(Just thought I’d see what it’s like to type out the entire name.)
There have been so many. We had 2-hour church today. It was great.
I heard today that all stake auxiliary leader positions will be abolished. That would be great, IMO.
(Just thought I’d see what it’s like to type out the entire name.)
There have been so many. We had 2-hour church today. It was great.
I heard today that all stake auxiliary leader positions will be abolished. That would be great, IMO.
I was going to make a list, then ran across a thread on CS, which includes:
“No LDS President has implemented more changes in his first year of service than has Pres. Nelson.” True in my lifetime. It’s been amazing to watch and experience.
Others we’ve seen:
1. HT/VT “retired,” succeeded by ministering.
2. Consolidation of high priest groups and elders quorums
3. Church cutting ties with the BSA
4. Dropping or de-emphasizing “Mormon” in official references to the church
5. Two-hour meeting block
6. Change in youth progression between SS classes and AP quorums
7. Significant changes to temple ceremonies
8. Online Mission calls
9. Consolidated service/proselytizing mission recommendation process
10. Sister missionaries can wear pants!
I suspect that many of these have been in the hopper for awhile but we needed a healthy POTC fire them to be approved. I think they are all great changes.
Re the word "Mormon," a friend up mine high up told me that this has been an issue for Pres. Nelson for 30 years, and Pres's. Hinckley and Monson mostly ignored him.Quote:
Originally Posted by LA Ute
That was wise on their point. That is the only change that I think is a head scratcher.Quote:
Originally Posted by concerned
I think RMN gave a talk about the subject while GBH was president. Seems like it was not urging any change, but just reminding people what to emphasize. Nothing like his recent sweeping instruction. I was struck by his adamant position. I think the greatest impact will be on members.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sullyute
Notable in its absence on LA's list: The Church's continued meddling in affairs of a social nature, and for a change, one overwhelmingly sought after by the people, namely medical marijuana. Some things will never change.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sullyute
Incorporating the Lord's demands into the name change was insulting to anyone with a brain. What, Jesus Christ can tell Nelson what his Church should be known as, but can't offer a clear path to medical marijuana that satisfies the desires of the people? What happened to agency? What happened to keeping the government out of people's affairs?
I have no idea what the long term impact will be, but our sacrament meeting and sunday school hour were much more full yesterday. Sunday school featured a packed house when usually its maybe 3/4, closer to 2/3.
We were scheduled to get the dreaded (for me) 1-4 slot this year but instead we have 12-2.
I get a kick out of the fact that both the Mormon and ExMormon subreddit groups had threads detailing changes to the Temple ceremonies. The person on the Mormon subreddit thread started with something like "it started with a message from the first presidency asking us to not detail the changes" and then they proceed to list all of them.
Add the "Come Follow Me" home study curriculum to the list - which also is a significant change to the longstanding FHE program. We had a GA come to our Stake Conference in early December and basically said, "Do Come Follow Me on Sundays or a day that makes sense for you, Monday night can be reserved for fun activities as a family."
Right. Forgot that one. I’m not sure if we are typical but once our kids got into middle and high school it was impossible to get together consistently on Monday nights anyway. This change adapts to the realities of most families’ lives.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rocker Ute
Agree with this completely. Up until very recently I was a Bear Den Leader. Maybe my ward is unique, but people really checked out on scouting after the change was announced. I know that there are logistics and you can't just quit something like that without some time for transition, but my view is that keeping it going for 2019 was a miscalculation. We have the one family in our ward with four boys that LOVES scouting. The called the husband as the cubmaster (after he had just been released from that calling a year earlier) and the wife as cub committee chair (while she still serves in the primary presidency). It was the classic "no one else is willing to put any time into this dying program" move.Quote:
Originally Posted by sancho
Anyway, there's probably more going on behind the scenes than I realize, but I think they should have announced the change with 6-8 months to transition. If they couldn't wrap everything up in scouting ore have the new program ready by the end of 2018 they should have held off on announcing the change.
My oldest is turning 8 this year and we had a little "Baptism preview" this past week. The cubmaster came to talk to the kids about cubscouts and mentioned that the church is planning to implement a program that looks a lot like scouts at the cub scout and boy scout level.Quote:
Originally Posted by UBlender
I think President Monson was probably the last link between the church and the scouts. From my pov, people had started to sour on the BSA more and more over the years. The annual "friends of scouting" grew tiresome.
In our ward the older boys who had gotten close to having their Eagle are hustling to get that done. At the lower levels parents and boys are already looking ahead.Quote:
Originally Posted by UtahsMrSports
I was on the executive board of our BSA council (the token Latter-day Saint member) and did not like what I saw. I loved what Scouting could be at the local level, with leaders who had the right dedication and attitude; but at the council level it was all about egos and money. Bad combination. I also saw the budgets. The LDS units brought in over 50% of the Friends of Scouting money. I can't help thinking that the BSA's recent announcement that it is considering bankruptcy is partly due to the LDS units walking away from Friends of Scouting.
That has to be true. The big difference between boy and girls scouts is that the girl scouts have a stable income stream from cookie sales, in addition to donations.Quote:
Originally Posted by LA Ute
I never felt comfortable donating to friends of scouting, despite pleas from local leaders. I always felt that too much would be going to pay the salaries of useless higher ups at the BSA. Your post in a way validates my concerns. I think the church has the ability to administer a far more efficient program and keep the great things about scouting.Quote:
Originally Posted by LA Ute
FWIW, I was the venture/varsity scout leader a few years ago, and our kids invited many local kids in the neighborhood who had no affiliation with the LDS church to come to camp and those that came seemed to have a great time.
I give my full throated approval to the general direction of the church. I hope the progress continues at a blazing fast pace.
Curiously, I don't think my HS aged son has spent 2 minutes on scouting, yet I was called as cub scout helper -- although it was made crystal clear they didn't give a rip about the scouting program, and my calling was really just to have a fun activity once or twice a month and be a good role model. Zero emphasis on scouting. My wife's call as RS instructor was eliminated.
This move to Salt Lake in a ward with a deep, deep bench has been wonderful -- I can't remember the last time she didn't get piled on -- church wise.
I'm one of two elders quorum instructors, which means that now at most I teach once a month. There are two emeritus GAs in the quorum, several former bishops, and one former mission president. It is a fun and easy group to "teach," because I learn a lot more than I teach. Light years away from our former ward, and it would be very different anyway now with the 2-hour block. My wife is the stake nursery leader (a calling I didn't even know existed) and I'll bet that calling will be going away soon.Quote:
Originally Posted by mUUser
When I was on my mission, President Hinckley had recently spoken of the three things that were needed for activation/retention: 1. A friend, 2. A calling/responsibility and 3. Nourishing from the scriptures/teachings. That was a big focus as we tried to convert and activate members.
It seems that between the consolidation of various groups and programs and the rumors of the elimination of stake callings (which I've heard elsewhere as well) that the church is moving away from the theory that every member needs a calling. I was released from Cub Scouts a couple months ago and still don't have a calling. I've been scratching my head as to where they might put me. I'm sure I'll get something before too long but the "needs" are being significantly reduced. When they find a place for me and release someone else I don't know where that person will go.
I think this is a good thing. There are probably some that need an assignment to keep them actively engaged. I think there are more like me who are happy to help where they can but dislike assignments that become time-consuming and stressful and take me away from my family too much. I don't know if it is an objective to make personal lives of members easier and less stressful, but I can see that happening and it's for the best.
Which is why the first thing I pointed out was that it was notably absent.Quote:
Originally Posted by sancho
I was released as gospel doctrine teacher and now teach the oldest sunday school class...we had 19 kids age 15+ and I think the actual number was closer to 25 or so if they all came. We joked that I got better numbers in this class than in gospel doctrine. Should be a fun year though.Quote:
Originally Posted by UtahsMrSports
They have eliminated a ton of callings actually through the consolidation. The HP consolidation eliminated about 10 callings, the revision of the ministering program eliminated 4-5 callings in the RS, same with the elimination of venture and varsity scouting. One spot that was eliminated years ago that I wish would come back is the activities committee. That was a nice place for a lot of people who wanted to help but maybe struggled with a testimony, and also a great place for people who wanted to be involved in the church but weren't members.Quote:
Originally Posted by UBlender
Not a fan of made up callings, I hope that if the intent is like you mentioned (which isn't a bad thing) I hope they explain it that way - that not everybody will have a calling - because sometimes people feel left out if they don't have one.
As far as eliminating Stake callings, that actually makes a ton of sense. I had served previously on the high council (which is doctrinally mandated) but felt that much of what the high council traditionally did had been replaced by email. In other words, relaying messages back and forth from stake leadership to ward leadership etc, and so in a lot of ways mostly useless. The high council has the bandwidth to assume the roles of guiding a lot of things that are currently done by stake auxiliary.
The big shakeup this year to expect is the new program to replace scouting. It was noted that it would be for both girls and boys, 8 years old and up, and things like activity days would be eliminated. Done right it could be really cool.
Regarding the long wait to eliminate scouting, the story I heard is that the church notified the scouts of their intent, with the plan to announce the same time they presented the new program this year (giving the 6-8 month window you mentioned). The BSA however wanted to announce it anyway, and went ahead and did it. Watching what happened in light of that, I think they half expected a backlash. I get an email about weekly from the BSA asking for my feedback now and asking for me to continue to support it. I did give them feedback once, it was pretty harsh (along the lines of what disheartened LAUte) and I got a call from some GSL Council guy who pretended to be genuinely surprised by my concerns. My concerns are the same echoed here and throughout the church, so I told him I thought he was being less than sincere about it, or they were in massive denial.
My bold predictions, based off of nothing else but observed necessity:
1. The new youth program will be big - and great because it will equalize what is going on between young men and young women
2. Elimination of unnecessary stake callings
3. More emphasis on callings and positions that give women more leadership positions, why can't a woman be a ward mission leader, sunday school president, financial clerk, etc
4. More family history and temple work integration
5. More tweaks to take some unnecessary stuff off of bishop's shoulders
6. More tweaks to allow for decision making to be made at a ward level (de-emphasis on correlation)
Oh one other thing we forgot to mention is the change that service missionaries are called the same as proselyting missionaries, which is great. What I'd really like to see is that every missionary get called to at least a 6 month service component of their mission. I had an opportunity to do service only for about 6 weeks straight and it was the most effective part of my mission. We found more people and had more converts than any other time. It was also some of the best times on my mission. Something to be said to the 'Ammon approach' to missionary work.
High Priests Group = 4 in the group leadership plus 2-3 teachers, etc alone.Quote:
Originally Posted by sancho
Shame... shame!!!! ;) HB2 13.2.1 - "Under the direction of the bishopric, the ward council oversees the planning of ward activities. ...[the Bishop] may also assign responsibility for an activity to other individuals or to a committee, working under the direction of the ward council. Normally these assignments are temporary for a specific activity."Quote:
We still use an activities committee. There's nothing in the handbook that forbids this, and, like you said, it's a good idea. Those are callings where people can actually get to know each other.
I think it will all be synced and a progression all the way through. Opportunities for camping, etc. Activity Days used to include both boys and girls long ago.Quote:
For the 8-11 year olds, I'm expecting it to look a lot like activity days looks now. For the YM/YW, I'm expecting it to look a lot like YW looks now. That's basically how a lot of wards have been doing it for a while, and it works great.
You may be right as far as the church being ready for it, although for our current financial clerk, and when I was a clerk, I don't recall any closed door time with members of the bishopric, but still it could easily be worked around. Just an example though - plenty of places where women can and should serve that have traditionally been held by men - for no other apparent reason but tradition.Quote:
The financial clerk has to spend a lot of one-on-one, closed-door time with a member of the bishopric, and I don't think the church is ready to allow that (I also don't think they should allow it, but that might make me a caveman or something).
I have a raw hunch that more people will be used to staff the temples. A current GA who’s in our ward (but can attend only rarely) spoke the Sunday before Christmas and mentioned the increase in worldwide temple construction. Seemingly as an aside, he mentioned that the number of operating temples would increase “by tenfold” within the next few years. I didn’t notice anyone else reacting to that statement, but it sure got my attention.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rocker Ute
A comittee should only be in place for one activity. Then it dissolves.Quote:
Originally Posted by sancho
But this his type of micro-management rule is the type that should also go away eventually. More autonomy locally to decide “how” to achieve the “what” that the church dictates.
I fear for you, brother. You are on the high road to apostasy.Quote:
Originally Posted by sancho
Yes, I think things are amiss in the land of sancho. They probably have candles on the sacrament table too.Quote:
Originally Posted by LA Ute
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I think you need to read it again my friend.Quote:
Originally Posted by sancho
I was an EQP when they came out with the new handbooks and discontinued the standing activities committee, which I didn't care for at the time.
If you don't believe me, here is the press release at the time:
https://www.lds.org/church/news/new-...ining?lang=eng
But I actually agree that this is the type of micromanagement that will hopefully go away. If it works for your ward go for it... and as I mentioned I wish it would come back for the benefits I mentioned. I doubt my bishop will go off script for this though, he thinks he has bigger battles to fight and is a mostly harmless weirdo.Quote:
...Other changes of note include... eliminating a standing ward activities committee and handling activities through the ward council..."
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That’s what Thomas B. Marsh said.Quote:
Originally Posted by sancho
I bet his bishop wears light blue shirts to church.Quote:
Originally Posted by LA Ute
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...and is a Ute fan.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rocker Ute
There was a headline about a month ago: "Researchers say the first person to live to 150 may already have been born." Somebody tweeted "Lets hope it is RBG." Maybe it is RMN.