Anybody else feel this way about Elder's Quorum and Home Teaching?

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

Agreed. In mfb's post, there's a curious contradiction in that he seems to be asserting that men are more inherently suited to leadership and organization at the same time the church provides a leadership structure and psychology that men don't have naturally but need to succeed. I'm really surprised to see these kinds of outdated notions pop up these days. Seems I'm not alone.

Thanks, I've heard these ideas in church throughout my life.  Another element that I think MFB was hinting at and I've heard many times before is that since men are inferior spiritually that is why God gave men the priesthood.  Men need the priesthood since they are starting from an inferior position in the first place, and the priesthood helps to compensate.  This line of thinking is so damaging for both men and women and is unnecessary folk lore baggage.   

[consiglieri]

On ‎5‎/‎19‎/‎2016 at 10:38 PM, JarMan said:

So we've got a new EQP. He's a young guy with a young family, just graduated from BYU and teaches seminary for a living. He's a genuinely good guy and he decided to hand out a short survey on Sunday asking about what we liked and disliked in EQ.  I wrote down that I hate everything about EQ. I hate the manual. I hate home teaching. I hate being home taught. Elder's Quorum is the worst hour of my week unless my HT's were over that week, then it's the second worst hour. 

Anyway, I feel a twinge of regret about survey-ambushing him like that, but I answered honestly like he asked us to. So now that I've lain down on the virtual couch, can anyone tell me: am I normal or is it common to feel this dissatisfied with everything EQ related? 

The importance of home teaching inactive members is to get them back to church so they can have a similar experience in church meetings.

[ElPatron]

I've actually reflected on this topic several times in my time in the church especially as I've looked back at my time serving as an EQP and as a HPGL and comparing the two callings. I can say that while in EQ it seems that I was just trying to figure out life as an adult. I had young kids and my marriage itself was still young so I was trying to focus on being a father and a husband and take care of all these things while trying to maintain or improve financial stability. As a HP it's been a different expirience. I'm able to actually focus on improving my relationship w/ the Lord. I've grown so much and can relate more to the "deep" life experiences that my fellow HPG members have expirienced. Not saying that the same didn't exist in EQ however, I was pretty shel shocked w/ life that I'm not sure I was ever in a "sharing" mood. I've never enjoyed getting ready to go home teaching, often for selfish reasons, but I'm always happy that I did it afterwards. We home teach a single sister that I've learned to see almost as a sister to me. She knows she can call on me or my sons whenever she needs anything and we've developed a great friendship. It wouldn't be possible thought if I just visited her every now and then or not at all. EQ is a stepping stone. It's a great place to contemplate life and our place in it in my opinion. Take time to reflect there. That's what I did. And I'm grateful for it. 

[bluebell]

12 hours ago, Jeanne said:

GG

i am glad that your experiences are different.  I am sure your HT loved you would visit you anyway!  My HT would not give me a Hi or a wave of hello but once a month. 

We had home teachers that were like this when hubby and i were first married.  They were very active men in the ward, well established, etc. and they came religiously every month.  However, i'm pretty sure one of them wasn't even sure what my name was and the other never even tried to interact with me outside of HT so i don't know if he knew or not.  Every time they came over they talked to each other more than us and it was always awkward sitting there listening to them laugh and smirk about inside jokes that they never explained to us.  

If that happened to us now Ross and i would ask them to leave and not to bother to come back.  Then though, being like 22 years old and all that, we just suffered through it.

[bluebell]

19 minutes ago, ElPatron said:

I've actually reflected on this topic several times in my time in the church especially as I've looked back at my time serving as an EQP and as a HPGL and comparing the two callings. I can say that while in EQ it seems that I was just trying to figure out life as an adult. I had young kids and my marriage itself was still young so I was trying to focus on being a father and a husband and take care of all these things while trying to maintain or improve financial stability. As a HP it's been a different expirience. I'm able to actually focus on improving my relationship w/ the Lord. I've grown so much and can relate more to the "deep" life experiences that my fellow HPG members have expirienced. Not saying that the same didn't exist in EQ however, I was pretty shel shocked w/ life that I'm not sure I was ever in a "sharing" mood. I've never enjoyed getting ready to go home teaching, often for selfish reasons, but I'm always happy that I did it afterwards. We home teach a single sister that I've learned to see almost as a sister to me. She knows she can call on me or my sons whenever she needs anything and we've developed a great friendship. It wouldn't be possible thought if I just visited her every now and then or not at all. EQ is a stepping stone. It's a great place to contemplate life and our place in it in my opinion. Take time to reflect there. That's what I did. And I'm grateful for it. 

[jkwilliams]

25 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

The importance of home teaching inactive members is to get them back to church so they can have a similar experience in church meetings.

One of my mission companions said, "We'd have a lot more baptisms if we didn't have to bring them to church. They're all excited about the gospel, and then they go to church and it's over."

[Jeanne]

13 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

This sounds nice but presumes a certain level of omniscience most of us don't seem to possess. A few months ago, a good home teacher tipped me off that a Church brother of mine had been admitted to the psych ward of the hospital and could use some love. I immediately got myself there for a visit, but I'm so glad that someone was 'assigned' to be his friend on behalf of all of us.

This is great.  I am glad this experience helped you help someone else.  

[Jeanne]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

We had home teachers that were like this when hubby and i were first married.  They were very active men in the ward, well established, etc. and they came religiously every month.  However, i'm pretty sure one of them wasn't even sure what my name was and the other never even tried to interact with me outside of HT so i don't know if he knew or not.  Every time they came over they talked to each other more than us and it was always awkward sitting there listening to them laugh and smirk about inside jokes that they never explained to us.  

If that happened to us now Ross and i would ask them to leave and not to bother to come back.  Then though, being like 22 years old and all that, we just suffered through it.

Thanks for sharing.  In a way, it is nice to know that someone else has had this experience. 

[consiglieri]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

One of my mission companions said, "We'd have a lot more baptisms if we didn't have to bring them to church. They're all excited about the gospel, and then they go to church and it's over."

I know it can be a subject for humor, but I think the humor just points to an underlying problem.

The LDS Church teaches investigators about how the LDS Church used to be, not how it is in the here and now.

The investigator is converted to the LDS Church of the 1830's, and then finds themselves a member of the LDS Church of today.

The difference is day and night.  The original LDS Church was on fire with the gifts of the Spirit and believed in prophets and members who could commune with directly with God.

The LDS Church of today is a husk of its old self.  It has a form of godliness but denies the power thereof.  No, it's a little different.  It doesn't deny the power of God.  It claims to have it, but upon inspection is woefully lacking.

This is why I think the Denver Snuffer movement is having such a big impact.

It is delivering what the LDS Church only promises.

 

[jkwilliams]

10 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

I know it can be a subject for humor, but I think the humor just points to an underlying problem.

The LDS Church teaches investigators about how the LDS Church used to be, not how it is in the here and now.

The investigator is converted to the LDS Church of the 1830's, and then finds themselves a member of the LDS Church of today.

The difference is day and night.  The original LDS Church was on fire with the gifts of the Spirit and believed in prophets and members who could commune with directly with God.

The LDS Church of today is a husk of its old self.  It has a form of godliness but denies the power thereof.  No, it's a little different.  It doesn't deny the power of God.  It claims to have it, but upon inspection is woefully lacking.

This is why I think the Denver Snuffer movement is having such a big impact.

It is delivering what the LDS Church only promises.

Honestly, it's in service, including home teaching, where the church is at its best. Meetings can be deadly dull. When I was attending church with my wife a couple of years ago, I decided I was going to pay attention and try to glean the good things I could get out of the meetings and ignore the rest. I became aware that very few people were engaged at all in the meetings. I was always told that you get as much out of a meeting as you put in, and I supposed that's true to some extent, but you really need a lot of stamina to stay engaged week in and week out. My brother-in-law, recently released as stake president, has told me on numerous occasions that he finds church meetings "excruciating" and "brutal." I think a lot of people do. I'm not saying this to judge anyone or condemn the church. Pretty much any organization starts with zeal and innovation, but as the institution builds up around it, it of necessity falls into patterns and develops rules of behavior and acceptable thought. I don't know that there's any way around that.

[hope_for_things]

51 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

I know it can be a subject for humor, but I think the humor just points to an underlying problem.

The LDS Church teaches investigators about how the LDS Church used to be, not how it is in the here and now.

The investigator is converted to the LDS Church of the 1830's, and then finds themselves a member of the LDS Church of today.

The difference is day and night.  The original LDS Church was on fire with the gifts of the Spirit and believed in prophets and members who could commune with directly with God.

The LDS Church of today is a husk of its old self.  It has a form of godliness but denies the power thereof.  No, it's a little different.  It doesn't deny the power of God.  It claims to have it, but upon inspection is woefully lacking.

This is why I think the Denver Snuffer movement is having such a big impact.

It is delivering what the LDS Church only promises.

Good points, but I think its more than just a change in the church, its an overall change in culture.  Western culture has changed dramatically from the 19th century context that the church was born into.  Superstition, scientific advances, information age, average lifespan, political environment, etc.  Virtually nothing today is the same as it was in the 1830s.  Give President Monson a stone and tell him to put it into a hat and try dictate new scripture.  Dedicate a new temple and have people stay all day and into the early hours of the next morning, fasting & praying and drinking and seeking a spiritual manifestation.  Most people won't buy that today.  

Part of the real problem is that we don't appreciate just how different life was for those people almost 200 years ago. 

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Let's just accept for the sake of argument that you are right about our human tribal past and ignore that not all societies, past or present, have been patriarchal, and some cultures have women as the hunters (the Aka, for example). Anyone who has children knows that raising a family and running a household require the same organizational and leadership skills as those required to "chase down game." And anyone who has served at all in ward leadership knows the Relief Society are often much more efficient and reliable than the priesthood at getting work done.

It's one thing to say that you believe men and women are given different roles by God, which I believe is standard LDS doctrine. It is quite another thing to assert that, because men traditionally did the hunting, they are "programmed to think that way about leadership." What you seem to be saying is that men have innate leadership abilities that women do not, that evolutionary forces have led to men getting up off the couch and going to work or doing their home teaching while women stay home on the couch and nurse the babies. 

When my daughter was about 12, she asked me why Heavenly Father likes boys more than he likes girls. I asked her what she meant, and she said, "Boys can be anything they want, but girls can't." I told her that she, like any other woman, could be anything she wanted in life. She shook her head and said, "No, I can't have the priesthood." My wife explained the standard doctrine of the church, that, for whatever reason, men had the responsibility of holding the priesthood. Never would we have told her that evolutionary forces had programmed men for leadership abilities that women don't have. 

That's absurd. And that practicality isn't pragmatic at all. It's just groping for a rational explanation for church doctrine where there really isn't one.

I never said any of that- your distortions grow every time you interact with me and you know that by distorting what I said you will get me to argue with you.I said none of these things and perhaps you need to stop making things up.

No more John.  Not this time.  Not ever again.

Goodbye John. 

 

[hope_for_things]

6 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I never said any of that- your distortions grow every time you interact with me and you know that by distorting what I said you will get me to argue with you.I said none of these things and perhaps you need to stop making things up.

No more John.  Not this time.  Not ever again.

Goodbye John. 

 

I don't know your history with jkwilliams at all, and I'm not trying to get in the middle of something, but I was hoping you could clarify where he is distorting your position on this topic.  Since you were replying to my message in the first place, I have to say that I understood your comment in similar ways to how jkwilliams did.  

Can you clarify your perspective?  If you don't want to, thats perfectly fine, I respect the both of you.  If you read through my post as well, you'll see that i took things in a slightly different direction, but I'm also disagreeing with your points about men and their role with relationship to the priesthood.  Thanks

[mfbukowski]

Others have mentioned this.

For those who care, emphasis added:

Quote

 

Anthropologists maintain that hunter/gatherers don't have permanent leaders; instead, the person taking the initiative at any one time depends on the task being performed.[13][14][15] In addition to social and economic equality in hunter-gatherer societies, there is often, though not always, sexual parity as well.[13] Hunter-gatherers are often grouped together based on kinship and band (or tribe) membership.[16] Postmarital residence among hunter-gatherers tends to be matrilocal, at least initially.[17] Young mothers can enjoy childcare support from their own mothers, who continue living nearby in the same camp.[18] The systems of kinship and descent among human hunter-gatherers were relatively flexible, although there is evidence that early human kinship in general tended to be matrilineal.[19]

It is easy for Western-educated scholars to fall into the trap of viewing hunter-gatherer social and sexual arrangements in the light of Western values.[editorializing] One common arrangement is the sexual division of labour, with women doing most of the gathering, while men concentrate on big game hunting. It might be imagined that this arrangement oppresses women, keeping them in the domestic sphere. However, according to some observers, hunter-gatherer women would not understand this interpretation. Since childcare is collective, with every baby having multiple mothers and male carers, the domestic sphere is not atomised or privatised but an empowering place to be.[citation needed] In all hunter-gatherer societies, women appreciate the meat brought back to camp by men. An illustrative account is Megan Biesele's study of the southern African Ju/'hoan, 'Women Like Meat'.[20] Recent archaeological research suggests that the sexual division of labor was the fundamental organisational innovation that gave Homo sapiens the edge over the Neanderthals, allowing our ancestors to migrate from Africa and spread across the globe.[21]

To this day, most hunter-gatherers have a symbolically structured sexual division of labour.[22] However, it is true that in a small minority of cases, women hunt the same kind of quarry as men, sometimes doing so alongside men. The best-known example are the Aeta people of the Philippines. According to one study, "About 85% of Philippine Aeta women hunt, and they hunt the same quarry as men. Aeta women hunt in groups and with dogs, and have a 31% success rate as opposed to 17% for men. Their rates are even better when they combine forces with men: mixed hunting groups have a full 41% success rate among the Aeta."[14] Among the Ju'/hoansi people of Namibia, women help men track down quarry.[23] Women in the Australian Martu also primarily hunt small animals like lizards to feed their children and maintain relations with other women.[24]

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer

[jkwilliams]

5 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I don't know your history with jkwilliams at all, and I'm not trying to get in the middle of something, but I was hoping you could clarify where he is distorting your position on this topic.  Since you were replying to my message in the first place, I have to say that I understood your comment in similar ways to how jkwilliams did.  

Can you clarify your perspective?  If you don't want to, thats perfectly fine, I respect the both of you.  If you read through my post as well, you'll see that i took things in a slightly different direction, but I'm also disagreeing with your points about men and their role with relationship to the priesthood.  Thanks

Don't worry about it. I shouldn't have responded to Mark. I take him at his word that he didn't mean what I got out of his post. Apparently, I wasn't the only one, but that's neither here nor there. It never ends well when I try to engage him.

[jkwilliams]

20 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I never said any of that- your distortions grow every time you interact with me and you know that by distorting what I said you will get me to argue with you.I said none of these things and perhaps you need to stop making things up.

No more John.  Not this time.  Not ever again.

Goodbye John. 

Well, I don't know what happened this time, but that's probably for the best. I was responding to what you wrote. If I misread you, I'm sorry. No malice or distortion was intended, though you probably won't believe that. Take care.

[jkwilliams]

15 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Others have mentioned this.

For those who care, emphasis added:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer

For the record, I never said anything about oppressing women. I simply said I don't agree with the notion that male roles in the family and church are a product of the sexual division of labor among hunter-gatherer societies. As others have said, that is an outdated concept, and I'm surprised it's still believed.

[consiglieri]

55 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Good points, but I think its more than just a change in the church, its an overall change in culture.  Western culture has changed dramatically from the 19th century context that the church was born into.  Superstition, scientific advances, information age, average lifespan, political environment, etc.  Virtually nothing today is the same as it was in the 1830s.  Give President Monson a stone and tell him to put it into a hat and try dictate new scripture.  Dedicate a new temple and have people stay all day and into the early hours of the next morning, fasting & praying and drinking and seeking a spiritual manifestation.  Most people won't buy that today.  

Part of the real problem is that we don't appreciate just how different life was for those people almost 200 years ago. 

 

I agree with you to an extent here, but I think modern-day Pentecostals manage to still capture the spiritual outpourings that are reminiscent of early Mormonism.

I therefore see this shift in Mormonism to be caused not so much by culture as by what Hugh Nibley described as the shift from leadership to management.

I believe he referred to it as "the fatal shift."

http://www.zionsbest.com/managers.html

 

[jkwilliams]

Just now, consiglieri said:

 

I agree with you to an extent here, but I think modern-day Pentecostals manage to still capture the spiritual outpourings that are reminiscent of early Mormonism.

I therefore see this shift in Mormonism to be caused not so much by culture as by what Hugh Nibley described as the shift from leadership to management.

I believe he referred to it as "the fatal shift."

http://www.zionsbest.com/managers.html

When I was with that same companion I mentioned, we used to walk past a tiny Pentecostal church on our way home every night. It was a little adobe structure with no door, so we could see and hear what was going on inside as we passed, and it was always rocking. My comp. said, "I think we'd have a lot more success if we went to that church. I'm going to write the mission president and tell him we're becoming Pentecostals."

[hope_for_things]

24 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

 

I agree with you to an extent here, but I think modern-day Pentecostals manage to still capture the spiritual outpourings that are reminiscent of early Mormonism.

I therefore see this shift in Mormonism to be caused not so much by culture as by what Hugh Nibley described as the shift from leadership to management.

I believe he referred to it as "the fatal shift."

http://www.zionsbest.com/managers.html

 

Thats a good point, I think you're right with certain segments of the population, but I believe a shift of the general population has occurred.  Mormonism certainly has shifted as well.  I guess if we had a the same kinds of charismatic leaders, and general expectations for these kinds of things within Mormonism, you could approach what was part of the early church attributes.  I just think it would be a harder sell for most people, and the church's size in membership and influence on the wider culture would diminish as it would be perceived as more fringey.  Of course, many already consider us that way today! 

[ERMD]

On 5/19/2016 at 0:38 AM, JarMan said:

So we've got a new EQP. He's a young guy with a young family, just graduated from BYU and teaches seminary for a living. He's a genuinely good guy and he decided to hand out a short survey on Sunday asking about what we liked and disliked in EQ.  I wrote down that I hate everything about EQ. I hate the manual. I hate home teaching. I hate being home taught. Elder's Quorum is the worst hour of my week unless my HT's were over that week, then it's the second worst hour. 

Anyway, I feel a twinge of regret about survey-ambushing him like that, but I answered honestly like he asked us to. So now that I've lain down on the virtual couch, can anyone tell me: am I normal or is it common to feel this dissatisfied with everything EQ related? 

Since we're being honest, your comment is short sighted and immature.  It was childish of you to lash out at this man, who is trying to serve his quorum well.  He is serving in a calling he did not seek and is being asked to uphold standards he did not set, but he is willing to honor his covenants and do his best.

You owe him an apology and should consider spending time pondering your own covenants you have made.

Since we're being honest and stuff...

[hope_for_things]

44 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Don't worry about it. I shouldn't have responded to Mark. I take him at his word that he didn't mean what I got out of his post. Apparently, I wasn't the only one, but that's neither here nor there. It never ends well when I try to engage him.

Ok, no worries.  I like Mark's comments, for me he's one of the more interesting personalities on this message board to engage with.  I'm fairly new though, and I know that history goes way back for some people here.  

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Ok, no worries.  I like Mark's comments, for me he's one of the more interesting personalities on this message board to engage with.  I'm fairly new though, and I know that history goes way back for some people here.  

I like Mark, and I find his perspective interesting and kind of refreshing. I sincerely wish we didn't have a history that makes it difficult to interact. I should know better.

[JarMan]

5 hours ago, Mars said:

I really don't think anyone thinks there's anything wrong with you.  I don't.

The advice was solicited, and it centers around what you can change.  That's always the way it works.  Your EQ may very well be totally dysfunctional.  Uninspired teaching and totally inept leadership.  Home teachers who don't care one iota for you but are doing it because they're nagged into it by everyone around them.  You haven't described it this way.  I'm just trying to paint a realistic worst-case scenario picture.  This would be it.

You can't make them be sincere.

You can't make them teach better.

You can't make the other brethren have a more deep sense of brotherhood.

You can be sincere.  You can choose to believe the best in people and watch them rise to your expectations.

You can contribute to class discussion by sharing thoughts that occur to you or preparing ahead of time.

You can reach out to other brothers to deepen the sense of brotherhood.

The focus on you isn't an attempt to blame you or set up a tribunal where you're the defendant.  The focus on you is to remind you what you can change.

 

I don't think my EQ is dysfunctional. I've been a member of about 10 wards in the 23 years I've been an elder. I started going HT with my dad when I was about 8 and became his full-time companion at 12. I've got 30-plus years of HT experience and the experience has been pretty universal. I think the institution of home teaching is itself dysfunctional. At least as far as EQ is concerned. I appreciate the stories of some of the older, single women who have been able to rely on good HT's. I know that when my grandmother was living by herself she had good home teachers that helped her tremendously. But in the wards I've been in the elders are assigned to people who don't want or don't need HT's. In my experience I've home taught two different types of families. 1) Inactive or less active families who would rather be left alone but are too polite to tell you to never come back; and 2) active families who would rather be left alone but tolerate you because they know you have a box that needs to be checked. I will admit to a single exception to this in all my years of HT and that is a family that genuinely seemed to want me and my companion (my son at the time) to come visit them. They were a recently married couple who both had children from previous marriages and were starting to have kids together. I think they were looking for a fresh start in life and were appreciative of any support they could get.

My negative experiences can't possibly be unique. Rather, I think I'm one of the only ones (besides ex-members or disenfranchised members) who will admit there's a major problem. I've heard a lot of denial in this thread and a lot of people telling me what ideal HT is supposed to look like. I know what it's supposed to look like. But it doesn't look like that and, in my experience, never really has.

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, JarMan said:

I don't think my EQ is dysfunctional. I've been a member of about 10 wards in the 23 years I've been an elder. I started going HT with my dad when I was about 8 and became his full-time companion at 12. I've got 30-plus years of HT experience and the experience has been pretty universal. I think the institution of home teaching is itself dysfunctional. At least as far as EQ is concerned. I appreciate the stories of some of the older, single women who have been able to rely on good HT's. I know that when my grandmother was living by herself she had good home teachers that helped her tremendously. But in the wards I've been in the elders are assigned to people who don't want or don't need HT's. In my experience I've home taught two different types of families. 1) Inactive or less active families who would rather be left alone but are too polite to tell you to never come back; and 2) active families who would rather be left alone but tolerate you because they know you have a box that needs to be checked. I will admit to a single exception to this in all my years of HT and that is a family that genuinely seemed to want me and my companion (my son at the time) to come visit them. They were a recently married couple who both had children from previous marriages and were starting to have kids together. I think they were looking for a fresh start in life and were appreciative of any support they could get.

My negative experiences can't possibly be unique. Rather, I think I'm one of the only ones (besides ex-members or disenfranchised members) who will admit there's a major problem. I've heard a lot of denial in this thread and a lot of people telling me what ideal HT is supposed to look like. I know what it's supposed to look like. But it doesn't look like that and, in my experience, never really has.

It's obviously not just you. We've had discussions and arguments about why the church has in some ways become one of doing things by assignment rather than actually wanting to do things, but it is what it is. As I said, most institutions settle into this sort of maintenance status, and I don't know how you change that.