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https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865691373/Changes-to-Relief-Society-visiting-teaching-messages-Do-what-she-needs.html ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865691373/Changes-to-Relief-Society-visiting-teaching-messages-Do-what-she-needs.html This I like.
Quote:changes to the monthly visiting teaching message will help sisters “minister” to each other in a more personal way.
Quote:The [Church] handbook doesn’t talk about our responsibilities to teach a lesson. It talks about how ‘visiting teachers sincerely come to know and love each sister, help her strengthen her faith and give service. [Visiting teachers] seek personal inspiration to know how to respond to the spiritual and temporal needs of each sister they are assigned to visit.’ ”Quote:The new format will encourage women in the Church to stop worrying about “what counts” for visiting teaching and will share ideas to help visiting teachers focus on strengthening each woman they visit.
That made me curious, so I went looking. From handbook 2: Quote:When appropriate, visiting teachers share a gospel messageCompared to the instruction for home teaching:
Quote:Each visit should focus on a planned purpose. Before visiting a home, companions pray together. They discuss ways they can strengthen those they will visit. Based on this discussion and the guidance of the Holy Ghost,
they share a messageRandom thoughts:
Visiting Teachers. “Teachers,” it’s right there in the name. If they want to shift how the calling is perceived they could change the name. Visiting Minister. But what’s in a name?
This next idea would present challenges and would have a whole other set of cons associated with it but IMO the quickest way to get people to stop worrying about “what counts” is to
STOP COUNTINGNibbler – What would I do without you? Of 42 views you are the only one to respond. Thank you. As to the name – I often tell people I want Visiting Friending. I have said it in class. I have said it to my visiting teachers. And I have, all my life, been in charge of how I get visited. Only once did I let my guard down. Boy that was lousy. Dresses, panty hose, and a message. Yuck.
The pluses I see beyond the article’s CYA of the handbook, is that the “teachee” gets to call the shots. Guilt Free.
I like the compassionate, connectedness Visiting Teaching has offered for years. Does it live up to that side of it’s potential – not as much as it could.
But between Elder Holland’s advice & this – I feel totally fine staying with my once a quarter lunch dates. Food, social time – that’s a program I can get behind.
This made me think a bit. I bet if the names were changed to visiting ministers and home ministers and there were some minor changes to the program (e.g. dump the message or at least make it optional) we would actually see an improvement in visits and quality of visits – as was pointed out, what counts would change. I have been traveling for the last two days and am catching up on everything. I love this change – and I hope it is made to the HT description, as well.
I will make sure it is brought up in Bishopric Meeting and that my wife sees it (the RS 1st Counselor in our newly formed ward).
I hear the frustration of counting. I do. I despise being the formal visiting teacher. But I deeply desire the visiting friend plan that I have enforced in my life.
For the record I have turned away home teachers for barging on to my porch at the 11th hour, in full shirt and tie, just so they can get their numbers. We haven’t had official home teachers since. That was over 5 years ago.
My life story or vision of these two programs is slanted by up close experiences where love and not numbers did come through home-visiting teaching and helped lives. I have watched it up close with a grandfather who left the church before I was even born. Yet had a dedicated ward teacher all his life, until both men passed away. There were no official lessons, but there were years of side by side brotherhood. They worked together on neighborhood construction projects (the ward teacher did not live in the neighborhood), became widowers within months of each other, as they aged he chauffeured my grandfather around because Grandpa could no longer drive. It is true the my grandfather came back to the church in his last year of life. I don’t think that mattered to the ward teacher. He had been the Christ like friend for over 40 years. Getting Grandpa back to church was a long shot objective.
Over the years my dad has always had the misfits as his list. My dad is a stickler TBM by most accounts here. He loves his Mormonism and the church is true. Yet as a home teacher he has always led with his heart. One is a concert pianist. Dad always attends his events, buys his albums and checks in by email. The man counts on my dad. Another one on his list, is his former boss. The boss is younger than dad. And deeply antagonistic to the church. Every month they go out to eat. For various holidays they exchange gifts or trinkets. The man’s wife died prematurely. She had become suddenly ill. The first phone call the man made was to my dad, begging him to sit with him as his wife passed in the hospital. My dad did. Later he was asked to be “religious figure” (speaker) at her funeral and remembrance. Now the man is alone. Dad takes him to dinner twice a month.
I get the numbers frustration, but people, not just Mormons, need markers. I think the problem with the numbers is that we have forgotten what it is we should be doing when we care for ward members. Sadly, if we stopped counting, people would stop connecting. It’s a horrible two way street.
Yeah, I get the numbers thing as well, and let’s admit it – the church is run by business men who run it like a business. In many ways it is a business. VT/HT shouldn’t be one of those ways though. Perhaps instead of asking “Did you visit?” the question could be “How did you serve them this month?”
My (active) sister was in the Relief Society Presidency in her ward (perhaps she still is. I can’t remember) and she asks “what do your sisters need?” or “how are they doing?” or something similar rather than asking about if and how they were visited. I definitely like that approach and wish it were applied to home teaching as well.
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