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As you may know, I’m not a huge fan of stats in the church. That’s one of the reasons I was excited about the change in home teaching. But the first quarterly report is in and we high councilors who have units to advise have been tasked with going out to the EQPs to find out how we can help them improve their interview performance. The ward I advise happens to have the lowest percentage in the stake 🙄 . *Sigh*I won’t go into details, but it’s pretty clear to me what happened in that ward and bottom line is that the presidency just needs to go do them. It’s what happens when you call people that don’t particularly want to do the calling but they’re called anyway because it will be a “growth opportunity” for them. What if they don’t want to grow in that way? What if they’re happy being a good Primary teacher? Why do we always have to be trying to make people what they aren’t and don’t want to be? (Sorry about the rant.)
I’ll bet the people at the top are cringing now…essentially no one is doing anything. A few people might be ministering, but even the leadership isn’t doing interviews. I know I haven’t been interviewed in my Ward, and I did some ministering in the beginning. But then it felt too much like home teaching with all the guilt trips our HPGL/EQ president started leveling on us. I just found my list a couple weeks ago. I’m doing less home teaching than I did before the change.
Some of my thoughts…
1. The church is a hard place to do hard things. In my non-profit, I have the entire world at my disposal for possible recruits. And I can get people with education in the field I need. Not so in the church. You have a limited pool of people
2. If you are fully committed as a church volunteer, there’s this constant undercurrent of frustration because people just won’t do what they’re asked.
3. Although at times I’ve seen massive excellence from other people in callings, for the most part, there is mediocrity, lack of commitment, and a lot of time wasted as a leader. Time invested in starting projects that never finish, people agreeing to do things, getting your hopes up, and then not following through.
Quote:! won’t go into details, but it’s pretty clear to me what happened in that ward and bottom line is that the presidency just needs to go do them. It’s what happens when you call people that don’t particularly want to do the calling but they’re called anyway because it will be a “growth opportunity” for them. What if they don’t want to grow in that way? What if they’re happy being a good Primary teacher? Why do we always have to be trying to make people what they aren’t and don’t want to be? (Sorry about the rant.
I have felt this way for a long time so no apologies needed for the rant (as far as I’m concerned). It is hard to do well in a calling you aren’t invested in. (I speak from personal experience.)
As for ministering, I struggled with home teaching and I struggle with ministering. The old home teaching program gave you an excuse to go to someone’s home and get to know them better. Now, its unclear what we’re supposed to do to get know our families. Obviously, visits can still be done but they’re now a bit awkward given the change in expectations.
DarkJedi wrote:
…we high councilors who have units to advise have been tasked with going out to the EQPs to find out how we can help them improve their interview performance.
Curious: How do they expect you to “help them improve their interview performance”? What does that even mean? Tell them to “do them”? Tell them to keeping bugging their quorum members until they submit for an interview?
Following that line of thought, what’s the purpose for the interviews anyways? Because, to be frank, if the EQP thought the interviews were worth their time and effort, I’m sure they would do them. But if they are not doing them, then it’s pretty clear that the cost of doing the interviews outweighs their percieved benefits.
We need to come up with better reasons than “God told so-n-so to tell me to tell you to do so.” Because, in the Church I feel like that reason is so commonly used it’s lost all its power.
Our Stake has taken the idea that (at present) – “We taught you the plan. Now go and do.” Then they have turned their attention to reboundaring the wards and moving us like chess pieces to new buildings under the new schedule. Now maybe when the dust settles from all the newest changes, we will get the pressure to improve ministering. Presently though it’s just one of a million cogs they are trying to put into place.
The numbers though don’t surprise me. Now that the pressure is off, those numbers will plummet. Most of us did VT/HT based on guilt. We are now guilt free and happy.
dande48 wrote:
DarkJedi wrote:
…we high councilors who have units to advise have been tasked with going out to the EQPs to find out how we can help them improve their interview performance.
Curious: How do they expect you to “help them improve their interview performance”? What does that even mean? Tell them to “do them”? Tell them to keeping bugging their quorum members until they submit for an interview?
Following that line of thought, what’s the purpose for the interviews anyways? Because, to be frank, if the EQP thought the interviews were worth their time and effort, I’m sure they would do them. But if they are not doing them, then it’s pretty clear that the cost of doing the interviews outweighs their percieved benefits.
We need to come up with better reasons than “God told so-n-so to tell me to tell you to do so.” Because, in the Church I feel like that reason is so commonly used it’s lost all its power.
In the case of the ward I advise, again trying not to say too much, it was not all the presidency that was not doing the interviews. It was exactly as I expected and who I expected. I can see some of the stats, the SP can see more detailed stats (like how many interviews each member of each presidency reported) and he shared numbers but not names. As unit advisors, one of our main responsibilities is to train and support EQPs and to be a liaison between the SP and EQP (because he can’t be everywhere at once and we do act regularly as his representatives). So the task was actually to find out if there was some kind of training that needed to be done. Did some of them misunderstand and think only interviews done in the last month of the quarter count? Do they not know what they’re supposed to ask or talk about in the interview and are therefore afraid to do them? Do they understand the importance of the interviews? In my case, the EQP was on it and only needed my support and encouragement. We’ll see what happens in January.
FWIW, the average EQPresidency member only has to do about 3 of these interviews a month, and they do not have to be formal sit downs – they can be done on the phone or via text or even in the hall. They are important not because of the stat generated but because it is the way we find out what the needs of the members are. It’s harder to love our neighbor if we don’t know what she needs.
Lastly, a phrase our SP loves is that we are not travel agents for guilt. I like it too. I’ve actually known the EQP in this ward for about 5 years – he used to be a HC. He knew what to expect from me and he knew I was not there as a travel agent of guilt or to put the hammer down. We both also understand it’s my job to be his supporter and helper, and it is not the SPs job. I may not have made it clear in my OP, but my mission was to find out how I could help him. We both got what we expected, we ministered to each other.
mom3 wrote:
Our Stake has taken the idea that (at present) – “We taught you the plan. Now go and do.” Then they have turned their attention to reboundaring the wards and moving us like chess pieces to new buildings under the new schedule.Now maybe when the dust settles from all the newest changes, we will get the pressure to improve ministering. Presently though it’s just one of a million cogs they are trying to put into place.
The numbers though don’t surprise me. Now that the pressure is off, those numbers will plummet. Most of us did VT/HT based on guilt. We are now guilt free and happy.
Except for the ward realignments (we’re basically one ward per building in these parts) that’s basically where we’re at. There are no stats for actually doing the ministering, only for the interviews. There can’t really be pressure to improve ministering itself because there’s no stats. There can be pressure to improve the one stat there is. I know I got pretty orthodox (for me) in the previous post (right above this one) but truth is ministering falls apart without the interviews unless and until we’re at the point where we just go love our neighbor because we want to (without being assigned). And for the record, what I did with the EQP today was heterodox, not orthodox.
Quote:FWIW, the average EQPresidency member only has to do about 3 of these interviews a month, and they do not have to be formal sit downs – they can be done on the phone or via text or even in the hall. They are important not because of the stat generated but because it is the way we find out what the needs of the members are. It’s harder to love our neighbor if we don’t know what she needs.
I just email mine in. Our ward sets a date to have them done. This time they used 2nd hour and people filed through. I came up with my own system. No one really cares beyond an update.
I am loving being off the leash. I was before we changed, but now no one can move in and change it. For me, because I like people I just going around being nice.
I save my snarking till I am here or with my feminist besties in the ward.
The current approach is much better than the older one. Our EQP is trying to find a way to talk with everyone, and they are much less stressed about it being formal in some way. They talk in the hallway at church, during activities, over a cheap meal, during the weekly meeting, etc. Our RSP has a system/schedule that is working. They are getting FAR more info about the sisters and their families than they ever did with VT.
DarkJedi wrote:
They are important not because of the stat generated but because it is the way we find out what the needs of the members are.
This is where I get lost. If a family has a genuine need their minister shouldn’t wait until an interview to relay the need up the chain. It feels like the interview exists to create something to report and to keep the pressure of guilt on the ministers. Ministers know they’ll eventually be subject to an interview and no one wants to report that they haven’t done anything.
It’s going to be tough to get the interview numbers up. There are always going to be people that dodge interviews because they haven’t got anything to report. Last quarter there was a signup sheet for ministering interviews. Based off the success of that, everyone now has an appointment scheduled for them to come in. If you fail to show you get called. That’ll get the numbers up.
nibbler wrote:
DarkJedi wrote:
They are important not because of the stat generated but because it is the way we find out what the needs of the members are.
This is where I get lost. If a family has a genuine need their minister shouldn’t wait until an interview to relay the need up the chain. It feels like the interview exists to create something to report and to keep the pressure of guilt on the ministers. Ministers know they’ll eventually be subject to an interview and no one wants to report that they haven’t done anything.
It’s going to be tough to get the interview numbers up. There are always going to be people that dodge interviews because they haven’t got anything to report. Last quarter there was a signup sheet for ministering interviews. Based off the success of that, everyone now has an appointment scheduled for them to come in. If you fail to show you get called. That’ll get the numbers up.
Oh, yeah, totally agree. I have yet to be interviewed so waiting for the interview would be detrimental to needs being met. I recognize there is a fine line between this and the old checkbox and apparently some places it’s different and visits are still a “requirement.” Let me assure you it’s not that way here. We taught (and I get to reinforce sometimes) that if the person being interviewed says he didn’t do anything (as in absolutely nothing, didn’t even say hi in the hallway or wave in the parking lot) ask them if in the next quarter they’re willing to contact this one family/individual on their list – minimal contact is all that’s required. And, people are encouraged to report on people they aren’t assigned to as well.
I agree that the interviews are somewhat (maybe all) about “accountability” but that’s kind of OK with me as long as what we’re being accountable for is not more than what is required (i.e. ministering isn’t being programmized). As I said, I haven’t been interviewed but if I were I would report I did no in home visits (and don’t generally intend to) but 80-year-old Fred with his non-member wife are doing fine and are mostly cared for by their non-member son next door; I talk/text with the counselor in the bishopric and his wife multiple times per week (and they’re fine, usually too busy helping others to have any of their own needs); and I said hi to the hardcore inactive lady when I saw her on the porch as we walked by last week. If I were in the right mood I may mention all of the other fringe people I talk to during SS or otherwise but at the same time that could make the interview much longer than I want it to be. I would definitely mention it if I perceived an unmet need. FWIW, because I’m friends with a counselor in the EQP, I happen to know they have redone some routes (and assigned my wife and I as companions, yay!
:thumbup: ) and my next (first) interview will probably talk about any new people we got – I think there’s one that my wife was formerly the visiting teacher of, another hardcore inactive woman.My family circumstances don’t allow for a formal interview. I email the RS counselor over my area to let her know periodically whom ministered to me (which aren’t my assigned ministers notwithstanding my emails up the chain letting them know who I feel comfortable with), and whom I connected with (and how). For about 6 months between the first of the year and when I was assigned different sisters, I wrote my visiting sisters monthly emails. I actually felt this worked for us because they got to know and love us, and I got to control the narrative:)
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