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Brian Johnston wrote:
I guess I am not really the kind of person you are looking for to answer the question, but I thought I would share some views.
Actually, your own perspective or achievement “orientation” does have some useful components — you don’t see the point of pursuing programs or initiatives that don’t seem to produce results. And this makes sense to me — for example Herzberg, the management theorist, made the comment that indifference and inaction is a healthy reaction to meaningless work (paraphrased). We might take out the word meaningless and replace it with “non-results-producing” work.
I’m trying to reconcile this with the scripture below, the key point listed in bold, which implies we should keep working without results, to the point of wasting and wearing out our lives:
Quote:
Section 123 of the Doctrine and Covenants:For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are ablinded by the subtle bcraftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to cdeceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they dknow not where to find it—
13 Therefore, that we should
waste and awear out our livesin bringing to light all the bhidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven— 14 These should then be attended to with great earnestness.
15 Let no man count them as small things; for there is much which lieth in futurity, pertaining to the saints, which depends upon these things.
16 You know, brethren, that a very large ship is abenefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept workways with the wind and the waves.
17 Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us acheerfully bdo all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the csalvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.
It sounds as if you’ve gotta keep on, keeping on, even with programs that don’t necessarily produce results in hope of future benefits. I find that hard to sustain frankly….
For me, the best experiences are when I feel the Spirit in connection with something that is truly inspiring. Or when I teach a lesson and come back with my spirit feeling clean and swept…or when I leave Church without anything to do but make my NEXT lesson spiritual and uplifting for everyone who comes to my class. If it’s not a formal question in the TR interview process, how about asking people about it informally in calls to positions and other personal interviews. Bishopric counselors mention it to people, the bishops ask about it, and give encouragement, but it’s not a formal temple recommend interview question. A member of our SP asked me that question every time I had a temple recommend interview, but it was after he decided to issue the temple recommend. This way he was encouraging participation in the program, without necessarily tying it to the recommend issuance itself.
By the way, I’m neutral on this idea; more interested in hearing everyone’s reactions.
These reactions don’t surprise me, as generally, I find people are against the idea. However, I found in my particular area, the Stake leaders are VERY adamant about home teaching — to the point of hurting relationships with their local leaders on whom they depend when perceived home teaching energy is low.
It seemed like the strangest dichotomy. On one hand, the program was emphasized and people regularly called to repentence over no home teaching like it was as important as oxygen, with Stake leaders talking about how it broached on temple recommend worthiness but then, there was no action on their part (such as even interviewing reluctant, temple recommend-holding brethren about HT after months of no home teaching) when local leaders had done everything in their power to pursuade their brethren to take on the responsiblity willingly.
My attitude going forward is that we have at least two alternatives as a Church to make this program work.
We can alter the program to make it easier to administer and execute, with success defined on a best-efforts basis, implementing some of the suggestions people made in the Alternatives fo Home Teaching thread. Reading through those suggestions brings me great peace when I think about administering hometeaching. Or, if we’re as serious about it as my local leaders are, if it truly does carry the weight of paying tithing or WoW, we can make it a hard commandment and embed it in temple recommend interviews.
The way we do it now elevates HT to the status of tithing and WoW, but there is nothing beyond moral suasion to get the job done. And that causes a lot of frustration. I don’t know about you, but I find it very hard to tolerate things in my life that never work the way they are supposed to for decades upon decades, AND people are constantly harping at me to make it work somehow (as a priesthod leader).
I guess I’m in level 4 when it comes to home teaching right now. To cope, I may well decide to either a) accept my next priesthood leadership calling with the caveat that I be left alone about administering home teaching. I’ll administer the program, but it will have to be on my own terms. Ward conferences, PPI’s need to steer clear of the topic and trust me to do my best. High Councilors leave me alone about it. Tell the Stake President or whoever calls me, and my local Bishop that I think the concept is good, but the administration requirements are flawed in their current state; that I will serve on the condition that I be left alone about the metrics, other than to give an arm’s length report each month, do the PPI’s, keep it organized, etcetera, but not be involved in any discussions about how to make it better; I’m like Moroni, laboring but without faith. Personally, if I was a SP, I wouldn’t call me unless I was absolutely desperate for someone to take the HPGL chair.
The other way of coping — refuse to be involved in its administration at all until the frustration with it leaves me. There are a lot of other ways you can serve in the Church without administering home teaching — you can be an Assistant in the HP group and never have to even touch the subject — you can focus on missionary work, temple work, helping the poor, planning service projects, planning socials, and being content to do a good job of your own hometeaching/fellowshipping families….or you can teach a class, even be in the Bishopric and simply not attend the PEC meeting on home teaching administration.
I don’t see these alternatives as necessarily getting you up to Level 5, but they at least prevent the program from keeping a person from becoming less active.
Right now, I don’t see any way of getting to level 5 with it, although I’m certainly open to suggestions.
I would also like to see another embellishment to the program. Better systems support. As it stands the only way to keep track of the desired level of contact home teaching families want is to assign them to a district, usually the bishop or the HPGL/EQ president.
The specific history, however, is lost. I implemented a system where I could append a code to a person’s local membership record on MLS. This made it easy to run mailing labels and such. I could also run off a list of people who would accept home teachers but to whom we didn’t have home teachers to assign in case a new home teacher became available. I also had a special code for people who’d written name removal letters. None of this followed their membership record if they were moved out, but it allowed me to give an accounting of my efforts with the stewardship. Anyone with membership rights could access reports that contained this information.
Without this background, you run into situations where a priesthood leader visits a family, and they write a name removal letter. Then, two weeks later, the RS President shows up at their house welcoming them to the Ward. This REALLY makes some people angry and they are really rude about it. I think it creates more ill will toward the Church, simply due to bad coordination — coordination that could be fixed by good systems.
Also, when a new HPGL/EQ/RS president takes over, they usually have sketchy notes or a quick verbal on the status of families in their stewardship. Often the new HPGL goes and visits them all over again, irritating half the people who told the las person they don’t want contact……yet another possible improvement to hte administration of HT.
Yes, if you look at it from the flip side perspective — I always feel a little put off when I offer someone a Book of Mormon and then they give it back to me. I’d much rather they kept it but didn’t follow-up with any interest if they aren’t truly interested. That’s less offensive…and I think accepting the bottle of wine and then not drinking it has the same kindness. SamBee wrote:Ward shopping just isn’t an option here.
I think this is true whenever the little skirmishes with others happen — simply leaving the Ward for another pasture isn’t the way to go. However, I think there are times when enough negative experiences warrant a Ward change. Sometimes you need it just to keep life in the Church fresh, the same way you need to change the furniture around in your office just to freshen things up a bit.
cwald wrote:I like the idea of “Outreach Stewardship.” Start writing your letters to SL!
Hey, out jogging this morning I had a revelation about this. How about we do away with the three hour block, and take the hour that we normally would be at church and ask the elders/HP and RS to use that hour every week to do Outreach Stewardship? Why wouldn’t that work! I love the idea – let’s make the church more service oriented, and free up some time for the members to practice their religion. Now if only I was authorized to receive revelation for the entire church we would be in business!
In all seriousness – I think the church will go this way eventually. It’s all about the home and family, and if we could get members to take their Outreach Stewardship faithfully, we could probably do away with MOST of our church meetings. Just a thought.
First of all, I like Ray’s comments above, and want to acknowledge them.
Regarding the above — do you think there’s risk that people will just pocket the time and go home?
nightwalden wrote:I love my mistrust and cynicism. I don’t want to let them go. I wouldn’t be me. I didn’t go through the anger phase but that’s not really me either. I have frustrations and I just try to manage them. It’s still difficult. I hope that I’m progressing towards a more stage 5 mentality but I get a little discouraged each Sunday when I go to church and wonder to myself, “What the heck am I doing here?” But where I’m at now is way better than where I was a year or two ago.
Walden — I was reading a book called “Getting to know the real you” by Ellsworth and Ellsworth, both LDS authors and psychologists in self-esteem.
They say that each person’s spirit has to learn to love itself to be happy. To be happy, the spirit needs “payoffs”, which are thought patterns that result in a sensation of goodness. When our spirit seeks the right targets for such payoffs, we generate strength of character that results in inner peace and self-esteem.
According to the authors, we can get these payoffs a number of ways. One way is to face negative situations with character. To respond kindly to that person who means offense, and walk away a gentleman, for example. The fact that “you’ made that choice becomes an artifact you can look at whenever you like, and feel good about yourself for choosing positively. These are spiritual targets we should each be looking for in order to build inner peace and character, says the author.
Another way to give the spirit the “nourishment’ or “payoff’ it needs is through negative or cynical thinking. Negative or cynical thinking is a substitute style of thinking the authors think also provides a neurological “payoff”. In thinking negatively, there is that firing of neurons or that payoff that makes the spirit feel good for a minute or two. However, its impact is not long lasting — it’s destructive in the long run. We can also get these payoffs from physical means, such as food or other materials that make our spirit feel better momentarily through our body’s sensations.
So, while I recognize I have the tendency to seek payoffs from sources that don’t enoble the spirit in the long run, I try not to make it worse by constantly impaling myself over it. I do accept this in myself, and try to work on getting rid of those tendencies if I can. But I don’t love them in myself (OK, except maybe when I generate a really funny sarcastic comment as a result of it). But overall, I think my life would be much happier if I could erase those negative and cynical tendencies from my spirit’s nourishment system.
No doubt you see this differently, and that’s OK. I hope you don’t see this as an attack of any kind on your outlook. I’ve loved my negativity and cynicism as well in the past, but I’m finding its becoming tiring to my spirit, so out of sheer fatigue, I hope to look for better targets for my mental payoffs. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Take hold of life by the smooth handle”. I think focusing on positivity is one way to accomplish this.
But to our opening poster — I think this is one way to overcome the mistrust and anger that is generated by some of the thoughts you’re having. Look at the thought that is making you angry (and by the way, I think getting angry can create a temporary payoff to the spirit). Acknowledge it and say “I don’t need that kind of psychologicl payoff, it’s not good for me”. Instead, focus on facing the situation with compassion, perspective taking, and love, and feeling the peace and self-respect that comes from facing the situation that way. After a while, you’ll have a barage of experiences you can look at with peace and self-respect because you have shown such tolerance toward other people.
This will lead to improved character, and greater inner peace….
cwald wrote:yeah, I guess I did a poor job explaining myself. Let me try again.
Quote:1. Don’t assign HTers, without talking to the people first to make sure they can/will work with the family being assigned to.
Here is what I mean – I’ve been in wards where I have been ASSIGNED to do home teaching to families I didn’t know, and some to people who i quite frankly didn’t like. Why? So what I do, and what I’m suggesting, is that instead of the EQP or the HPGL just assigning families to companionships, that they talk with the elders and high priest FIRST and make sure that they are on board with the assignment.
Sorry I was so thick on that one.
As a response — I found I had to do this anyway when I was a Priesthood Leader. Half the brethren would object to assignments made out of the blue. After a while I got to know who those brethren are, and then talk to them about it before making the change. Many will outright tell you they don’t want any inactives who don’t want to see them as well, so I had to always respect that. Or they would try a couple times with certain families and the families would never make themeslves available, so they would come back and ask for willing families. Others didn’t care who their families were, but wanted them close by.
Another alternative to home teaching — a monthly mailed -out message to people who will receive it. This prevents the negative faith effects you get from brethren feeling compelled to visit people who don’t want to be visited, or the burden you feel as a Priesthood leader with having so many families for which you’re responsible . Also, each month, a list of 90 people would genereate somewhere between 1 and 4 good forwarding addresses we could then move to the moving family’s new Ward. That way their records are in the right place, and the next Ward can reach out to them with meeting times etcetera. Also, people actually mention and seem to appreciate the letters if you ever meet them again personally at some point. I had several people tell me they read the message each month, and a few came out to social events on the strength of flyers I put in the envelopes containing their monthly letter.
Now, I hope don’t get labelled here. But so often, we were told how critical the home teaching program was. How much a single soul means to God etcetera. But whenever I asked for funds to reach out to these people we didn’t have the resources to see, the answer was “No”. It seemed as if the “program” was important only if it was powered by volunteer labor. In the end, I just funded it myself, but toward the end, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t start getting to me as other financial pressures mounted on my family.
But back to the point — I’ve found ANY program where the priesthood leaders just decided everyone has to do task X, and then expect them to go and do it, rarely has success. The same is true of Stake programs.
In any program, I think you have to find out who is willing, and work with those people. It’s like the parable of the sower. Some will say that you just sow at random and hope certain seeds land on fertile ground. I disagree. I think you have to actively search for the fertile ground, and place your seeds there. Willing brethren are fertile ground, and that’s where you should plant your seeds. You determine who those willing brethren are by asking them what they are willing to do.
Sowing everwhere isn’t a good use of seeds.
canadiangirl wrote:I’m angry and cynical and wondering what I could do to resolve these feelings. I’m also at a point where I don’t trust my feelings much anymore. I attended a fireside this evening that a few years ago would have created positive spiritual feelings within me and today all I felt was cynicism and nausea. This fireside was for youth and their parents as preparation for our ward’s trip to Martin’s Cove in July. I found the talks to be sensationalized propaganda. One quote that really bothered me was, “God allowed these people to suffer so that we could have a legacy of faith.” There are so many things that anger me about that statement. First of all, I don’t want people to suffer so that my testimony can be strengthened and I’m not sure that God allows these things to happen for that purpose. Secondly, I feel that the Martin and Willie handcart companies made some bad decisions regarding their trek and I wonder why these bad decisions are made into such grand stories of courage and faith. I heard things about how many had earned their reward in heaven for what they experienced and that we should be equally as willing to sacrifice our lives so that we can gain the faith these great pioneers so boldly expressed. I found myself thinking that I wanted to research the stories of those families that chose not to go to the Utah Valley so late in the season and read how they came to that decision and how it affected their lives. 5 more companies followed the next year and all made it relatively well. I’m just not sure the lessons my children are being taught by this experience will be beneficial to their lives. I wonder about the expectations that may be set in their minds after participating.
Can some of you share your experience with Stage 4 of Fowler’s Stages of Faith and what helped you ride this wave of anger and distrust? I would really appreciate it.
Thanks
I too am in Stage 4, but regarding different issues.
I think to get over the mistrust and cynicism one has to work at accepting their unique personality in the Church, embrace it, rwork on it, and also accept it without angst. I personally have a very hard time forgiving people who wrong me and can be very cynical if I let myself. I don’t trust people who harm me for a long time, and I have trouble reconciling their behavior with the gospel. I accept that in myself and recognize this as one my unique challenges as a member. Time eventually wears away the anger, and I can be friends with the people, but it takes time to dull the edge of the knife. But accepting and acknowledging this aspect of my character helps.
Also, I would try to deal with comments like “God allowed these people to suffer so that we could have a legacy of faith.” by trying to adopt the perspective of the person who said it. He probably was trying to inspire people, bring meaning to the handcart company’s suffering, etcetera, and his intentions were probably good, just misdirected. He doesn’t KNOW specficially that God had that purpose in mind for their suffering, he’s just speculating, so don’t accept what he said as necessarily inspired or doctrincal. I would simply reject the idea as inconsistent with my current schema of God, and try not to dwell on it. You have some good reasons above; reflect on those, and recognized that you simply don’t agree with him…and then move on.
Sometimes people say ridiculous things in meetings, and I often put it down to a desire to look good in front of the congregation. Try to look at the people who say questionable things with a certain amount of compassion which deadens the sting of their message, recognizing it’s born out their need to try to same something intelligent or hopefully inspiring, from their perspective.
Also, Gospel Principles indicates that prayer can direct our thoughts. I think regular prayer helps take the edge off our judgements, which edge causes our spirit a certain amount of pain like you’re experiencing. I hate to rely on an old fall-back answer, but in the end, it helps.
Also, I think what you’re doing is good — reaching out to other people to ask for coping mechanisms. I’m doing so now hoping I’ll have enthusiasm to go back to the frustrations of Church leadership, without feeling the same intense frustrations I’ve had in the past. I have several more coping mechanisms in my arsenal of tools to help me feel enthusiasm for Church leadership again, although I still feel somewhat unarmed and need more….so keep asking, reading, and listening to the perceptions of others. Eventually someone will say something that resonates with you and that you can begin adopting into your character and central belief system on matters like this…
cwald wrote:Quote:Now, one thing Cwald said I want to respond to. Cwald, you mentioned that you think we should do away with HT assignments altogether. I’m curious, how would you make sure that the Priesthood leaders in the Ward are not overwhelmed with requests for help when there is no one assigned to help people as a matter of first recourse? Granted, the leaders could ask people to help certain individuals on an ad hoc basis, but I think that’s reactive rather than proactive.
I’m not sure I said to do away with Ht assignments altogether. If I did, I didn’t mean to, and certainly don’t feel that way. I think the HT program is “divinely inspired” so it wouldn’t make sense to do away with it altogether. I did say this .
cwald wrote:
6. Finallly, do away with the “term” HOME TEACHING altogether, and come up with another name. The principle behind the program is good – call it by another name and it might breath new life into folks.I’m focusing on the TERM Home Teacher. I think that term needs to be cleansed from the church – you know, change the “advertising”. Home teaching is a dirty word for many members, so lets get rid of the term and call is something else. Does that make sense?
I see the renaming concept — just like we renamed Geneology to Family History, and I think it has some validity. I think there could be consideration of other names that speak more to the altruism and fellowshipping that should be part of home teaching. For example, instead of calling it the program Home Teaching, what would we call it? Each person’s “Outreach Stewardship” or some other name?
Regarding doing away with home teaching assignments, I thought you mentioned you would do away with home teaching assignments unless people actually wanted a home teacher. I find that these people who don’t want home teachers often come out of the woodwork with needs when life deals them a hard blow, and it tends to fall on priesthood leaders when no home teacher is assigned. I noticed this when they need welfare assistance, have health problems, or other needs for which they draw on the Ward.
I suppose on solution would be to make the assignment to a home teacher, but with the caveat that the family is not to be visited unless the family specifically ask for a visit or request help. That way help is in place as needed, and agreed to beforehand by the priesthood holder.
Old-Timer wrote:My suggestion:
Hold a ward/branch dinner or fun activity every month. (In December, make it a New Year’s Eve party that last past midnight and do away with the one in January.)
I like the idea of considering get-togethers home teaching. I had the same thought, and like the spiritual dimension you’ve suggested.
I also think we should stop emphasizing home teaching numbers in leadership meeetings and in quorum meetings. Home teaching is NOT an outcomes-based program. Theoretically, you could have 100% home teaching every single month where HT’s go into people’s homes and share a message. However, the Ward could still have low endowed members with current temple recommends, low new member retention rates, few advancements to the Melch Priesthood, weak sacrament meeting attendance, etcetera — in spite of the flurry of home teaching activity.
The latter metrics are the ones that matter — the ones that show the extent to which people are accepting and keeping covenants (baptisms, new endowment, current temple recommend holders etc).
However, if there is an insistence on numbers, I would recommend that leadership also consider a new measure called visits/companionship. Because priesthood leaders in the Stake tend to view home teaching percentages as an indication of effort expended by Ward priesthood holders, I think it’s grossly unfair to chastise priesthood leaders for having only 15% home teaching when they have a bad ratio of “families to willing home teachers”.
For example, Let’s say you have two wards. Ward Number 1 has 10 HT companionships and 200 families. Ward Number 2 has 20 HT companionships and 200 familes. Ward 1 has 20% home teaching while Ward 2 has 30% hometeaching. On the surface it looks like Ward 1 isn’t trying as hard as Ward 2. But really, Ward 1 is showing greater home teaching activity than Ward 2 when you look at visits/companionship. Ward 1 has 40/10 which is 4.0 visits per companionship. Ward 2 has 60/20 or only 3 visits per companionship.
This way, Stake Leaders can see clearly how hard a particular Ward is trying to meet their home teaching obligations GIVEN THE RESOURCES AVAILABLE.
See, I think home teaching needs to be less ego-centric on the the number of famillies visited, and more considerate of the impact of the program on the motivation of the priesthood leaders who must administer it. Taking into account resources available does this.
Now, one thing Cwald said I want to respond to. Cwald, you mentioned that you think we should do away with HT assignments altogether. I’m curious, how would you make sure that the Priesthood leaders in the Ward are not overwhelmed with requests for help when there is no one assigned to help people as a matter of first recourse? Granted, the leaders could ask people to help certain individuals on an ad hoc basis, but I think that’s reactive rather than proactive.
Just curious — it’s not a challenge to your thoughtful comments above, just a search for ways of dealing with that criterion. I’m all ears and appreciate your posts.
Old-Timer wrote:Sam and Silent Dawning:
Perhaps I didn’t make it clear enough in the post that the interviewer himself quoted ONLY the part in parentheses above – that the interviewer actually asked about, and ONLY about, the idea that “as man is, God once was”. The interview question and answer DID NOT deal with the second half of the couplet – man becoming like God. It dealt ONLY with the first half of the couplet – God once being a mortal man. That idea (that God once was a mortal man) is NOT taught or emphasized by the modern Church; it is NOT “the teaching of the church today”.
That really is critical to understanding what he said, and you are totally missing the entire interview message if you expand his answer to include us becoming like God.
Got it — you’re right. I didn’t read it carefully enough. I assumed the it meant the entire couplet even though the latter half wasn’t stated — as if it was short hand. My fault. When you put it that way, you’re right, we tend to emphasize the latter half of the couplet, and not the first half of the couplet, and yes, there isn’t much about God’s origins out there.
Thanks for couching your language explaining your intent wasn’t to put us on the defensive by the way; I appreciate your attendance to the emotional side of the post; it certainly helps keep the mind open.
I think this is really interesting and relevant to online discussion forums. I too have been blasted by others over something they THOUGHT I said, when in actuality I didn’t mean THAT interpretation to come to the fore.
And when you try to explain yourself, people think you’re just trying to talk yourself out of what you just said. They simpy refuse to believe you when you explain what you actually meant.
This gets even worse when you have had an unpleasant experience with someone in the past. Every time they read something you write, there is the possiblity of “relationship interference’ — where the negative experience in the past causes them to distort or personalize your meaning in the present.
I’m not sure how to overcome this. I have one situation now elsewhere where someone repeatedly made character judgments of others to the point of being offensive — to new members of the forum, etcetera. Recipients of the harsh comments would respond with “Fine, I just won’t come here anymore then”, they were so offended. I routinely showed my support for these people by sending them a private message to smooth the situation, showing my support for them in spite of the harsh treatment they received from others on the forum. The harsh people also did it to me and I kept letting it go, and letting it go. One of these harsh posters had a long history on the forum, and seemed to be able to make harsh comments without impunity. Often, they were backed up by a moderator, which made it even worse. Now, these were openly harsh comments like “I think you’re immature, petty, and needy. And I think you need to repent”.
I took it upon myself to send a private message to the worst of them indicating my concern that such comments were unhelpful to others, hurt relationships, and that I found them offensive. I tried to do this in kindness and in gentleman’s language. Afterwards, I showed an increase in love by giving thanks, responding favorably and kindly to posts, and chiming in on joke-related discussions.
Unfortunately, the person never responded to my private message. This proved to be a mistake. I noticed an increase in opposition from this person afterwards, culminating in chastising me for being overly snappy in my posts, and other nasty comments borne out of negative interpretation of my words. I value my participation in that other forum, however, this person now ruins the experience for me, because s/he tends to hijack many discussions I start, or participate in, with “relationship interference” comments, such as “kindly stop being so [place perceived character weakness here]”.
Here are some principles I try to abide by, and please forgive me if I ever seem to violate them here; it’s not intentional:
1. Always be nicer than you think you should be.
2. Try to assume the best motives in people consistent with the facts.
3. Avoid inflammatory language. Use the words “disturbed”, “concerned”, and not “upset” or “angry”, for example.
4. Avoid the temptation to one-up people. Hold your tongue and let the moment or opportunity to do so pass.
5. When someone who has offended you reaches out to you with a question, answer it nicely and with appreciation. Don’t use it as an opportunity to put them down.
6. If the person who offended you gets ganged up-upon by others in the forum, or if people start disagreeing with them, don’t join the fray. Let the moment pass.
7. Use private communication to iron out relationship issues so you don’t further damage relationships by placing the conflict in an open forum.
I believe online relationships are just as important as face-to-face relationships, and I hope/think the Savior would think the same thing….
