Church Members Are Completely Overwhelmed

[Tacenda]

He's actually living in this ward and having these experiences.  No one else in this thread is.  Let's not pretend that we know more about it than he does.  

I agree Bluebell!  There are a lot of times when visiting teacher routes are huge if there is a lot of inactivity.  Maybe the OP is in one of these wards.  My SIL had 5 on her route.  And she is super orthodox and would try to get all 5 every month if I know her. 

 

So I think that will bleed into callings also.  And working at the cannery etc. 

[ERayR]

I agree Bluebell!  There are a lot of times when visiting teacher routes are huge if there is a lot of inactivity.  Maybe the OP is in one of these wards.  My SIL had 5 on her route.  And she is super orthodox and would try to get all 5 every month if I know her. 

 

So I think that will bleed into callings also.  And working at the cannery etc. 

 

And about 100 other things.  One must not try to include everything into their lives.

[Duncan]

Reminds me of Elder Gene R. Cook's experience,

 

“When we arrived home in Utah, we returned to a very active ward. In fact, in our first three months, we counted thirty-nine activities to which we were invited as a family or as individuals—Young Women’s activities, the annual Relief Society anniversary, the high priests’ ice-cream social, Scouting affairs, and on and on. If I’m not mistaken, we went to about three of those activities as a family, and some of the children attended a few more.

Soon after that, our good bishop told me he was worried about my family. I said, “If you know something I don’t, I’d be very anxious to know. Please tell me.”

“Well,” he said, “I have a feeling that your family isn’t as supportive of the Church as they ought to be. For example, last Sunday night we had a Scouting meeting for all the Scouts and their families in the stake. At the meeting, they counted the number of people in each ward. The ward having the most people present won a prize. Because your large family was not there, we didn’t feel you were supporting the Church as much as you should.” (He said all of that very carefully, lovingly, and with good spirit.)

I said to him, “Well, I might be mistaken, Bishop, but my understanding is that the Church is supposed to support the family. If we had been to that social meeting that night, we would have missed the tremendous family devotional we had in our home.” I asked him if he’d ever seen our children miss priesthood meeting, sacrament meeting, Sunday School, or Mutual. He said he had not. I continued, “I understood that all those other things were electives, that they were optional, and that we could choose which ones we wanted to attend. Is that not true?” He wasn’t too sure.

Then I said to this good bishop, “Do you know what my biggest problem has been since I returned home from Latin America?”

He said, “No, what is it, Brother Cook?”

I said, “It’s been the Church itself, and perhaps the school here to some extent.”

He said, “What do you mean?”

I said, “Because I travel a lot on the weekends, the week nights are very important to me, as are Saturday and Sunday if I’m home. I must have that time with my own family. In Latin America we had family home evening almost every night. I don’t mean a lesson; I mean just a fun time.

“Sometimes we carved things. Sometimes we built things. Sometimes we took walks around the block. Sometimes we helped the widows or ministered to others in need. Sometimes we had lots of fun with other families. But since I’ve come home it’s been difficult because some group has my children on Tuesday night, another group on Wednesday, and somebody else on Thursday, and they are with their friends on Friday night. My biggest challenge has been all of these activities going on outside the home.”

This faithful bishop was quite shocked at my response but I’m sure he understood. I suggested there might be wisdom in having the family heads in the ward determine how many activities there ought to be, and then in helping parents understand that they—not the Church or the school—were primarily in charge of the activities in their family.

In the following months, with the planning and involvement of parents, this good bishop greatly reduced the number of activities in our ward. He also retaught the principle that parents were to hold activities with their own children, and that in its support role the Church would sponsor some group activities as well. (It should also be mentioned that he knew, as did we, that he had to provide more activities than “the ideal” to help families who had greater needs than we did.)

President Harold B. Lee said: “It seems clear to me that the Church has no choice—and never has had—but to do more to assist the family in carrying out its divine mission . . . to help improve the quality of life in the Latter-day Saint homes. As important as our many programs and organizational efforts are, these should not supplant the home; they should support the home” (“Preparing Our Youth,” Ensign, March 1971, p. 3).”

[auteur55]

Are people really so busy that they don't have any time during a two week period that they can't receive a visit from a ward member?  It would seem like that would be even more of a problem than the supposed pressure from ward leaders to make a visit.

 

And as I said before, I've never had anyone tell me that a church assignment, especially a visit, was so life and death that all other considerations had to be tossed aside.

 

The whole scenario that the OP is presenting just doesn't ring true to me.  Being asked to fulfill a welfare assignment instead of going to work?  Really?  That one is also hard to swallow.

I'm more then happy to take a picture of my assignment sheet with it's corresponding time and PM it to you if don't believe me. 

[auteur55]

Again faithful members of the church want to serve. I love my service in the church and it has made me a deeper, more caring person and I'm grateful for all the opportunities the church can give us to "be our brothers keeper." What I'm suggesting is that in some areas members are over burdened to the point of exhaustion because there are so many meetings, assignments, activities, home visits and responsibilities.  There are also way too many elements that can create unhealthy guilt and stress. Our assignments are presented as our Priesthood duty and we've had significant chastisement several times in Elders Quorum about how short we fall of that duty as a whole.  I've noticed some members thrive on this they love the high level almost complete sacrificial dedication to building the kingdom. When they get into leadership positions they often impose this on the members who can't go at their pace. 

 

An example: The bishop here wants to improve sacrament meetings. He has asked the Sunday School President to now meet with everyone assigned to give a talk 2-3 weeks our for 20-30 minutes and train them on best practices when speaking in church. He tells them things like don't write a talk, don't lean on the podium, etc etc and he may give feedback when your talk is over. Helpful right? Well I know that some members despise this idea and don't need the added pressure of having to measure up to these talk guidelines and feel they are being scored. Many members in my ward are creating these kinds of initiatives all the time and trying to implement them on top of all the other stuff already stacking up. That's how things like " we need to have members of every auxillary visiting members homes throughout the week" happens. It's a weird way to go above and beyond your calling.

 

I did take the advice about growing a backbone and texted the Elders Quorum President about assigning Cannery visits in the middle of the work day and then texting us several times a week to remind us we had to be there or find a replacement had caused some stress and un-needed guilt for me. I gave him the idea that maybe mandatory scheduling of those assignments for the Elders may not be the best way. His response was that he was sorry it caused me stress but he has had numerous stress himself trying to fulfill assignments and has had to take off work several times. He said he understands because he has this guilt and stress all the time and was having a problem finding volunteers so went to the mandatory scheduling. Again I found it sad that we didn't realize that the REAL problem was we were talking about guilt and stress like it's a normal part of being a member of the church.

Edited July 16, 2015 by auteur55

[Yirgacheffe]

You are absolutely correct but one very important part of that care is to provide training in their commitment to God.  A very good way to do this is by example.

And the first and foremost way to show commitment to God, and to show the nature of God is to care properly for those God has placed  in your care.  As a parent you are the living model, the first face of God the parent, if you are negligent, absent, or always looking at others instead of your children, you are failing your primary commitment to God as the teacher of those He's place with you.

[Robert F. Smith]

Again faithful members of the church want to serve. I love my service in the church and it has made me a deeper, more caring person and I'm grateful for all the opportunities the church can give us to "be our brothers keeper." What I'm suggesting is that in some areas members are over burdened to the point of exhaustion because there are so many meetings, assignments, activities, home visits and responsibilities.  There are also way too many elements that can create unhealthy guilt and stress. Our assignments are presented as our Priesthood duty and we've had significant chastisement several times in Elders Quorum about how short we fall of that duty as a whole.  I've noticed some members thrive on this they love the high level almost complete sacrificial dedication to building the kingdom. When they get into leadership positions they often impose this on the members who can't go at their pace. 

 

An example: The bishop here wants to improve sacrament meetings. He has asked the Sunday School President to now meet with everyone assigned to give a talk 2-3 weeks our for 20-30 minutes and train them on best practices when speaking in church. He tells them things like don't write a talk, don't lean on the podium, etc etc and he may give feedback when your talk is over. Helpful right? Well I know that some members despise this idea and don't need the added pressure of having to measure up to these talk guidelines and feel they are being scored. Many members in my ward are creating these kinds of initiatives all the time and trying to implement them on top of all the other stuff already stacking up. That's how things like " we need to have members of every auxillary visiting members homes throughout the week" happens. It's a weird way to go above and beyond your calling.

 

I did take the advice about growing a backbone and texted the Elders Quorum President about assigning Cannery visits in the middle of the work day and then texting us several times a week to remind us we had to be there or find a replacement had caused some stress and un-needed guilt for me. I gave him the idea that maybe mandatory scheduling of those assignments for the Elders may not be the best way. His response was that he was sorry it caused me stress but he has had numerous stress himself trying to fulfill assignments and has had to take off work several times. He said he understands because he has this guilt and stress all the time and was having a problem finding volunteers so went to the mandatory scheduling. Again I found it sad that we didn't realize that the REAL problem was we were talking about guilt and stress like it's a normal part of being a member of the church.

Bravo on your addressing the problem, and I'm glad to hear that the EQ Pres admits to the problem to some extent.  Voicing it is the first step to dealing with it.

 

Elder Gene Cook's experience (quoted by Duncan above from Cook's book, Raising Up a Family to the Lord, p. 279) is quite similar to yours, and his willingness to stand up to the bishop (in a helpful and loving way) is probably the reason for his success.  I am sure that Elder Cook mentioned it because it is indeed a problem which some bishops need to overcome.  You might even make a copy of the pages on which that story appears and send it to your bishop.

[Meadowchik]

Reminds me of Elder Gene R. Cook's experience,

 

“When we arrived home in Utah, we returned to a very active ward. In fact, in our first three months, we counted thirty-nine activities to which we were invited as a family or as individuals—Young Women’s activities, the annual Relief Society anniversary, the high priests’ ice-cream social, Scouting affairs, and on and on. If I’m not mistaken, we went to about three of those activities as a family, and some of the children attended a few more.

Soon after that, our good bishop told me he was worried about my family. I said, “If you know something I don’t, I’d be very anxious to know. Please tell me.”

“Well,” he said, “I have a feeling that your family isn’t as supportive of the Church as they ought to be. For example, last Sunday night we had a Scouting meeting for all the Scouts and their families in the stake. At the meeting, they counted the number of people in each ward. The ward having the most people present won a prize. Because your large family was not there, we didn’t feel you were supporting the Church as much as you should.” (He said all of that very carefully, lovingly, and with good spirit.)

I said to him, “Well, I might be mistaken, Bishop, but my understanding is that the Church is supposed to support the family. If we had been to that social meeting that night, we would have missed the tremendous family devotional we had in our home.” I asked him if he’d ever seen our children miss priesthood meeting, sacrament meeting, Sunday School, or Mutual. He said he had not. I continued, “I understood that all those other things were electives, that they were optional, and that we could choose which ones we wanted to attend. Is that not true?” He wasn’t too sure.

Then I said to this good bishop, “Do you know what my biggest problem has been since I returned home from Latin America?”

He said, “No, what is it, Brother Cook?”

I said, “It’s been the Church itself, and perhaps the school here to some extent.”

He said, “What do you mean?”

I said, “Because I travel a lot on the weekends, the week nights are very important to me, as are Saturday and Sunday if I’m home. I must have that time with my own family. In Latin America we had family home evening almost every night. I don’t mean a lesson; I mean just a fun time.

“Sometimes we carved things. Sometimes we built things. Sometimes we took walks around the block. Sometimes we helped the widows or ministered to others in need. Sometimes we had lots of fun with other families. But since I’ve come home it’s been difficult because some group has my children on Tuesday night, another group on Wednesday, and somebody else on Thursday, and they are with their friends on Friday night. My biggest challenge has been all of these activities going on outside the home.”

This faithful bishop was quite shocked at my response but I’m sure he understood. I suggested there might be wisdom in having the family heads in the ward determine how many activities there ought to be, and then in helping parents understand that they—not the Church or the school—were primarily in charge of the activities in their family.

In the following months, with the planning and involvement of parents, this good bishop greatly reduced the number of activities in our ward. He also retaught the principle that parents were to hold activities with their own children, and that in its support role the Church would sponsor some group activities as well. (It should also be mentioned that he knew, as did we, that he had to provide more activities than “the ideal” to help families who had greater needs than we did.)

President Harold B. Lee said: “It seems clear to me that the Church has no choice—and never has had—but to do more to assist the family in carrying out its divine mission . . . to help improve the quality of life in the Latter-day Saint homes. As important as our many programs and organizational efforts are, these should not supplant the home; they should support the home” (“Preparing Our Youth,” Ensign, March 1971, p. 3).”

 

Hallelujah!

 

Thank you for taking the time to share this, Duncan.

[mountain_trails]

De-lurking here, but as member of a Salt Lake City (not suburbs) ward, I can attest to the welfare assignments we are given that are required to be filled during normal working hours.   We generally have 5 slots to fill.   I've told them no, I have a regular job, and they no longer bother me, but it is announced that we are required to fill these slots.  Normally there are enough retired/unemployed to do that.    

 

And while it's likely correct that Utah wards are among the largest, that's not necessarily a rigid rule.  The last three wards I've been in have been very small.  As in <100 for sacrament.  

 

I agree with what other's have said about prioritizing.   I worry about what the Savior thinks, the people in my ward, not so much.

[sunstoned]

"We need to give the members their lives back and lay off the guilt tripping. "

 

Hey auteur,

I agree.  But you need to learn how to say "no," and to not feel guilty when you don't feel you have the time.  Your family comes first in this Church.  If you have time left over, fine.  Otherwise keep your callings to maybe one, and your assignments to 3 to 5 per year.  Go to the temple once a month.  No need to be perfect.  No one is, and you are not expected to be.  Just do your best within reason, and let the chips fall where they may.  Your ward is probably poorly organized and the bishopric doing a poor job of managing everything.  This life is a learning experience for the bishop and for everyone else.  Pace yourself.

I very much agree with this.  Each person needs to set their own boundaries and learn how to say no.  If done respectfully, there should not be any guilt. 

[Mystery Meat]

A quick point if I can:

 

This thread show exactly why wealthy people generally hold callings of high demand and leadership. Wealthy families without debt can afford to take 3 years out of their prime earning years to go serve a mission. Wealthy people are more likely to be able to leave work early to go conduct the necessary temple recommend interviews on a Wednesday night and still have time left over to spend with their families at other times throughout the week.

 

We can't have it both ways. We can't complain about how only the rich get such callings and then also complain about how overworked we are and we don't have enough time to do other things.

 

Off topic a bit, but just a thought.

[sunstoned]

A quick point if I can:

 

This thread show exactly why wealthy people generally hold callings of high demand and leadership. Wealthy families without debt can afford to take 3 years out of their prime earning years to go serve a mission. Wealthy people are more likely to be able to leave work early to go conduct the necessary temple recommend interviews on a Wednesday night and still have time left over to spend with their families at other times throughout the week.

 

We can't have it both ways. We can't complain about how only the rich get such callings and then also complain about how overworked we are and we don't have enough time to do other things.

 

Off topic a bit, but just a thought.

This is true.  In our sociability, with wealth comes privilege.  If a person is wealthy, they options where someone who is living hand to mouth does not. 

[ksfisher]

A quick point if I can:

 

This thread show exactly why wealthy people generally hold callings of high demand and leadership. Wealthy families without debt can afford to take 3 years out of their prime earning years to go serve a mission. Wealthy people are more likely to be able to leave work early to go conduct the necessary temple recommend interviews on a Wednesday night and still have time left over to spend with their families at other times throughout the week.

 

We can't have it both ways. We can't complain about how only the rich get such callings and then also complain about how overworked we are and we don't have enough time to do other things.

 

Off topic a bit, but just a thought.

 

It also helps to be retired or at least have all your children out of the house.

 

My observation is that I find that people who have proven themselves successful in managing or working with others tend to be called to leadership.

Edited July 17, 2015 by ksfisher

[Kenngo1969]

... I agree with what other's have said about prioritizing.   I worry about what the Savior thinks, the people in my ward, not so much.

Quoted for truth.  That is all.

[theplains]

There are also way too many elements that can create unhealthy guilt and stress.

 

This is the social hall.  Post edited to remove inflammatory content. 

Edited July 20, 2015 by Nemesis
Not social hall appropriete.

[Stargazer]

Understand your second point.  My point is I'm having a difficult time believing everything the OP is saying.

Yeah, same here.

Is the claim that this is a problem in Utah, or SLC, or Happy Valley? Everywhere or just somewheres?

I have two stake callings and two ward callings. I spend perhaps four or five hours TOPS keeping up with them. I'm not at all stressed out about what I have to do. Perhaps I'm not the bishop, but I don't know anyone in my ward who is stressed out by their callings.

The two busiest persons in our ward, churchwise, are the bishop and the relief society president. Our bishop seems perfectly relaxed and cheerful (and I've watched him when he wasn't "on"). I home teach our RS President's family, and she's upbeat, relaxed, cheerful, and not at all stressed out -- it's not a put-on, either, because I've been this family's home teacher for the past twenty years (with one five year break), and she is, if anything, the most cheerful and happy I've ever seen her.

I remember the old poem:

Mary had a little lamb

It grew into a sheep

Then it joined the Mormon Church

And died from lack of sleep.

It's utter baloney.

[Meadowchik]

Yeah, same here.

Is the claim that this is a problem in Utah, or SLC, or Happy Valley? Everywhere or just somewheres?

I have two stake callings and two ward callings. I spend perhaps four or five hours TOPS keeping up with them. I'm not at all stressed out about what I have to do. Perhaps I'm not the bishop, but I don't know anyone in my ward who is stressed out by their callings.

The two busiest persons in our ward, churchwise, are the bishop and the relief society president. Our bishop seems perfectly relaxed and cheerful (and I've watched him when he wasn't "on"). I home teach our RS President's family, and she's upbeat, relaxed, cheerful, and not at all stressed out -- it's not a put-on, either, because I've been this family's home teacher for the past twenty years (with one five year break), and she is, if anything, the most cheerful and happy I've ever seen her.

I remember the old poem:

Mary had a little lamb

It grew into a sheep

Then it joined the Mormon Church

And died from lack of sleep.

It's utter baloney.

 

Read about Elder Gene R Cook's experience, Duncan quoted earlier in the thread.

[ksfisher]

Reminds me of Elder Gene R. Cook's experience,

 

“When we arrived home in Utah, we returned to a very active ward. In fact, in our first three months, we counted thirty-nine activities to which we were invited as a family or as individuals—Young Women’s activities, the annual Relief Society anniversary, the high priests’ ice-cream social, Scouting affairs, and on and on. If I’m not mistaken, we went to about three of those activities as a family, and some of the children attended a few more.

Soon after that, our good bishop told me he was worried about my family. I said, “If you know something I don’t, I’d be very anxious to know. Please tell me.”

“Well,” he said, “I have a feeling that your family isn’t as supportive of the Church as they ought to be. For example, last Sunday night we had a Scouting meeting for all the Scouts and their families in the stake. At the meeting, they counted the number of people in each ward. The ward having the most people present won a prize. Because your large family was not there, we didn’t feel you were supporting the Church as much as you should.” (He said all of that very carefully, lovingly, and with good spirit.)

I said to him, “Well, I might be mistaken, Bishop, but my understanding is that the Church is supposed to support the family. If we had been to that social meeting that night, we would have missed the tremendous family devotional we had in our home.” I asked him if he’d ever seen our children miss priesthood meeting, sacrament meeting, Sunday School, or Mutual. He said he had not. I continued, “I understood that all those other things were electives, that they were optional, and that we could choose which ones we wanted to attend. Is that not true?” He wasn’t too sure.

Then I said to this good bishop, “Do you know what my biggest problem has been since I returned home from Latin America?”

He said, “No, what is it, Brother Cook?”

I said, “It’s been the Church itself, and perhaps the school here to some extent.”

He said, “What do you mean?”

I said, “Because I travel a lot on the weekends, the week nights are very important to me, as are Saturday and Sunday if I’m home. I must have that time with my own family. In Latin America we had family home evening almost every night. I don’t mean a lesson; I mean just a fun time.

“Sometimes we carved things. Sometimes we built things. Sometimes we took walks around the block. Sometimes we helped the widows or ministered to others in need. Sometimes we had lots of fun with other families. But since I’ve come home it’s been difficult because some group has my children on Tuesday night, another group on Wednesday, and somebody else on Thursday, and they are with their friends on Friday night. My biggest challenge has been all of these activities going on outside the home.”

This faithful bishop was quite shocked at my response but I’m sure he understood. I suggested there might be wisdom in having the family heads in the ward determine how many activities there ought to be, and then in helping parents understand that they—not the Church or the school—were primarily in charge of the activities in their family.

In the following months, with the planning and involvement of parents, this good bishop greatly reduced the number of activities in our ward. He also retaught the principle that parents were to hold activities with their own children, and that in its support role the Church would sponsor some group activities as well. (It should also be mentioned that he knew, as did we, that he had to provide more activities than “the ideal” to help families who had greater needs than we did.)

President Harold B. Lee said: “It seems clear to me that the Church has no choice—and never has had—but to do more to assist the family in carrying out its divine mission . . . to help improve the quality of life in the Latter-day Saint homes. As important as our many programs and organizational efforts are, these should not supplant the home; they should support the home” (“Preparing Our Youth,” Ensign, March 1971, p. 3).”

 

Duncan - could you please check your source on this.  Page 3 of the March 1971 Ensign is the First Presidency message by President Lee, but I can't find the story you've quoted in it.

[Calm]

Gene R. Cook, Raising Up a Family to the Lord, pg. 279.

 

http://emp.byui.edu/marrottr/goalSettingAndService.htm

 

The Ensign reference is for the quote from Pres. Lee, I believe, the last paragraph.

 

President Harold B. Lee said: “It seems clear to me that the Church has no choice—and never has had—but to do more to assist the family in carrying out its divine mission . . . to help improve the quality of life in the Latter-day Saint homes. As important as our many programs and organizational efforts are, these should not supplant the home; they should support the home” (“Preparing Our Youth,” Ensign, March 1971, p. 3).”

 

Edited July 21, 2015 by calmoriah

[ksfisher]

Gene R. Cook, Raising Up a Family to the Lord, pg. 279.

 

http://emp.byui.edu/marrottr/goalSettingAndService.htm

 

The Ensign reference is for the quote from Pres. Lee, I believe, the last paragraph.

 

Thank you.  I mistook the reference at the end as referring to the entire quote.

[Calm]

I did too, had to look at it a second time in a different format to figure that out.

[seriously honestly]

I simply have to get this off my chest. Ever since I moved to Utah two and half years ago I have noticed something that is troubling me greatly and even causing me to have some mild faith issues. I don't know if this is happening all over the place i just know it's happening in my current ward and I do think it speaks to a more widespread church problem. 

 

to put it simply: Church members are being crushed and overwhelmed with a constant barrage of  assignments, guilt trips, callings and activities. I've never seen an organization thrust so many things onto it's members and cause so much stress and guilt when we fail to fulfill them. I thought I was the only one feeling this way until I heard these complaints coming from everyone I got to know in the ward. The women here looked stressed beyond belief and many of the men look lost in a sea of endless meetings and assignments. Not to say they don't love the gospel they do but they are stretched thin and are weary.

 

I have two callings and struggle to get all the things done for them with my full time job. I always feel as though I'm dropping the ball and I feel guilty. Beyond that I have an assignment sheet that has me scheduled at the cannary (during a work day!!) ushering, splits with missionaries, snow removal, chair set up, church cleaning, taking youth to temple and activity assignments. Beyond that there is home teaching that needs to get done, ward temple night, temple committee assignments and visits. One of my callings has me in a meeting every Sunday at 1:00 and weekly teacher visits and monthly training. All this is done before we even get to the basics of the gospel like family history research, service activities, temple attendance and family home evening.

 

Once in my meeting we brought up the stake calendar to find one night to book a teacher training. We literally could not find one night that wasn't full with something. You know like Scouts, young men and young women activities, ward activities, scouts activities random stake leadership trainings. It goes on and on and on. I had my home teacher over once (ward mission leader) and he was talking about how the bishop makes the entire PEC attend weekly. He is  up at 6:00 every sunday morning and sits through a 3 hour meeting most of which doesn't pertain to him. He was saying people in the ward keep creating initiatives and ideas that consistently add to everyones current responsibilities. You could tell he was completely burned out. The sad thing is I know that my obligations are nothing compared to many others especially those in the Bishopric.

 

Oh and at least once a month we spend an entire Priesthood meeting getting lectured about how bad everyone is at fulfilling assignments. Someone doesn't show up for a ward cleaning or a Cannery assignment and the whole group gets chastised. It's a recurring thing. I was scheduled for a cannery assignment recently on a Tuesday afternoon and had to find a replacement because of an unexpected work obligation. The elders quorum president was very clear i had to find a replacement. I asked several people everyone turned me down, I emailed Elders, high priests, youth presidents. No one could take it. I eventually paid one of the young woman 20 bucks to take the assignment. Embarrassing and ridiculous. I get emails all the time asking me to fulfill assignments that the members struggle with in their busy lives.

 

I love the gospel and all that it stands for. But we need to cut out half of these ridiculous meetings and assignments. We need to give the members their lives back and lay off the guilt tripping. 

 

I'm not LDS, but hear me out.

 

I do believe that God should come first, and after Him, our families. Now you can look at all your church callings and assignments and whatnot as "following God" and putting Him first, but God also said that anyone who "provides not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, [has] denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel" (1 Tim 5, vs 8 )So it's ok to say "sorry, but no" to your bishop so you can focus on your family because God wants families to succeed and wants us to nurture and care for those relationship. Family takes priority over your church assignments.

 

God also wants us to strive for a personal relationship with Him, to spend time with Him one on one.  If your constant meetings, and running around, and ward scheduling is interfering with you being able to spend time with Him (in prayer, in scripture, or just admiring his creation of nature), then it is more than ok to put the kibosh on church assignments. Anyone, believer or not, can run around fulfilling assignments and checking them off a list. But if your lacking the relationship, then it's doing no good.

 

Also, on a lighter note, Christ counseled us to be childlike.  If you ask a child to do something they don't want to do, they simply tell you "no". And they do not--feel--guilty. At all. And when a simple "no" doesn't work, they tell you "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!". Again, without any guilt.

Edited July 22, 2015 by seriously honestly

[Stargazer]

Read about Elder Gene R Cook's experience, Duncan quoted earlier in the thread.

Yes, I see that. I guess some lambs DO die from lack of sleep in the Mormon Church.

Do these people not know how to say the word "No"?

Possibly not.

[Tacenda]

Yes, I see that. I guess some lambs DO die from lack of sleep in the Mormon Church.

Do these people not know how to say the word "No"?

Possibly not.

We're taught that we are to accept callings and taught in the temple to sacrifice and give all to the church for the building up the Kingdom of God...time, talents etc. Edited July 23, 2015 by Tacenda

[Garden Girl]

We're taught that we are to accept callings and taught in the temple to sacrifice and give all to the church for the building of the kingdom of God...time, talents etc. 

 

Yes, but you have to balance this with counsel from our leaders on "family first" etc... and there is a balance... my own ward is an example of wise leadership as compared to some described here, i.e., as in the OP...  Yes we are expected to accept callings, but not to an extent that would require us to "run faster than we are able" particularly as it affects our family... Elder Cook's message reflects that wisdom...

GG

Edited July 22, 2015 by Garden Girl