focused Sacrament Meetings for the past 6 months. It does make a difference. Not every talk is great, but we’ve stepped up away from lectures. I like it.
I do hope music is still part of the process. We have as super small choir, but even a piano solo of a hymn is so helpful for meditation and reflection.
For me – I wish the Sacrament time was longer. I love the weeks, when we finished singing the hymn, but the bread is still being prepared, so the organist plays and we just sit. We are such a busy church. I love it about us. But Jesus took time to be apart, to have personal time with his Father/Parents. I like when we can do that.
Other churches chapels are available during the week if someone wants to have quiet communion with God. Only people who have keys can do that in our church. Usually those people are super busy and you can’t borrow the keys.
Those are my calmer, more realistic wishes. I do like the direction this portends toward.
Random thought time. Sacrament could be towards the beginning of the meeting so the bishopric can adjust the time on the back end to ensure the meeting ends on time. Like if there were a baby blessing and there were 50 more people visiting so passing the sacrament took more time. Or it’s a three day weekend and a full third of the members are on holiday so passing the sacrament takes less time. Or the BP makes the priest say the blessing 8 times. Having sacrament at the beginning allows the bishop to pad SM out or shorten it such that the meeting ends at roughly the 80 minute mark (too long, so
:thumbup: from me for reducing the meeting to 60 minutes).If they did sacrament at the end they’d have to have a cutoff point, leave 15 minutes for the sacrament at the end and they may go over or under the allotted time some weeks. Probably not a big deal though.
I know in our ward our meeting will start, I’ll look around and hardly anyone is there. “Why are we opening the overflow? There’s like 40 people here.” But by the time sacrament starts there are over 200 people. Mormon Standard Time, excuse me, The Only True and Living Church Upon the Face of the Whole Earth, With Which I, the Lord, am Well Pleased, Speaking Unto the Church Collectively and Not Individually of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Standard Time. aka at least 15 minutes after you were supposed to have arrived. Hey, I get it. Parents have got to get all the kids ready to go and I bet half the parents have to spend several minutes each Sunday fighting their kids to make them to go as they drag their feet all morning in an effort to delay the day’s proceedings.
There’s the ordering of when the sacrament is passed during SM, there’s also ordering in the sense of where SM falls in the block.
I’ve been in some units that held SM last. PH/RS was first, then SS, then SM. This was mostly because there was a major issue of people not getting to church on time, the ward/branch gradually trickled in during the first two hours but were present by the time sacrament started.
I’ve also attended churches for other religions. They typically hold their SS hour first and the main event last. Our church is like when the climax of a movie is in the wrong place. Remember in Lord of the Rings where there was an obvious climax, the movie was done, and then there was a whole other two hours? That’s our church.
Granted SS is very sparsely attended in those other churches, like maybe a tenth of the people that show for the main event will attend SS, but people don’t get as caught up with everyone attending SS in other churches. It’s simply not a big deal. If you come you come, if you don’t you don’t. No one makes a federal case and no one feels guilty or shamed for not attending SS. I don’t know why we can’t do that.
One church I went to the average age of the people in SS had to have been 75+. No lie. Other than me I don’t think there was a single person there under 70. I thought, man this church is in trouble in about 15 years. But then when the main event started the place was packed with kids and young couples. It was mostly the elderly that kept SS alive.
Quote:Remember in Lord of the Rings where there was an obvious climax, the movie was done, and then there was a whole other two hours? That’s our church.
I love this part. It’s when Gandalf falls down with the Balrog right before Bilbo’s birthday. I love the card Aragorn sends.
Quote:One church I went to the average age of the people in SS had to have been 75+.
Our ward SS is pretty much that way now. Like once a quarter when we see a Bishopric member head in, then we all troop in and muddle through it. All the other weeks it’s hall church.
mom3 wrote:For me – I wish the Sacrament time was longer.
The only issue I have there is that when my kids were younger I learned a lot of wrestling holds in an effort to keep them still during sacrament. It was tough. They were raw kinetic energy wearing a convincing human disguise.
mom3 wrote:
Other churches chapels are available during the week if someone wants to have quiet communion with God. Only people who have keys can do that in our church. Usually those people are super busy and you can’t borrow the keys.
This is the subject of an entire different thread but compared to other churches I’ve been to our chapels are… uninspiring to put it mildly. We’ve got the burlap halfway up the walls, no windows, all interior walls, all artificial light, permanent cheerio dust and glitter ground into the utilitarian carpet and a big ole floor to ceiling length curtain that can’t latch shut anymore where it meets in the middle.
Other churches’ chapels? Sunlight, glorious sunlight. Windows? Nope,
stained glasswindows. Balconies. Variety. COLORS:crazy: .But yeah, we’re being frugal.
On Own Now wrote:
However the talks are managed, they should clearly be reflected in the Sacrament; talk about how we can take another spiritual step as members of the Family of Christ, then we have the Sacrament to commit ourselves to him and to receive his spirit in us.
I am a fan of talks that are lead by the spirit, rather than those that are dictated. I understand that we are non-professional speakers, and most need some direction for topics etc. But I like those that you can tell are not with the quarterly theme or whatever.
nibbler wrote:
Mormon Standard Time, excuse me, The Only True and Living Church Upon the Face of the Whole Earth, With Which I, the Lord, am Well Pleased, Speaking Unto the Church Collectively and Not Individually of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Standard Time.
Heh heh!
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