Quote Originally Posted by Rocker Ute View Post
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.

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)
I agree with pretty much everything here, but especially the statement on made-up callings. I've been there. It's demeaning and frustrating. In pretty much everything in life I HATE the concept of doing something just for show. I've had a couple of jobs where there was a culture of staying late at the office pushing papers around just to give the appearance of working really hard and I can't run from those type of situations fast enough. I feel the same way about 80% of meetings--just send me an email with the key information and I'll come to you with questions if needed.

I've been wondering recently if it says in the handbook that women can't be in the Sunday School presidency or that men can't be in the Primary presidency. I think both of those would be healthy moves, but I think you'd have to have all men or all women rather than a combination because of the need for small group (presidency) meetings. I also think that small group meeting is what may prevent a female financial clerk. I've got about 6-7 years as a financial clerk under my belt. There wasn't a lot of closed door meeting (processing donations after church was always done with the door open) but it still does lend itself to a lot of one-on-one. I just don't think the church would want to create something where a man and woman were spending that much time together in close proximity.