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This is a bit of venting and a bit of a rant. My apologies. I was recently forwarded a document entitled “United States and Canada Area Plan for 2016.” It does appear to be official (and I got it from an official source) and is copyrighted by Intellectual Reserve. It is not “leaked” but I also could not find it online, although I did find a similar one for Africa. It apparently meant to be used down to the ward council level, so I’m guessing some others here might encounter it at some point. Note that the document will not let me copy and paste text. It is dated August 2016.
Preliminaries out of the way, here’s my beef:
I actually have no problem with the first part with says the vision is to become and help others to become true followers of Jesus Christ and enjoy the blessings of the temple. No problem there, that would appear to be a main purpose of the church (especially the first part). Then it list four priorities:
1. Live the gospel of Jesus Christ
2. Gather Israel through missionary work
3. Care for the poor and needy
4. Enable salvation of the dead
Again, these priorities aren’t necessarily my priorities (and definitely not in that order, but it’s unclear if they’re meant to be prioritized) but they fit the old “three (or four) missions of the church. I’m OK with them, but don’t believe in 4 and I’m not all that keen on 2 (and I don’t necessarily believe we’re “gathering Israel”).
Here’s where it gets sticky for me. Next it lists four “area goals” (in the order above) with specific items on how to do so. The specific wording of goal one is (emphasis added):
“To live the gospel of Jesus Christ
we will: Strengthen ourselves and our families by receiving the ordinances of salvation and exaltation and keeping the associated covenants[;] Strengthen our faith in Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ and His Atonement by regularly studying the Book of Mormon and by honoring the Sabbath.” First off, I’m not sure who “we” is but I think it’s meant to be all of us. Hence, someone (First Presidency? Quorum of the Twelve? Presidency of the Seventy? Area presidencies – since there are many areas in the US and Canada?) is attempting to set goals for me. I think I have received those ordinances and regularly partake of the sacrament. I do not regularly study the Book of Mormon, I do regularly study the Bible (especially the words of Christ) and I’m not inclined to change that. I do honor the Sabbath as far as I understand it – that might not fit with what others, perhaps including some General or Area Authorities, consider honoring the Sabbath. But more importantly, I have worked really hard the past couple years at living the gospel of Jesus Christ in my own way and according to my own understanding. I don’t need or desire someone else to tell me that in order to live the gospel I need to be regularly studying the BoM. Studying the BoM is undoubtedly effective for some people, and some people will testify to that. It doesn’t do a lot for me, just as the temple doesn’t. My own goals to better live the gospel do not include studying the BoM or keeping the Lord’s Day according to someone else’s definition (or doing family history, going to the temple, cajoling others to come to church, etc.).
The other goals are similar, For #2 it’s teach repentance, baptize and rescue; #3 build self reliance (which has always been a conundrum to me), live the law of the fast (which I think is almost universally misunderstood in the church) and serve others; and #4 find family names, take them to the temple, and teach others to do the same.
I have my own issues with each of them, but the main argument is that this is someone else telling me how I’m supposed to do things. But wait! There’s more!
Then there’s a whole page of indicators (taken from the quarterly report) like recommend holding endowed members, young men serving or having served missions, sacrament meeting attendance, etc.; and an admonition to “review your progress toward each goal regularly”; and instructions for local leaders (AA, SP, bishops) to “implement the plan and continually follow up.”
[End rant]
So they copied the area plan from last year and the year before that and the year before that and.. 
Those goals sound like the 4 fold mission and par for the course. Heck, I’m just glad next year’s theme isn’t “religious freedom.” Nothing would make me check out quicker.
Re “we will”: That sounds like normal “power language” that you’d see in carefully crafted communications (alliteration!). Avoided the passive voice. Check. Use words like “will” instead of “can.” Check. It’s language from the business world applied to the realm of worship. Remember, when setting goals it has to be something that can be measured!
Re #1: I’m not sure how doing ordinances strengthens us or our families. For most ordinances it’s a one time deal. It can bring family together but on that front so do other traditions like Christmas or Mother’s Day. “Ordinances” is the answer you give to the question: If god is everywhere why do I need to go to church? So #1 translates to butts in seats.
You can learn a lot more about the atonement by getting out and ministering to people, at least when you compare that time to the time you would have spent reading a book for the 100th time.
I will say that many local wards have had success with a “next ordinance” program to reactivate people. The idea is to determine what ordinances an inactive person is “missing” (
Then there’s a whole page of indicators (taken from the quarterly report) like recommend holding endowed members, young men serving or having served missions, sacrament meeting attendance, etc.; and an admonition to “review your progress toward each goal regularly”; and instructions for local leaders (AA, SP, bishops) to “implement the plan and continually follow up.”
More measuring. Measuring things can help you determine where to best employ limited resources, like a BP visiting a family because they’re on a “haven’t been visited by home teachers in 6 months” list but when the goal turns toward the numbers themselves… I’m glad that sort of stuff only gets talked about by the sausage makers.
If that was a rant… You don’t want to know how I reacted when I saw the curriculum for 2017.
:angel: I think it is always the real struggle…to take the ideals and gospel principles…and try to boil them down to real life living, breathing actions. Where the rubber meets the road.
It is what it is. It is a stab at trying to live the gospel and doing good. It may even be a good thing for 2016. Maybe better than nothing.
But it feels like an awful lot of energy and meetings to get to those things…when in reality…what it means is…let’s be nice to others and serve them and help them with needs they have.
I would feel better about a more simplified goal…something more meaningful. Like…let’s make the church meaningful in people’s lives.
Perhaps what I prefer is a vision statement…and not legislate ward level goals and statistics. The moment you pen something specific…is the moment that goal is insufficient to reach the vision.
Teach correct principles and let the wards and stakes in the US and Canada govern themselves.
Did I miss the point, DJ? Those are just thoughts from reading your post. Not sure if I got the right ideas or not.
Heber, I think I would have been fine if they had just stopped after the “vision” and “priorities” part. In truth, there’s nothing new there – it’s the old three-fold (later four-fold) mission. There’s actually nothing new in the rest either, except that it appears to be telling me specific things that I must or should do in order to be a true follower of Jesus Christ and that somehow I’m supposed to be accountable to my bishop and/or SP. I think I am really the only one who can know if I’m a true follower of Christ and that I am accountable to God and not to my bishop or SP (or AA). So….what is the purpose of the Area Plan? Why have it? By the way…those are my same questions for why our ward needs a ward mission plan? I’m not sure I see the utility…and I see it too often being a tool for guilt or scaring people away.
I have my opinion on why…but am interested in what others think about it. Why have these plans for 2016 when it is the same thing as before…nothing new?
Heber13 wrote:Why have these plans for 2016 when it is the same thing as before…nothing new?
Foolish traditions of our fathers.Heber13 wrote:So….what is the purpose of the Area Plan? Why have it?
By the way…those are my same questions for why our ward needs a ward mission plan? I’m not sure I see the utility…and I see it too often being a tool for guilt or scaring people away.
I have my opinion on why…but am interested in what others think about it. Why have these plans for 2016 when it is the same thing as before…nothing new?
That’s a really good question. I don’t have the answer, but I do think LH’s has some merit.
I’ve pondered Elder Holland’s home teaching talk a bit and I’ve even posted some of my thoughts here. Home teaching is faulty, it has never worked in all the years we’ve had it – yet every month, sometimes every week, we hear the same old same old: do your home teaching. Eventually someone has to wake up and smell the coffee* (and maybe that’s the problem, there’s no coffee in the COB) and realize we need to do something totally different, that HT isn’t working, it has never worked, and it will never work (during the millennium we’ll all be too busy in the temple to do it).
I’m not sure if the three fold mission existed before Kimball, but it’s been around at least that long. Unlike home teaching, I don’t think it is broken and maybe it even bears repeating/reminding once in awhile. Why have an area plan to reiterate it? Beats me.
*I love the smell of coffee. I can’t stand the stuff, I’ve never liked it – but I do love the smell.
Heber13 wrote:Why have these plans for 2016 when it is the same thing as before…nothing new?
Same as all the other “actions;” to pretend they’re actually going to try something different while actually once again proving the definition of insanity.
I remember when I heard the talk “On Being Genuine” by President Uchtdorf. I loved it and was really hoping some change would come out of it. He talks about making sure your heart is in the right place and gave a story about how a stake backed away from setting a bunch of goals because what really mattered was taking care of the poor and needy and the individual members different needs.
But it’s like the talk never happened. Same old goals, same old expectations and more emphasis on those things than actually caring about people. I noticed it all the time in ward council. Everyone was so stressed out about meeting all the goals and expectations set for them that we really didn’t have time to actually just take care of people in a loving fashion. It was almost business like.
Because of the mandates I was told to fulfill in my calling, I was stressed out all the time. We had meetings outlining everything we HAD to do for the year. Things that took up a crazy amount of time. I felt guilty that I didn’t really have the time or energy to do what I really wanted to do, which was love the girls that I was serving using my vision.
When everything is dictated for us, we don’t get to contribute in our own authentic way. I feel that we don’t learn and grow because instead of trying to figure things out for ourselves, we’re just running around stressed and letting someone else control how we fulfill our our time on earth.
In the noble words of Hawkgrrl. Quote:Get off my lawn!#1 – These are 2016 goals. – Great News 2016 is almost over. #2-The following were met – Sabbath Day (remember those months, that training, those promises about no lists); BoM – Not hard. It was GD topic.; Ordinances – you can only do so much but I am sure we got that, too.
#3 – Poor and the Needy – Still growing. Today I just learned that the church has cancelled the single Day of Service program. Don’t panic – they are encouraging increase-ment of Day of Service events based on local stakes, wards and families. (I for one like this)
mom3 wrote:#1 – These are 2016 goals. – Great News 2016 is almost over.
#2-The following were met – Sabbath Day (remember those months, that training, those promises about no lists); BoM – Not hard. It was GD topic.; Ordinances – you can only do so much but I am sure we got that, too.
#3 – Poor and the Needy – Still growing. Today I just learned that the church has cancelled the single Day of Service program. Don’t panic – they are encouraging increase-ment of Day of Service events based on local stakes, wards and families. (I for one like this)
It was clarified that the heading of the thing should probably say 2017 since it was dated August 2016.
I’ve not heard of the Single Day of Service thing, but it doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Our stake is moving ever so slowly toward the Just Serve program, which I do like.
We have since had some council discussion on this and decided not to change what we’re doing already – our areas of focus were already aligned with this. There was some openness to perhaps doing some sort of specific focus like home teaching or getting prospective elders ordained. There was a suggestion of doing a local level “everybody read the Book of Mormon” thing, which didn’t seem to gain traction with the leadership (fortunately). I’m prepared to talk about how we had some “good” BoM talks in recent GCs and none of them suggested doing anything like that – they did invite and encourage people to do it on their own testified of the benefits. I’m fine with something like that. I’m actually fine with doing an everybody read thing because I can just not do it, I have my agency, it doesn’t fit with my current system of study (which is topical), and and I simply don’t have the time or desire.
Honestly, you identified the only real issue: Leaders measuring success of things collectively and then applying pressure or not based on their individual personalities. In other words, it is the same old same old.
Conceptually, I have no real problem with that – but in practice, it gets all kind and of wonky. Practice is more important than theory, however, so the measuring part is not something I like. I get it, but I don’t like it.
mom3 and DJ discussed:
Quote:I’ve not heard of the Single Day of Service thing, but it doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Our stake is moving ever so slowly toward the Just Serve program, which I do like.
I’m curious to know what people think. I’m working on this in our stake. It’ll be interesting to see if we can generate the same “turnout”/commitment when the projects are ongoing and off the radar. It’s going to take some real reconfiguration, but I’m looking forward to it.As a business guy, from a sheer organizational achievement perspective, I think the intent of what they are doing is textbook effectiveness.They have a mission, and they cascaded these down to geographical, widespread, operational goals. So often you get a smattering of goals from different sources — your priesthood leader/RS President, Bpric, your Stake auxiliary leaders, your SP, your Area leadership, scattered talks at conference, and general whims. It can be hard to sort out what is important and what isn’t and you feel pulled in multiple directions. Most goals are met with yawns and flavor-of-the-month labels. So, to see an organization trying to unify the efforts of the entire organization around various goals is very positive for me. It is vision in action — and in accordance with my favorite expression “Leadership is the process of turning vision into SUSTAINED reality through the wise use of power”.
I don’t generally like being told what my goals should be, but in a way, we signed up for it when we took out our baptismal covenants. And of course, we know that authoritarianism and expectations of obedience are par for the course in our church — for good, and for worse, depending on your perspective. You could argue they might have done better to set the operational goals that cascade out of the mission through widespread input from the leadership at the local levels, but I think that is expecting too much of our gerontocracy that is steeped in decades or authoritarianism and expectations of obedience.
So, for me this directive is not really something I’m upset about, because I am on my own clock now. What it does mean is that I should:
a) brace myself for the dreaded “why don’t you have a TR” conversation. Many of us are endowed members without TR’s. Perhaps we should resurrect the threads on how to respond to these conversations since our BP’s and SP’s will likely be drilling into local leaders to have these conversations with people like us.
b) look at the goals I DO feel passionate about and consider doing them. I generally like the Book of Mormon and feel spiritual when I read most of it. So, perhaps I should start doing that regularly again just to see what it feels like through my new, reality-colored glasses.
c) be thankful moving others on 24 hours notice isn’t specifically directed
😆 😆 So, I applaud the church for trying to be more organized in the way it attempts to align the members efforts around common goals. That has been missing for many years.
And I’m thankful for the heads up so I know what to prepare myself for in the future in those areas where I am not an enthusiast. When they come at me, I’ll have my answers well prepared to a) assert myself b) preserve my relationship with the local leadership as best I can.
What do you see as the implications of the plan DJ shared in the OP for people like us?
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