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There are topics, subjects or teachings I don’t hear at church anymore. There has been no announcement that they are important or even valuable.
They used to be discussed & taught a lot in the old days.
They seem to have quietly disappeared into the night.
They include the following:
. food storage.
. keeping journals.
. family home evening.
. fast offering & building fund.
. “every member a missionary”.
Maybe this is a regional issue?
Are there any others that you can think of?
If this has been brought up before, please let me know.
CAVEAT: I haven’t been at church since 2020 except for 1 Sunday in November 2023. “Family Home Evening” got absorbed into “Quality Family Time/Nights”.NOTE: This was usually a stick that the women in the room were beating themselves up for not producing enough of. It was actually “made worse” by the 1st Presidency charging mothers with organizing all “family experiences” – with the focus on the “Come Follow Me” and “home-centered, church supported” movement.
“Keeping Journals” got upgraded to “Family History”, “Family Legacy”, and “Family Culture” stuff.– Scrapbooks and framed stuff is still a thing.
– Digital stuff organization (including Family Tree and Ancestry) as well as shifting everything from outdated formats to digital formats.
“Every Member a Missionary” was still big in our small midwestern branch.GOOD “At Church” Conversations
“Birth Control” AcceptableBackground:
– We were “lifestyle hunting” in our new state so attended different units as part of the house-hunting, job-hunting, and really location-hunting process.
– We were trying to become pregnant during this crazy phase because we thought “God said so”.
– I was feeling all the 1st trimester symptoms of being pregnant because my body doesn’t handle coming off birth control well and pretends to be pregnant when I may not necessarily be pregnant. It sucks.
– My family runs fertile and I seem to become pregnant easily the few times I tried it. Hence birth control is super important to me.
Scenario:
– We were eating dinner with the branch president’s wife (he was there and one of their teenagers too I think) of a unit we visited. It came up about how we were lifestyle hunting and coming off birth control. We got zero flak for carefully planning (as much as possible) when we would like to have another child. They were a good 15 years older then us – so I was surprised that they were so in line with what we were saying.
Faith TransitionsI did my “homework” to sculpt a narrative about my faith transition that I could share with people as it came up.
[list]- I prepared to request leaving my callings – but keeping my friends who had organizational jurisdiction over the organization(s) I was quitting the callings in. I actually scripted out an “official narrative” that my friends could use in meetings as they discussed why I was requesting being released from the callings. My friends were a lot more relieved then I expected when I offered them the general statements I would like them to say if the situation came up. I was afraid they would feel that their autonomy/voice was being usurped by my request – but I guess they didn’t want the autonomy/voice in the situation after all.
[/list] - My in-laws accepted my faith transition narrative much more easily then I expected them to. My sister-in-law was a lot more chill about the situation. My FiL does not like it, but it seems to fall in a category of “bad things that ambush people that are endured and may turn out beneficial” – maybe like going to the dentist for advanced care?
[list][/list] I know this is my own personal soapbox but topics I don’t hear at church anymore… Charity
Empathy
Honesty
Christlike principles in general
I feel like my ward is doing a much better job than we once did in binging up Jesus but when we do it’s very superficial. We name drop Jesus but don’t do a good job of covering his actual teachings.
I can say that it feels like this is sloooooooooooowly changing for the better but quite a lot of my church experience is like the parable of pearl and the box. Church meetings are mostly focused on how great the church is but the church is the box.
Just to head it off at the pass… covenants are a box, ordinances are a box, Jesus is a box. I’d rather be in a society of people that don’t know the name Jesus at all but the people are full of empathy and charity than be in a society that strictly worships Jesus but has neither empathy nor charity.
nibbler wrote:
I know this is my own personal soapbox but topics I don’t hear at church anymore…Charity
Empathy
Honesty
Christlike principles in general
I feel like my ward is doing a much better job than we once did in binging up Jesus but when we do it’s very superficial. We name drop Jesus but don’t do a good job of covering his actual teachings.
I can say that it feels like this is sloooooooooooowly changing for the better but quite a lot of my church experience is like the parable of pearl and the box. Church meetings are mostly focused on how great the church is but the church is the box.
Just to head it off at the pass… covenants are a box, ordinances are a box, Jesus is a box. I’d rather be in a society of people that don’t know the name Jesus at all but the people are full of empathy and charity than be in a society that strictly worships Jesus but has neither empathy nor charity.
When I was in faith transition free-flow, I remember thinking about “what kind of a person do I want to be?” and “choosing Charity”. I figured that if God showed back up and adopted me – the work I had done in “Charity” and “Empathy” was a valuable use of my God-less time. Eventually, I still “chose Charity” even when I could not add “Christian” to how I described myself.
It took seriously studying “Autism” to teach me what I was trying to do, and what I was doing in the realms of “Empathy” and “Honesty”. There was a lot on the “performance side of things” talked about as an aspect of the ASD lifestyle that isn’t talked about/is mis-understood in non-ASD scriptures.
We have interesting conversations at home where my husband is “an active believer” and wants to be seen as “a charitable, empathetic, honest” person by our family. 2 family members do not identify as “Christian” at all – and the remaining family member is a child – perhaps an “honorary Christian” because we celebrate Christmas and live in the Midwest. He gets called out for “intolerance”, “not practicing empathy to sit with his children where they are”, and some of us see him as “being dishonest with himself and with us about who he is and what he really wants”.
This is known as a common feature of raising teenagers and/or being in one’s 40’s in the middle of the work of becoming a better human.
I get called out sometimes too – but I circle back with the human in question and make sure that misunderstandings are cleared up and I have a more stable track record.
Here are a few more… . No Personal Priesthood Interviews (PPI).
. No conversation in passing about the families I’m assigned. (Ministry Program).
. No discussion or instruction about Priesthood Ordinances anymore.
. I have no idea who our Elders Quorum President is.
If it wasn’t for JS & the BOM, it feels like I’m back in the Methodist Church.
I do think there was a wholesale realization by the Q15 that things like food storage, journal keeping, etc., really had almost nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I agree with Nibbler that the change has not been as quickly as I’d like (and there are old holdovers in my own ward/stake) I do think very slow change to focus more on Jesus Christ and His Gospel is afoot. That’s not a bad thing IMO. It was hard to bring visitors to church and have talks and lessons about food storage while ignoring Christ completely. We has a GA visitor a few years back who made that exact point by telling a story about how he and another well know member had tried for years to get a celebrity of some sort (he wouldn’t name him) to come to church and finally succeeded only to have the guy tell them at the end that he now knew why people say Mormons aren’t Christian (and never coming to church again). The topic of SM: food storage. As to ministering, PPIs, and so forth, very simply ministering is no home teaching and I think the only way for the leadership to get that through was to strip the vestiges of home teaching from ministering. I don’t think it’s been a total success, but I do think it worked for the most part.
Somebody from you EQP should be doing quarterly interviews with you (although they can be a phone call or even text or email for much of the time). But I haven’t been contacted by anyone in my EQP for a couple years so I get that it doesn’t work as the brethren outlined it. I do know who my EQP is, but I can’t name his counselors without looking it up on Tools.
The general focus from the top the last few years has been principles over rules, due largely to different cultures around the world, so things that fall almost completely or even mostly under “rules” have been de-emphasized. (For example, “dating” at a specific age is seen VERY differently around the world, as is the definition of dating.) As always, the water flows at different speeds down individual rows, but that is the general movement from the top.
Another connected issue is attendance at church. My own observations are very limited. They are related to my own ward only.
I don’t participate in any Stake activities including Stake Conference.
This past Sunday, I noticed that attendance at Sacrament meeting was reasonably full.
Priesthood & Sunday school have been fairly empty. By that I mean, less than half of the adults
from the Sacrament meeting. Even when you take into account the teachers in Primary, AP &
Relief Society, it was noticeable empty. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed it.
Has anyone else noticed the same thing in your ward or branch?
Another topic I haven’t hear at church anymore it: Family History or Temple Work.
I wonder if that could be because when we do talk about it, it is difficult to make a connection to
Jesus Christ. And, we don’t want to break confidentially concerning what we do there. Yet on we
go building more temples.
This seems to be an interesting time to be living in the church. It feels like a time of transition.
We, as a church, seem to be moving into another phase but I don’t know why or where we’re going.
I couldn’t tell you whether attendance in Sunday School or PH/RS is down in my ward because I always leave after the first hour. 
From what I recall, sparse attendance during second and third hour was a thing even when I was still attending those hours. There’s the primary and youth Sunday School claim to adults. There’s also adults talking with the bishop. There are the adults tending to children that are too young for nursery. There’s also the hall wanderers that haven’t brought themselves to outright leave church early but they don’t want to be in class either.
I haven’t been to second hour since shortly before covid, which is coming up on five years if you can believe it.
I’ll still hear about family history and temple work in my ward. We used to cycle between a half-dozen or less topics, temple work being one of them. One topic that’s experienced a noticeable reduction in mentions in my area is missionary work. Maybe we just got burnt out on the topic because there were a number of years where that’s all we seemed to talk about.
I heard through the grapevine that there were decisions made about “church attendance” family-by-family, person-by-person this past Sunday understanding that some units would talk about the gospel along political party lines and/or philosophies. This past Sunday may have been more of an aberration in church attendance because of that. It’s been about a year since I attended Sacrament Meeting last. I don’t know what is being talked about except through the network of the blogosphere and family members.
Old-Timer wrote:
The general focus from the top the last few years has been principles over rules, due largely to different cultures around the world, so things that fall almost completely or even mostly under “rules” have been de-emphasized. (For example, “dating” at a specific age is seen VERY differently around the world, as is the definition of dating.)As always, the water flows at different speeds down individual rows, but that is the general movement from the top.
This reminded me of something I recently heard. I was at a funeral for a member of our stake who had previously served in a temple presidency (early 2010s). The former temple president was one of the speakers. He talked about how he and the other counselor were struggling a bit with some of the temple transitions at the time, and particularly in how to implement changes, teach the temple workers, and change the culture. He paid tribute to my late friend for his insights into the changes from being more focused on rules and exactness to being much more about love and kindness – because God is more concerned with love and kindness than rules. He said my friend’s influence made all the difference in the world.
I’ve definitely noticed the same thing. Food storage used to be such a big topic, and family home evening felt like it was more emphasized in the past. It seems like those things aren’t as heavily pushed anymore, maybe because of how life has changed or just shifting priorities. I remember “every member a missionary” was a big focus for a while, but now it doesn’t seem as prominent—it’s almost like it’s become more of an expectation than something we actively teach about. It’s kind of interesting how certain practices fade out, but I think it’s just how things evolve over time. Myron wrote:
I’ve definitely noticed the same thing. Food storage used to be such a big topic, and family home evening felt like it was more emphasized in the past. It seems like those things aren’t as heavily pushed anymore, maybe because of how life has changed or just shifting priorities. I remember “every member a missionary” was a big focus for a while, but now it doesn’t seem as prominent—it’s almost like it’s become more of an expectation than something we actively teach about. It’s kind of interesting how certain practices fade out, but I think it’s just how things evolve over time.
I think that “Family Home Evening” got split into “Come Follow Me” in the “Home Centered Church Supported” program AND “quality family time” and “quality couple time” as a general practice.
“Every Member A Missionary” is still big here as of like 2018. We had the missionaries over with the program, and our family gets contacted at random intervals from random people. I set boundary conversations ahead of time (as part of letting them have entry to our world and our friendship) that don’t always sit comfortably.
The Primary President and YW President are associates of mine who do not understand my faith transition (though don’t hold it against me per se – at least in public and are some of “the good/well-meaning ones”) and still want contact with my daughters at their birthday times. It gets awkward. Last November, my irreligious/probably non-Christian daughter got a “birthday present” of a lovely ceramic cup with bible verses in beautiful script. My youngest turned 8 in August – and this past week was the time we could schedule a time for the Primary president to chat and drop off a present. We were all trying our best to make a very awkward situation “less weird” and “more friendly” – and I think we managed to fool non one with our best efforts.
Myron wrote:
I’ve definitely noticed the same thing. Food storage used to be such a big topic, and family home evening felt like it was more emphasized in the past. It seems like those things aren’t as heavily pushed anymore, maybe because of how life has changed or just shifting priorities. I remember “every member a missionary” was a big focus for a while, but now it doesn’t seem as prominent—it’s almost like it’s become more of an expectation than something we actively teach about. It’s kind of interesting how certain practices fade out, but I think it’s just how things evolve over time.
This has been mentioned a number of times.
Just my 2 cents, Elder Bernard mentioned in a recent conference talk that just because we don’t focus talks and instruction on food storage doesn’t mean the principle has gone away.
So the principle never fades, just focus might based on what the membership needs to learn at that time.
If it’s been taught before, we’re accountable to it.
Should we do some kind of Family Home Evening or family scripture study/devotional…YES!
Just because it isn’t called that anymore, or the structure has changed doesn’t mean the principle goes away.
Like every topic mentioned in this thread (not just the one I quoted), if a topic isn’t being mentioned, and you want it to be….ask to give a talk!
Be an active participant! Bring it up. Go to sacrament, give suggestions to you Bishop and Ward Council,
Go to 2nd hour and participate in discussion.
So many members just sit back passively and wait to be instructed. Then judge when something isn’t discussed.
Being an “active” member isn’t just attending.
You have to be active in your participation, instigate and perpetuate your OWN learning and application!
I understand where this thread is coming from, but every ward is nuanced. Every bishop or leader is individual and will have certain priorities for their ward.
What will never change is YOUR responsibility to learn, grow, and apply. Then share what you have learned,
Rqatkins, I am very diplomatic when it comes to gospel topics & personal relations in my ward. We have been in the same ward for over 50 years. We are known within the Stake as well. I have volunteered to give talks about the topics I haven’t
heard in a while. I our ward, talks are assigned based on GC talks. There is very little latitude to go off the topic assigned.
Also, my calling in the ward is Family History. I love doing the work & I get inspiration from doing it. I would love to pass it
on. In the past 5+ yrs, I can’t remember a talk in Sacrament meeting, priesthood or Sunday school that focused on FH.
I’ve talked to the Bishop, his Counselors & Elders Quorum presidency with no response. That’s fine. It’s their call.
It is frustrating sometimes.
Bishop, I understand what you’re saying.
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