Stake Conference this past weekend

[Anonymous]

Minyan Man wrote:

My point is: there should be more support, understanding & empathy for spiritual struggles.

The answers for these issues or problems aren’t always in the innocents of a child’s prayers.

It is in the personal connections we make with each other.

Stumbling in our journey through this life is not a weakness.

Support, understanding, & empathy for spiritual struggles comes out the same for physical struggles.

We talk about “mourning with those that mourn” and “comforting those that stand in need of comfort” as part of our baptismal covenants. Some of us even etch that into our souls.

We don’t believe our own stuff though – we don’t think or talk enough about how maybe being baptized might actually qualify us to do the hard work of “mourning” and getting outside our own heads and hearts to comfort others.

If we want a revolution and have the heavens open to us – all we need to do is bring the 4th mission of the church back, and make the 2nd to last temple recommend interview question something like, “Did you mourn with someone this week? month?. Whom have you comforted recently?.”

[Anonymous]

There was a time when the Priesthood, had the following offices on a stake & ward level:

– Elders Quorum.

– Seventies Quorum.

– High Priests Quorum.

They were smaller intimate groups that met every Sunday. Because we were together every week, we

got to know each other on a more personal level. We could ask questions that was maybe outside of the lesson

material. As a result, we would get to know each other & share facts about our lives that we just don’t do

today. The Elders quorum is big & the pressure is to strictly follow the program & the lesson prepared.

Since the organizational change, I rarely like to attend. If I do, I don’t participate.

The opportunity to share problems or explore solutions, is nonexistent.

Maybe I’m overly sensitive. But, I feel that something is lost.

[Anonymous]

Minyan Man wrote:

There was a time when the Priesthood, had the following offices on a stake & ward level:

– Elders Quorum.

– Seventies Quorum.

– High Priests Quorum.

They were smaller intimate groups that met every Sunday. Because we were together every week, we

got to know each other on a more personal level. We could ask questions that was maybe outside of the lesson

material. As a result, we would get to know each other & share facts about our lives that we just don’t do

today. The Elders quorum is big & the pressure is to strictly follow the program & the lesson prepared.

Since the organizational change, I rarely like to attend. If I do, I don’t participate.

The opportunity to share problems or explore solutions, is nonexistent.

Maybe I’m overly sensitive. But, I feel that something is lost.

I agree that something has been lost to consolidation and correlation. “Big groups” has erased community – and that community mattered.

I am not interested in attending nowadays because I wound up feeling “exiled” and “not at home” anymore. Everyone was super kind and supportive the last time I was there – I am definitely the problem – what the church community values isn’t what I personally value anymore – and that actually matters.

AND

The LDS church of the 1980’s up to the 2010’s is my heritage and was my community. There are lots of people who anchored my family in real life and provided a community for us.

It worked well right up until it didn’t for me personally.

[Anonymous]

AmyJ wrote:

The LDS church of the 1980’s up to the 2010’s is my heritage and was my community. There are lots of people who anchored my family in real life and provided a community for us.

It worked well right up until it didn’t for me personally.

I understand and appreciate that point of view Amy and MM. While in the 80s, and 90s that church worked for me, too. But it stopped working for me along the way and I now generally find myself being derisive of the 80s church with it’s focus on stuff like no caffeine while lacking focus on Jesus Christ. I very much appreciate the “less” aspect of the modern church (probably mostly because I am an introvert and a bit of a loner). I admit that the comradery of the high priests group (I was ordained in the 90s) was kind of nice, as time went on I found myself (and my views) at odds with the group. And, my ward is shrinking and aging. Our current elder’s quorum group is actually smaller than the original HP group I was in during the 90s, and just before the change we had taken to meeting together frequently just for critical mass. As you may know, I haven’t been to church in some time, and were I to go I’d likely only go to SM and skip SS/PH anyway. I skip almost all activities (while grumbling about not getting my money’s worth of tithing). Frankly, I don’t miss it. We recently got a new RS president in the ward and she is literally a relic of the old church (she’s 80). She seems to be trying to revive the idea of frequent RS activities reminiscent of the old “homemaking” meetings. I get it, she misses it and she has some support from others. But there are also members who see it as just something more to do and feel obligated out of “duty.” (Remember, in the 80s everybody felt like they had to do everything!)

So I appreciate that it worked for you, it worked for me, too, until it didn’t. And I think that’s sort of a dilemma facing the large multi-national, multi-cultural modern church – nothing is going to work for everybody. There probably is a “happy” medium but I think that’s a very difficult target to hit.

I’ll just throw in one more thought here. I was baptized shortly after the original Sunday consolidated schedule (the three hour block). Prior to that meetings were separated on Sundays (morning and evening) and some meetings (RS, Primary, etc.) were held during the week. I didn’t live where I do now then, but moved back here shortly after. My ward (not the current one, although there are similar stories here) previously had members who lived and hour and a half away from the meetinghouse of the time. That either meant a lot of driving on Sundays and a weeknight or two, or making a day of it on Sunday and bringing a packed lunch – either way Sunday was shot. Nevertheless, there were people who were quite resistant to that change and did not like the three hour block, and for many of the same reasons people give for not liking the current state of affairs – less socialization with each other being chief among them.

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

AmyJ wrote:

The LDS church of the 1980’s up to the 2010’s is my heritage and was my community. There are lots of people who anchored my family in real life and provided a community for us.

It worked well right up until it didn’t for me personally.

So I appreciate that it worked for you, it worked for me, too, until it didn’t. And I think that’s sort of a dilemma facing the large multi-national, multi-cultural modern church – nothing is going to work for everybody. There probably is a “happy” medium but I think that’s a very difficult target to hit.

AGE OF PERSONALIZATION/CUSTOMIZATION TO PREFERENCES:

I think the bigger problem is that the age of “personalization” from cable TV, music playlist algorithms, personalized bed settings for each side of the bed, “targeted social media ads”, podcasting platforms, etc. has created an expectation for the individual that they can tailor their experience to their preferences.

This is mostly a good thing to bring to one’s attention stuff one actually cares about/appreciates.

PERSONAL PREFERENCES AND LEAVING/LESS ENGAGEMENT:

The downside occurs when an individual is used to “changing the channel” away from a scenario where the individual’s preferences aren’t being represented. The church leadership did not expect that their “channel” of doctrine would be one of the ones that people were turning away from. In the age of personalization and personal advocacy, it’s easier to label those behaviors and individual expectations as “laziness” and “wanting to sin (aka steady the ark)” It’s easier to blame the person in the experience and write them off rather then “condescend to their level”.

PERSONAL PREFERENCES AND MENTAL HEALTH:

It’s easier to write off mental health practitioners who counter 1970’s dogma then to actually learn from the mental health and social work communities – aka “the professional mourners” of society. Elder Holland’s and Sister Abuerto’s talks aside – my FIL needed those talks a good 30 years before he got to hear them with that explicit mental health support advice.

PERSONAL PREFERENCES AND “WHEN WOMEN ARE THE PROBLEM”:

It is the 35+ to 50+ women in menopause and peri-menopause who are in something that looks like “the heroine’s journey” that are doing the work to figure out how to define/re-define themselves and are in stages of sorting out stuff about the Patriarchy and Heavenly Mother while still trying to provide moral anchors for their families. The church doctrine literally has no words to help these women think about Heavenly Mother or about the intersection of “divinity” and “feminine” (which does not equal an effortless, infinitely fertile uterus with or without sister wives). The church doctrine and culture wants to suppress the anger that comes out when taking a hard look at what supporting the patriarchy cost the sisters in terms of self-understanding, income, respect, time, relationships, and attention. This suppression also fosters a sense of “church fragility” aka they “can’t take the heat of the anger” to sit with these sisters in their grief and calculations.

There is no “heroine’s journey” in LDS doctrine (and the “covenant path” does not qualify explicitly as the equivalent). And treating it like a “choose your own adventure” book doesn’t help with the “Stay at Home vs Working” or the “number of children and their accomplishments” culture wars.

PERSONAL PREFERENCES AND “SUPPORTING MEN”:

I think that there is a larger percentage of men for whom the church culture doesn’t work any better in their lives then it does for women then what is talked about. The “canary in the coal mine” for me to make that statement is that “men leaving church activity” has been a constant theme for at least 30+ years. That “women are more spiritual” is even an explicit theme – because if it were working for men, then they would be having spiritual experiences and making those types of decisions – they wouldn’t be saying, “oh that’s women’s work and how women are” because it would be working for them. If the church was serious about preventing depression and middle-aged male suicide – they would be throwing their money at it and figuring out how to set up male support groups in-house instead of the current “responsibility hot potato” between the individual male, the bishopric/branch presidency, the EQ, and any mother/spouse in the scenario.

[Anonymous]

For the reasons you mention MM, I prefer smaller units/groups to larger ones.

I was assigned to a small branch for a number of years and really enjoyed that time. After the assignment was over, I moved back into my regular ward of over 250 people attending sacrament meeting. It’s easier to be invisible or taken for granted in large wards.

I stopped attending priesthood altogether right around the time they dissolved the ward high priests group. My experience was opposite of what I’ve often seen reported by others. I found the high priests group more nuanced and the conversations more open, vulnerable, and stimulating. I found elder’s quorum to be more concerned with policing orthodoxy and saying the most correct things.

Once the quorums combined, good discussions went away and I no longer felt the desire to attend.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

I stopped attending priesthood altogether right around the time they dissolved the ward high priests group. My experience was opposite of what I’ve often seen reported by others. I found the high priests group more nuanced and the conversations more open, vulnerable, and stimulating. I found elder’s quorum to be more concerned with policing orthodoxy and saying the most correct things.

I would agree with that assessment and my experience was similar.

nibbler wrote:

For the reasons you mention MM, I prefer smaller units/groups to larger ones.

I was assigned to a small branch for a number of years and really enjoyed that time. After the assignment was over, I moved back into my regular ward of over 250 people attending sacrament meeting. It’s easier to be invisible or taken for granted in large wards.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Sometimes I want to be lost in the crowd. In theory, smaller units mean more work because there are fewer people to do the work. It also means leadership tends to rotate among a select very few.

My very small ward is somewhat unique. We have shrunken significantly over the years, and also aged. Our EQP is in his early 70s, and the vast majority of the group are ordained high priests. Our quorum is probably different than the average quorum, and therefore our discussions are likely more high priest like. That doesn’t change the fact that I have no desire to be part of it.

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Sometimes I want to be lost in the crowd. In theory, smaller units mean more work because there are fewer people to do the work. It also means leadership tends to rotate among a select very few.

There is that. Every once in a blue moon the stars would align and someone would end up giving a SM talk, the SS lesson, and the PH lesson all on the same Sunday. Of course the other disadvantage with a small group is that after a while you’ve pretty much heard every insight and every story from everyone. Larger groups make for more diversity… as much diversity as can be expressed in church at any rate.

Going back to my comment:

nibbler wrote:

Once the quorums combined, good discussions went away and I no longer felt the desire to attend.

What I don’t know is whether the discussions suffered as a result of people clamming up because the group was larger or because of the generational differences. I suspect the discussions suffered because everyone assumed someone else in the group would speak up but then no one did. The bystander effect.

Our quorum often did the thing where people spilt into groups but that rarely worked to get a good discussion going.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

Our quorum often did the thing where people spilt into groups but that rarely worked to get a good discussion going.

I could usually get a good discussion in small groups going in RS. I was usually paranoid that my heretical outlook would “be on display”, so I over-prepared materials, got my mom to vet my lesson plans (to protect my belief disguise/the sisters from my doubts), and my mom usually came to my Zoom RS classes.

I think that “guy culture” uses a lot more gestures and non-verbal communications to communicate guy-to-guy. Which would put the standard “facilitated conversation” structure at odds with “guy culture” in EQ/HP & combined meetings. I think this disconnect could be “prepared around” – but I don’t think that the disconnect is discussed for what it is or what it does as a communication/connection blocker in real-time, so the awareness of the problem isn’t there to solve the problem:)

NOTE: I am a language forward female who aggressively uses language to channel personal authority. The HP’s usually loved or tolerated me – there was no middle ground, and it leaned toward “tolerance”. Guys in their 40’s were usually cool with me (or tolerated me) – there were more guys my age who liked talking to me then there were guys 10-20 years older than me who talked to me. Guys about 10 years younger than me usually avoided me. Young guys (like the missionaries) usually liked me for my forthrightness or were disconnected to me by age more then gender. But most people ignored me at church parties anyways:)

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