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Fwiw, I’m speaking in our Stake Priesthood Leadership Meeting in a couple of weeks about “PPI”s and Home Teaching: Differing Motivations; or, Being a Home Teacher vs. Doing Home Teaching”. Wish me luck!
Good luck Ray. Its got to be a challenge to find some inspiring way to skin that cat again. Not really. I’m going to shock some of them by asking what they probably will take as a rhetorical question at the beginning – whether it’s better to do your Home Teaching in a bar or in the person’s house – then tell them that either one could be the best option, depending on the person being visited. I’m going to emphasize that being a Home Teacher isn’t about a standard checklist / program / itinerary; rather, it’s about serving people. If that can happen better in a bar than in a house, by all means be a true Home Teacher and meet the person in the bar. Yes, I have the Stake Presidency Counselor’s permission to tackle it that way.
Ray- Like many stakes there is a renewed focus on home teaching and missionary work in our stake. In the spirit of CHI.B2 we are really trying to focus on reaching out to people with genuineness. As I have traveled around my stake I have been asking the leadership to try and shift their thinking from “Did you do your home/visiting teaching?” to “How are Bro. & Sis.________ doing?”
I/we would really like to see people shift from home teaching visits being the routine Ensign lesson, to building friendships and relationships that truly support people in whatever circumstance they are in. Further, we want people to have the correct motivation in doing so – building relationships out of a genuine place of Christ-centered discipleship that doesn’t care where someone is at in their spiritual/temporal journey.
Good luck with your lesson.
You didn’t ask for any suggestions on what to say, but as a formerly frustrated HPGL who left most meetings demotivated by our SP….and worn out from the HT program, I can suggest a few thoughts: 1. The need for empathy and acceptance of people who share doubts; that provides more long-run influence than being judgmental.
2. The need to recognize home teaching on best efforts basis — when you have met the person at the level of contact you want, you have done 100%. If they want an email once a month, and you do it, then you have done your home teaching the best it can possibly been done. If they want to be left alone, to contact you whenever they feel they want it, then you have done 100% by staying away.
3. For people who are less active, see yourself as someone who represents the home fires burning, the door open, and a warm blanket waiting for them — and to take satisfaction in having done that. Don’t let the numbers be your defining characteristic.
4. Consider reporting HT numbers two ways — the way the Stake wants it, and after considering whether the best effort (however defined) has been made for the person. I did this one month and HT came out to 94%. Actual gold standard visits to homes — 34%. Then the SP would attend Ward Council and claim the records weren’t clean and the HT was a mess. I would then pull out my 94% and it always made me feel that I’d done all I could, except for the 6% of new move-ins or others we hadn’t done our best with.
Home Teaching requirements are like most other commandments, imo. There is a standard developed so people know the required measurement (1 visit with a prayer in the home every month … or something to that degree). But the spirit of the law is rooted in service and love, whether that takes you to the bar to deliver it, or skipping some months so the person’s privacy is respected, or whatever.
Truly, the message is about loving and caring for your neighbor. The monthly measurement is just administrative and less important.
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