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Who is ready for 2 hour church? I’d love to hear others’ experiences tomorrow and if it felt better or no different and what you all thought of it.
To keep our SM at just an hour we’re going to have to install a huge scoreboard somewhere the entire congregation can see it, set the timer on it to an hour, press the countdown button, and when the timer hits 0:00 this obnoxiously loud horn goes off, like at the end of a basketball game. 
Heber13 wrote:
Who is ready for 2 hour church?
I guess I can do the experiment, go to church an hour longer than usual. Wait, I usually do SM… so about 35 minutes longer than usual.
nibbler wrote:
I guess I can do the experiment, go to church an hour longer than usual.
Hahahaha!
😆 Other than the rocket scientists in our ward who make such decisions as holding SS in the RS room when the RS room isn’t big enough, all was well. I didn’t really want to go to SS anyway, but apparently some people in my ward complained enough that next time it will be in the chapel. (If I decide to go I’ll go in late enough that I will have missed the “invitation” to sit front and center.) In all seriousness, I did enjoy getting home an hour early and having lunch closer to lunchtime.
We win – 35 mins. Front to back. Power went out. Best part of it was the guy at the mic was bearing his testimony. Strike that – he was inviting members to attend the temple and witness the “new” stuff. But of course, as an obedient member he isn’t going to spill the beans. No spoilers from him. Just hinting that it is “revelatory”. In the midst of his efforts, the lights go out. The mic goes out. It was epic.
He finished. Another woman who was waiting in line got to say her piece. Couldn’t hear it because I was holding down the back row. Bishop closed the meeting.
We went home. 2nd Best Church Day EVER.
It was good. Shorter Sac Mtg, including confirming two new adult converts who are good, sincere people who have overcome a lot in their lives. Good Sunday School lesson by an older woman, followed by a chance to clear up questions about how the home study lessons and the Sunday School lessons will interact.
Very odd. Many people today, including myself felt that everything was later than it was after church. For me it felt like the end of the block was an hour later than it was. We finished at 12:30, felt like 1:30. 1 pm felt like 2 and so on. I’m with Sam Bee. I thought it was later than it was when I got home. I still have this nagging wish they cut Sacrament meeting to just the opening hymn, sacrament hymn, the sacrament, and then maybe one talk, or none at all, and end it. Then have the two other meetings for a total of 2 hours. The boredom of Sacrament meeting still gets to me.
Not to rain on everyone’s parade; I do acknowledge their trying to make church more user friendly, believe me. But for me, it may well end up being 1 hour church from here on out.
SilentDawning wrote:
The boredom of Sacrament meeting still gets to me.Not to rain on everyone’s parade; I do acknowledge their trying to make church more user friendly, believe me. But for me, it may well end up being 1 hour church from here on out.
On the bright side, the current Church leadership is willing to change things up and try new things. I think they recognize for many people, SM and the rest can be less than effective. You can’t change too much at once withhout upsetting the system. From what it looks like, they’re changing one or two things, taking a step back, assessing the situation… and then making more changes. It’s a good system they have going.
I like the two-hour block. Sunday school was still hard to get through, but knowing that church was over right after made it more bearable. I do like how we ended up with only 20 minutes in sacrament meeting for testimonies today, so there was a lot less awkward silence. We had one elderly gentleman get up at about one minute before the hour was up to bear his testimony for nearly seven minutes about how the changes were wonderful and we need to adjust to them and God is in his heaven, etc. etc. etc. It was nearly 10 minutes after hour by the time we finished. My wife and I both commented that it felt like “business as usual”. However, our Sunday School was very well attended. I’m not sure if it was because there was less motivation for loitering in the halls (which many of our members do) or if it was curiosity over what Sunday School would be like under the new program. Time alone will tell. We ended up with a few logistical issues. One that might be common in many wards and one that I’m sure is uncommon. 1) There were more people in SS than what we’re used to seeing, lots more. Now that other SS classes like gospel essentials and the like have gone away that means there’s one class for adults. The only room large enough to accommodate everyone was the chapel which led to our second logistical issue.
2) We have another ward that holds SM right after our ward… right after with no gap. It’s a unique situation, the youth from their ward is combined with the youth from our ward, we hold our SM first in our block, they hold their SM last in their block, and our non-SM hours overlap so the youth can be together. Our SS ran a little late so we had a chapel full of people trying to get out and a chapel full of people trying to get in. I’m sure the other ward’s SM started a good 15 minutes late.
It’s a tricky situation for our building. I have no idea what room the other unit used for their SS but I bet it was cramped. And their church ends up being over 2 hours just because of the transition time that they need to get from their SS to their SM.
Just logistics. If anyone asks I’d float the idea of the other ward holding their SS in the chapel so that there’s less of an impact for them starting their meeting on time.
I posted this at the same time as Gerald, but it looks like we had similar experiences. One minute before SM was up someone got up and gave a very long testimony which ended up putting us 10 minutes over, otherwise we would have ended on time.
I wound up tuning out most of the testimony meeting, actually and worrying about life stuff. Our branch president announced that the “Overflow Sunday School Class” was no longer in session, which was funny.
Our Gospel Doctrine teacher was overwhelmed by so many people (we went to 20-30 from 4-
. Since the lesson was on “The Wonders of the New Come Follow Me Program/Theoretical best practices for the new program/How Studying using the New Program is Blessing My Life”, I was not impressed. For me, the bigger part of it was she spent a good 20 minutes on how wonderful it is, and another 10-15 minutes on how to set the best family goals for New Years for the new program.
BUT, my husband put together a lesson for after church, and my daughter seemed to get something from it.
I think for most people in my ward the 2 hour block was a raging success. Because of the youth ordination and advancement decree, my two hour block was actually seven hours long (I can’t complain, really, for the bishop his block was probably 10-11 hours long by the time it was all over). Our sacrament meeting actually ended 1 minute early. No announcements (except for the YM advancements). Even the normal testimony bingo people were restrained and brief. Very little mention in testimonies about revelation and church changes. That was refreshing. I don’t know how our SS class hour went, since I was in my special needs class. People who are late to church now will very likely miss the sacrament. My BP has had several discussions about this.
It did seem like it took a long time for the church to clear out after church was over. Part of that was due to the ordinations occurring right after church, but it also could have been due to many people losing the middle hour social hour. I know my DW has complained about that. She said to me “when am I supposed to talk to all of my friends?”
Wonderful. I got sleep in and still be home for lunch at a decent hour. I believe this may work to attract new members and keep people in church. One less hour for members of the church to interact with each other, except for the brother in my ward that had an extra hour on Sunday to tick me off on Facebook with his bigoted pro Trump posts. Perhaps that brother should have to endure a third hour. Lol.
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