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These changes aren’t even that difficult, but boy, would they be a huge improvement! Which of these changes do you like / dislike? What would you add or subtract? Some of it sounded like political agenda I think needs to be kept separate, although I do know that Mormonism and Replublicinism are often conflated. Make it a two hour block and then make me travel mid-week for PH meeting isn’t something I’d like. I say keep it at two hours and alternate weeks between SS and PH meeting.
Didn’t know there was a depression stigma. Yes, remove that. It can be biological. In my case, the brief bout I had was due to church member behavior alone.
Love the idea of stopping the practice of requiring TR’s for stuff outside the temple. LIke church employment. A major reason I’ve never applied to LDS Business College for employment
Loved the idea of admitting mistakes and moving on. That’s what a truly divine organization would do — not this ego-protecting two-step we see.
More support for Bishops! Yes! Us members go unserved in so many ways because the BP’s and SP’s simply have too much to do as unpaid volunteers. By the way, be transparent about the fact that yes, people above the local level ARE paid even if they are in ecclesiastical positions.
I can’t read those. They make me cry. I find that wishing only opens the door to sorrow. It’s an amazing list (I only read the first few). mom3 wrote:I can’t read those. They make me cry. I find that wishing only opens the door to sorrow. It’s an amazing list (I only read the first few).
I was a glutton and read them all – and even most comments. I am right there with you mom. I started on my faith crisis about 3.5 years ago and moved more into a transition more than 2 years ago. I can’t see much of any improvement. Now 2 years isn’t a lot of time, but I look back at these problems that have been there sometimes even before I was born and there seems to be a refusal on most to even admit they could be an issue. I am not making plans to limit my church attendance because of a lack of progress in 2 years, but looking back at how the church changes I just don’t have faith it will change much of any of this until forced. That is too long for my mental health to handle as I find it just too stressful and frustrating.One thing I would like to see: – For children who are considered “Special Needs”, who have participated in Primary program of the Church, let them be baptised. I understand that
they are considered innocent & don’t need to be baptised. But, they receive the same lessons & anticipate that they should be baptised at 8yo like
everyone else. When they are not, they feel excluded. The decision should be between the child, the parents & the Bishop. (Parents decide before Bishop)
What would make church work for one person might break it for many other people. I suppose that’s why change happens so slowly, of course slow can be taken to extremes as well. Just as many people may tune out because changes seemingly never occur. My ward already does a few of the things on the list. Hence the author’s:
Quote:My response, generally, will be that there are pockets within Mormonism where such things are offered/taught, but not as a general matter.
There are also several things on the list that we could make our reality without waiting for an official change to come down from the top. 2 hour church for instance, we could make that our reality in an instant. Maybe the reason we don’t is because we worry about how other people would view us. If 2 hour church comes from top leadership we won’t feel guilty for skipping that hour we didn’t find particularly useful but felt obligated to attend because… if there’s an expectation that we do something at church how would we look if we didn’t do it? That and no one wants a visit from the RSP, EQP, or HPGL asking them why they don’t attend the 3rd hour, how we made a covenant to attend all meetings, etc., etc. Waiting for 2 hour church in the form of a policy change somehow becomes the path of least resistance by taking the “consequence” of us making our own decision off of us. It wasn’t me that decided on a 2 hour church, it was the brethren, I’m not a lesser saint in only attending 2 hours because I’m doing everything that’s expected of me.
Quote:9. No more Conference talks on how religious freedom is threatened. We get it.
I’ve got some bad news for you sunshine… the latest scuttlebutt is that the church is developing a website to educate members on how they can defend religious freedom. I worry that the theme will take over after hasten the work has finally run its course. I hope my fears are unfounded. I don’t think I could take much of that because to me it looks like people are really more concerned with demanding the respect of others instead of earning it. Did you lose religious freedom, or influence/relevancy. Look inward, not outward.
I won’t go over the whole list but I will say that I think paying the BP/SP is a terrible idea. At least under the current model where someone from the local congregation gets called to be the BP for a season. Imagine a SP in the position to extend the only calling in a unit that draws a salary. Let that sink in.
My short list that would make church terrible for everyone else
1) A rule to ensure that the church cannot have more liquid assets than what represents one year of their yearly operating budget. No more wealth hoarding. Reinvest in the members and their communities, use it or lose it.
Maybe I have a much more cynical view of church finances than reality but with closed books I can only shoot from the hip. We’re building billion dollar buildings that few members well ever see while picking the bone of the local meeting houses clean.
2) Drop the labels “inactive” and “member in good standing” maybe even “full tithe payer.” It’s hard not to judge one another when we are constantly focusing on metrics and what puts a member in one category as opposed to another. I get that viewing the list of “inactives” can be a good indicator of where someone might need help but I think we err in assuming that someone needs help for no other reason than because we view them as being inactive.
3) We may already do this to some degree but separate the ministry callings from the administrative callings. Have the prophets, apostles, GAs, BPs, SPs, and other traveling speakers come from the best of the best of our inspirational, spiritual, and humble members. It wouldn’t hurt if they had a background in counseling. Leave all the CEO, CIO, COO, CFO, CAO, etc. duties to be staffed by the people with that experience. Separate the duties out to allow the spiritual people to focus on spiritual matters and the bean counter people to count beans.
I’m positive that they already do a lot of this but I see BPs caught up in lots of administrative tasks. I also see lawyers and business people bringing their wealth of experience to the highest ecclesiastical positions in the church. I’ll concede that maybe they only call the most spiritual lawyers to fill those positions, I don’t know.
As an extension to #3, and I’m really reaching here, go outside the pool of GAs to assign talks during GC. How disastrous would that be?
nibbler wrote:What would make church work for one person might break it for many other people. I suppose that’s why change happens so slowly, of course slow can be taken to extremes as well.
Just as many people may tune out because changes seemingly never occur.
You talking about me!nibbler wrote:There are also several things on the list that we could make our reality without waiting for an official change to come down from the top. 2 hour church for instance, we could make that our reality in an instant.
That isn’t the flexablity with the handbook that is allowedhttp://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/66519-local-leaders-in-boston-stake-reduce-3-hour-block-sorta/ ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/66519-local-leaders-in-boston-stake-reduce-3-hour-block-sorta/ nibbler wrote:1) A rule to ensure that the church cannot have more liquid assets than what represents one year of their yearly operating budget. No more wealth hoarding. Reinvest in the members and their communities, use it or lose it.
I am not quite sure one year is enough, but I get where you are going. I think that sunshine on the books would put enough pressure even within the church to change things towards the better.nibbler wrote:As an extension to #3, and I’m really reaching here, go outside the pool of GAs to assign talks during GC. How disastrous would that be?
I like that one.One of the comments I heard on the original post was to stop paying anybody (GA’s and such). I don’t like that. That would just accelerate a condition we already have of “only rich people get called” (because they are the only ones that could afford it).
One of my big ones is to give bishops training – like a LOT more. Teach them some basics of mental health and when they need to turn it over to the professional mental health folks (and how to get that help). Also spread their load / reduce administrative responsibilities.
What I love most about Steve’s list isn’t just the particular changes he proposes, most of which are not doctrinal or even deep policies, just style in a lot of cases, but what occurs to me as I read it is that it’s the attitude below them that I love. The idea that a creative mind with love for both the church and the church’s people as well as our surrounding communities, these are the things that would make changes that I would welcome. There are a few attitudes right now that harden the policies that make life hard, and again, I’m talking about policies and not doctrines (mostly). The attitudes that really get us stuck, IMO, are things like:
–
the idea that making us do things harder as a sacrifice but for no other reason– deliberately making things more difficult for the sake of character building but not for common sense – that just feels like a distraction from the gospel to me. The gospel should already be challenging enough. Church doesn’t ALSO have to be hard. This attitude brings us things like: garments that are incredibly uncomfortable for women, early morning seminary, pioneer trek reenactments, the 3 hour block. –
the belief that everything has to be cookie cutter / McChurch so it’s identical no matter where you go. While I agree that correlation has some good effects, and uniformity in building design has positives, some local flavor would create an appeal that would have some soul to it. Policies that have cropped in that go down this rabbit hole are things like prohibitions on music and instruments in sacrament meetings, expectations for uniformity of dress (earrings, white shirts, facial hair), using For the Strength of Youth for every age group. –
anti-progress beliefs or the belief that any concessions to women will erode male authority. This is (I believe) behind the nonsensical policy that women can’t hold their babies during baby blessings, women can’t witness, women with small children can’t serve in the temple, etc. –
lack of imagination. Old folks may not like to be told this, but the world has changed in a lot of ways since they were young, and a lot of those changes are positive. While it’s true that life in general terms contains the same types of things, how we live our lives does change, and our policies need to make sense in our current culture and society. There is often a lack of imagining how life is now vs. how it was for them. This is behind things like the meaning of facial hair, the meaning of women working, the meaning of going on a mission, attitudes toward homosexuals, attitudes toward depression and abuse. When programs don’t feel meaningful to us today for the same reasons they used to, we need to help people connect with meaning. –
authoritarian viewpoints. Just because someone in authority says we do things a certain way doesn’t mean it can never change. They usually didn’t even intend it. They know (sometimes) that it was just their opinion. On the flip side, the benefit of our leader worship culture is that those who subscribe to it don’t mind progressive changes the rest of us want anyway. They are cool with pretty much ANYTHING the Brethren come up with. Hawkgrrl, My struggle is personal. The list itself does not offend me. Nor as you mention the attitude beneath them. My heart loves the list and the attitude beneath them. My mind knows that nothing of either sort will happen on a large scale. Yes there are pockets who will practice a better attitude. My own Stake is undergoing that beautiful softening in some areas right now. And yes the softening is catching our past militant spirit off guard, but I believe if the new spirit prevails that some wonderful healing will happen. I also know that our Stake could revert back in a heart beat.
Back when President Hinckley changed TR interviews to every two years he said something to the effect that more changes like that were on the discussion table and to look for them in the years ahead. I did watch, listen, etc. but nothing really happened. Maybe it did somewhere, but no where I could see. When President Monson came to position he added a 4th mission of the church. Very few people remember it or even mention it. I bring it up because it fits my list and my attitude beneath my list for my church. If I look at the Stake Calendar – Temple Nights and Temple events beat helping out poor and needy 100 to 1.
I am tired of pipe dreaming. I am willing to accept what I can not change. I just can’t keep fantasizing.
“Temple Nights and Temple events beat helping out poor and needy 100 to 1. I am tired of pipe dreaming. I am willing to accept what I can not change. I just can’t keep fantasizing.” The irony of this observation is that temple work for the dead could be seen as the fantasizing; rather than dealing with the real poor here on earth, we fantasize about redeeming people we can’t see or hear and who don’t have corporeal needs and whose reactions we can imagine rather than the stark realities of human difficulty here on earth. The best, most vibrant YSA groups I have seen are focused on service. I suggested such a focus once a month to the YSA in our wards, and they asked if we could do it more often. I believe if we consulted with and listened to our younger generations more actively and sincerely many of our issues would decrease – and, in many cases, disappear completely.
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