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Given many of our conversations here, I thought I would post the following excerpt from one of Pres. Uchtdorf’s talks last month in General Conference: Quote:You’re going to have to chart a course that is consistent with the Lord’s doctrine and matches the circumstances of your geographic area. To implement divine welfare principles, you need not look always to Salt Lake City. Instead you need to look into the handbooks, into your heart, and into heaven. Trust the Lord’s inspiration and follow His way.
In the end you must do in your area what disciples of Christ have done in every dispensation: counsel together, use all resources available, seek the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, ask the Lord for His confirmation, and then roll up your sleeves and go to work.
The following is worth repeating and believing, imo – since I think it applies to the vast majority of things we consider personally and try to do as a collective group:
Quote:“You need not always look to Salt Lake City.”
The Second Counselor in the First Presidency said it. I’ll choose to accept it as divinely inspired.
:clap: I agree with what you said here, except for the last statement. Just because a counselor in the presidency said it doesn’t mean its inspired to me anymore, and I reject that kind of blanket thinking about the things I hear at Church from the GA’s…perhaps you were just trying to rattle our chains in jest (which humor I can appreciate) but a key plank in my worldview platform is that these GA’s do not produce consistently inspired statements. Sometimes they are downright flawed, or phenomenal advice for people on the textbook path of Mormondon, but totally wrong for people with unusual circumstances. No, being on your own clock means you look at everything they say with personal scrutiny, and in my view, a healthy skepticism until you marry it up with your own unique circumstances.
I think I mentioned the “woman’s place is in the home talk” by ETB in one other thread. Totally flawed for my personal situation. If I followed that advice my life and family would be worse off.
But, not to hijack the thread — I find Uchdorf’s statements encouraging. He’s a personal clock guy to some extent.
SD, my tongue was planted firmly in my cheek when I typed that sentence. 
SD, I agree with you on the GA statements, AND I think this statement by Pres Uchtdorf is truly inspired of God. That’s a nice quote. But lets be honest – to say that we shouldn’t turn to SLC but instead turn to the CHI is pretty disengenious isnt it? I mean where does the CHI come from? Yes, he does stipulate that we need to turn to our “hearts” and to “heaven,” but only AFTER he mentions that we should turn
to the handbook.So, I like the thought — but do you think many leaders will ever use their hearts and heaven and go against the CHI? I doubt it. I mean, I tried and tried to get the BP to look at a 2 hour block schedule to help take some of the pressure off the members of our small branch. The BP looked at his heart and heaven, and absolutely agreed with me, but said he couldn’t take it to the SP because it was spelled out pretty clearly in the CHI. No Ray, I like the thought and I think Uch is truly a prophet and has good intentions, but I don’t see local leaders really challenging the CHI as our people see the CHI as inspired policy and commandments from the prophets.
Okay, I would like to give this a fair shot, and you people are just the group to do it. I would like to know what kind of decisions we make in our church that DOES NOT COME from SLC. So the title of this thread is We Don’t Need Direction from SLC on Most Things. I agree we don’t. But we do it anyway don’t we? What decisions do local leaders really get to make? I mean, they don’t even have the authority to call who they want to certain callings, because SLC (CHI) is very clear that some of those callings one must have a TR. SLC (CHI) is also very plain and detailed about who can and can’t be the voice in ordinations and such, and who can stand in the circle and such. The amount of top-down micromanagement that spills from the CHI is unbelievable to me.
So here is my challenge – what is it Ucht talking about here? What significant decisions is it he is saying local leaders can and should make without SLC approval?
Decisions made locally include things like: ward traditions, how budgets are allocated within the ward, who gets welfare and who doesn’t, who is disciplined and who is not, how the programs are run (RS meetings, SS, GD, etc.), whether the ward has a scouting program, what is celebrated and what is not, how much oversight teachers are given, how much female input is solicited in decision-making, what dress rules are “enforced” or requested of members, etc. The tricky thing is that some of those local leaders do what they do because they believe their actions will be more acceptable (orthodox) when viewed by higher-ups. Others have a “what happens in our ward, stays in our ward” mentality. Generally speaking, I prefer the latter. Who wants to be led by someone who is politically maneuvering for advancement at the expense of the congregation? Not me. But there’s more than one kind of person in the world.
The talk was in the context of welfare. For instance, I’m gonna take all the handouts I can (goes against the church philosophy of being self-reliant), but it fits my individualized need so I’m not homeless and eating Top Raman for the rest of my life. I liked President Uctdorf’s statement that the welfare program of the church is not “one size fits all.” Wow, I’m glad the church realizes that their are cultural differences, and individual circumstances that vary. I’m sorry, if I’m disabled or have disabled family members I’m gonna get disability to make my life easier, than scoff at the idea that it is shameful because I’m not self-reliant. In some ways being self-reliant creates arrogance, which creates pride which is an abomination. I’m grateful for what I’m able to get from family, and the government if it helps me to survive when I don’t see a healthy alternative. Oh, and when Obama care is in affect, I will get fined for not having health care. My dad has been in the sp for almost 7 years now, and he shared with me a meetng he went to with all the other stake presidencies and bishoprics in our state. I think there was an apostle there and the area authority 70. It was a day long intensive workshop so there was a lot of open discussion between local leaders and GA’s. Dad noticed that when they opened up for questions, a lot of leaders asked for help regarding very specific situations like gays, medical marajuana, and other controversial issues. To these questions, they were told that they need to seek out the spirit themselves to find the correct course of action after consulting the CHI. So Uchtdorf’s advice may be addressing that. Also, the GA’s have said before that they cant respond to mail from individual members, that there is a chain of command with which issues need to be addressed.
That reveals a big problem, that people are putting too much faith people they think have more faith than them, rather than putting faith in the God they profess to believe in. Really, the power of God is supposed to be equally available to those who are worthy of it.
Bottom line, the church is BIG and we as members need to be responsibe for our own lives. Gone are the days when the prophet was on a first name basis with the entire church membership.
ihilani wrote:Bottom line, the church is BIG and we as members need to be responsibe for our own lives. Gone are the days when the prophet was on a first name basis with the entire church membership.
Yup. I’m not so sure they are saying this because the want to and want to release control, but I think they have to because it is just too big to micromanage.
So, CHI comes from Salt Lake, but it is vague, needs interpretation, and can’t cover every jot and tittle. So, seek the scriptures, seek the CHI for past precedence…then do what really matters in our growth and development…and choose best you can based on inspiration from the Spirit. The Lord knows many local leaders and individual members will make mistakes…and that’s OK. Its more about learning through experience than getting the correct answer on the test.
“Teach them correct principles, and let them govern themselves”. I prefer that approach. I would be annoyed if my kids came and asked me to make decisions for them every day about everything. I am sure the GAs feel the same.
But I think as a Church, we tend to bring on the looking-to-the-leader syndrome because we claim they are inspired, which gives the illusion they somehow have access to knowledge or information we don’t. People like very much the idea of an oracle of knowledge that can give them pat answers to life’s vexing problems, so this claim feeds it. I now realize that generally, our leaders are successful business/career people. For problems related to execution, they are probably not to bad at it, the higher up you go. Much of the advice might be sound on certain standard Church policy and administration issues with which they have expereince. However, even then, they don’t have time to immerse themselves in the nitty gritties to give solid advice on problems which occur in special circumstances.
On the other hand, when it comes to emotional advice, I think this logic breaks down considerably. A friend in my band spoke to their Bishop about his marital troubles. He said nothing really came of it. I realize now he’d gone to a human resources manager for relationship advice. All you get is biographical and anecdotal advice — like when my wife shared my own lack of commitment, and the leader she spoke to suggested threatening to leave the relationship might be a healthy course of action — cuz that’s what his wife did to him when he lacked commitment.
Off the cuff, autobiographical advice on matters with which they have little professional experience.
Quote:Off the cuff, autobiographical advice on matters with which they have little professional experience.
Yes, never go to a bishop or member of the stake presidency for marital advice. Our clergy are not trained professionals in the area of counselling. I was reading about other clergy in non-LDS churches and many of them have to have training in counselling. The church skirts around this by outsourcing counselling to LDS Family Services. I just wish I knew this sooner early on in my first marriage, I just thought the wisdom of God would come through the Priesthood chain of command, but I was wrong.
As a youth of the Aaronic Priesthood, I looked up to the Bishops as sacrosanct and was always scared to meet with them in their offices when I had something to confide. Every time however, I did feel better after talking to them about my issues. But, now as an adult I am realizing that they are men too and can make mistakes, even in the advice they give.
Sorry it took so long to get back to this. The CHI has LOTS of wiggle-room in the use of qualifiers.For example (at an extreme end of the spectrum), “should” doesn’t mean “must” – and it’s interesting to see how many times there are other qualifiers used in the actual wording.
I understand that many local leaders don’t bother to look closely and parse like I do – but I can’t fault the global leadership when they actually do use words that provide discretionary wiggle-room and the ability to “customize” in so many cases.
Maybe I will start doing a few posts about this principle directly from the CHI, since it now is available on-line. What does everyone think?
Ray, That would be great. Something else that would be really great is discussion of Chapter 17: Uniformity and Adaptation.
I also have thought about doing some posts about things in “Preach My Gospel” that change missionary work radically and aren’t understood very well by the general membership – or flat-out misrepresented by clinging to old practices and policies. I’ll give it some thought and try to carve out some extra time to tackle both of these ideas.
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