Refusing Callings

[Anonymous]

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

I don’t see why they couldn’t just combine some meetings and let more people share the workload so they don’t have to teach lessons nearly as often and maybe then they wouldn’t feel like they need to ask some members to accept callings when they don’t want to. Do we really need so many separate classes especially for primary and the youth?

SilentDawning wrote:

Personally, I found in small Wards we were forced to accomplish the same level of results without the necessary resources.

Primary is my pet peeve.

1) There are so many classes that the teachers can number half a small ward and there is always a teacher missing.

2) There are all these benchmarks that primary is expected to achieve, as soon as you learn a song it is off to the next song. I thought until my mission that it was a requirement to memorize all 13 articles of faith before graduating from primary. When I was subbing for primary recently, they went over the article of faith about priesthood offices. The conductor explained that the term evangelist applied to the modern day patriarch and I was inwardly incredulous (most these kids had no reference for the term evangelist or patriarch). Add that to my skepticism that the articles are even a very good summary of our beliefs and I was left wondering “Why are we hitting our head against this particular wall?”

3) We take kids out of the nursery quite young. When our son turned 3 and graduated from nursery we felt sorry for his teacher because he was not good at sitting still and listening and he is still in diapers. This ward always had a shortage of primary help, It seemed to me that it would be more efficient to call a second nursery person and divide the duties rather than create a new class. (Previous to our boy and one other child turning three there was no “Sunbeam class” so it really did mean creating a class where there wasn’t one before.)

4) When DW was Primary President our SP said that he did not like using cartoonish depictions of Jesus, or God, or the prophets (like those found in the Primary Partners resource books). Although this is quite specific to this one SP, I can’t tell you how many nights my wife was scouring old Ensigns etc. in search of pictures to replace the cartoonish ones that came with the book. (For those that are unfamiliar, Primary Partners is not produced by the church but is a supplementary resource book that you can buy at Seagull or Deseret Book)

[Anonymous]

Quote:

our SP said that he did not like using cartoonish depictions of Jesus, or God, or the prophets

because, you know, there are SO many realistic photos of God and Jesus available to use. 🙄 :shh:

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

This to me, gets to the “Big Ward or Small Ward” question. In large wards, where there are a lot of people, the burden is spread around so people don’t get worn out. And leaders have a wealth of people to rely on when they need extra help. In the Small Ward philosophy, people are stretched. The rationale given for small wards is that “more people get to serve”. Personally, I found in small Wards we were forced to accomplish the same level of results without the necessary resources. For me, it was frustrating, as a Ward leader I usually operated alone, or in good times, with ONE good counselor I could rely on…I don’t know — is there perhaps a reason for splitting Wards, unstated, that makes it attractive to priesthood leaders such as Stake Presidents?

Roy wrote:

…Primary is my pet peeve…There are so many classes that the teachers can number half a small ward and there is always a teacher missing.

Most of the wards I have been in are probably as large as you will find anywhere but I still saw all these different classes with only a handful of children or youth all in separate rooms and now they want to make sure there are 2 adults per class because of problems with pedophiles molesting children. So that’s why I thought why not just combine some of these classes? It almost seems like they want to invent as many callings as they can just to make sure everyone has one. I started to feel like I was really being manipulated so that I couldn’t sleep in whenever I felt like it and my wife didn’t really like her callings very much either so then I started to really resent it and finally asked to be released. Home teaching is another area they could definitely make life easier on people by scrapping the entire program or at least only having members report it maybe once a year without expecting them to visit everyone quite so often.

[Anonymous]

Home and Visiting Teaching would be wonderful if it focused on every single person having someone to call in case of an emergency or serious need but limited the “formal” contacts to those with serious needs – like loneliness for widows and widowers, lack of a father or mother figure for kids of a single adult parent, a listening ear and/or shoulder to cry on for those struggling more than others in some way, someone needing to learn how to live within a budget, etc.

That model is encouraged in small units, but I wouldn’t mind it being the default – for two reasons:

1) It would mean that every active adult could have ONE person / family to watch over, protect and serve, which would be empowering and, just as important, possible to accomplish;

2) It would free up time for more organized, group service outside of the LDS community itself – done solely for the sake of helping, NOT as a “missionary opportunity”.

That same concept could apply to staffing units, but it only would be a good thing collectively, imo, if it actually did result in more of that type of service.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

That same concept could apply to staffing units, but it only would be a good thing collectively, imo, if it actually did result in more of that type of service.

How would it work with staffing units? It makes perfect sense from a home teaching standpoint. But I don’t see it from a staffing of Ward positions standpoint, only because I think I need to see it fleshed out more.

One other comment — the D&C says that we are supposed to “visit the home of every member”. As the scriptures are doctrine, can we just shuck out that highly specific commandment? We have made a big deal about the difference between policy and doctrine here on this site, with doctrine basically contained in the scriptures and “ratified” by the Church. So, in granting ourselves freedom from treating the CHI as doctrine, are we not binding ourselves even MORE closely to the scriptures, which are highly specific on this home teaching point?

[Note, in writing this, I think there is one way to comply with this. Each home teacher visits the families on their list ONCE to introduce themself and verify they are there, and if the person is not home, mails a letter, thus complying with the letter of the law that each person’s home should be visited. To my knowledge it the scriptures don’t say how often a member’s home should be visited. HT’s regularly visit members on their list only as really needed as Ray suggested — which in my home teaching list, would mean probably two families a month — one that has cancer and the other that likes visits and is less active.

Personally, I see this as the most workable solution I’ve ever seen proposed.

Now, stalwarts would say this will hurt activation and such…..personally, I think one needs to factor in the benefits of home teaching and the costs. Do you think there are brethren who fall away due to the sheer monotony of our service in the Church? Would reducing the home teaching to something doable and reasonable increase motivation to do it well, netting back a certain amount of brethren who leave out of sheer monotony? I think so.]

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

Quote:

our SP said that he did not like using cartoonish depictions of Jesus, or God, or the prophets

because, you know, there are SO many realistic, photos of God and Jesus available to use. 🙄 :shh:

Love it!

[Anonymous]

One reason is they don’t like other entities outside the Church devising materials that can be purchased, such as the Finch Family series for creating kiddish-looking educational materials that parallel the weekly primary lessons. I ran into a similar problem when I designed a t-shirt missionaries could wear within a mission. The mission president, when he heard about it, was really nasty about what I was intending to do. They don’t like people making money off the members. But it’s fine for Deseret Book!

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

Home and Visiting Teaching would be wonderful if it focused on every single person having someone to call in case of an emergency or serious need but limited the “formal” contacts to those with serious needs – like loneliness for widows and widowers, lack of a father or mother figure for kids of a single adult parent, a listening ear and/or shoulder to cry on for those struggling more than others in some way, someone needing to learn how to live within a budget, etc…That model is encouraged in small units, but I wouldn’t mind it being the default…

SilentDawning wrote:

…One other comment — the D&C says that we are supposed to “visit the home of every member”. As the scriptures are doctrine, can we just shuck out that highly specific commandment?

[Note, in writing this, I think there is one way to comply with this. Each home teacher visits the families on their list ONCE to introduce themself and verify they are there, and if the person is not home, mails a letter, thus complying with the letter of the law that each person’s home should be visited. To my knowledge it the scriptures don’t say how often a member’s home should be visited. HT’s regularly visit members on their list only as really needed…Now, stalwarts would say this will hurt activation and such…..personally, I think one needs to factor in the benefits of home teaching and the costs. Do you think there are brethren who fall away due to the sheer monotony of our service in the Church? Would reducing the home teaching to something doable and reasonable increase motivation to do it well, netting back a certain amount of brethren who leave out of sheer monotony? I think so.]

Home teaching is the kind of thing that sounds good in theory but in practice it usually just ends up being an annoying hassle more often than not. The worst part about it is the unrealistic expected frequency of these visits and having to report these results so often. I don’t think I’ve ever seen or experienced 100% home teaching for very long so I don’t know why they want to pretend that this should be a feasible goal for everyone when it seems like it almost never happens in reality.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

Home teaching is the kind of thing that sounds good in theory but in practice it usually just ends up being an annoying hassle more often than not.

Our current bishop is very pragmatic on this one. People in our ward travel a lot, sometimes are gone for months at a time, and are otherwise just tough to get with. His view is that the principle is to be there for them and have enough connection that they will go to you for help if you need it. If that means you give them a call or drop them an email in a given month, that counts, once the relationship is established. He doesn’t really talk too much about the teaching part – just being available to do service, which I think is the real point. Not bugging people to death to get numbers.

[Anonymous]

Hawk’s Bishop sees it exactly as I do.

Some people really do need regular visits, and some people really do need to be taught, and some people really do need surrogate parents – and some people just need to know they can call someone when they need help. Almost everyone, at some point, will need something. Without something like HT/VT, many of the people who really do need something wouldn’t get it. It’s the calcification and “programming” that messes things up.

[Author]

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