So there was this med student, a grad student, and a post-doc in a room. That sounds like the beginning of a stupid joke that nobody would get, doesn't it? Actually, those three people and me were in a room the other day and they asked me about my boss' role in the Church (he's the first counselor in the Stake Presidency). I explained how the church was divided up into geographical areas and told them about bishoprics and stake presidency's. They were fascinated by the idea of a lay clergy. Since that conversation, I have been reflecting on the various callings I have had over the years. Currently, I am serving in the Elder's Quorum presidency again. One of the perennial challenges for every EQ presidency is making sure that the temporal and spiritual needs of the families in the quorum are being met. This is usually done by hometeaching but it seems that in most wards, HT in the EQ rarely breaches the 40% mark. Why? Are we really just too busy to go about the Lord's errand? We know that the majority of the men in our quorum are working around 80 hours a week as medical/surgical residents or in other equally demanding training programs but I don't think that releases us from our responsibility to fulfill our callings. So why do we fail? My only conclusion is that we are not sufficiently converted. I am not sure that the solution to the conversion issue is to be found soley in the lessons we teach during quorum meetings or in our own personal scripture study. I am becoming more and more convinced that an important part of the solution lies in better fulfilling the mission of Church as it pertains to the quorum. One of the ways we are trying to do this is by increasing the participation of the three committees in our quorum presidency meetings as appropriate. One of the other things we have done is to implement a provident living list. This is a list that individuals can look to for advice for simple every day problems such as plumbing, car repairs, or landscaping. The list is quite extensive. We have made sure to remind our quorum members that this is not a subcontractor list but rather an advice list. We are hoping that as individuals learn to be more self-reliant through interactions with other members of the quorum that a feeling of quorum brotherhood will increase and that in turn, each individual will be more apt to care for the others around him. And that is what hometeaching is really about, right? It isn't necessarily about showing up once a month to deliver a quick message (as valuable as that might be) but rather about taking an active interest in each other's lives and watching over each other.
We are always looking for ideas to better fulfill our stewardship. What types of things have your organizations done to help you and those you are responsible for be more faithful?
4 comments:
We've considered a "men-richment" for the EQ to do something similar to your list of people willing to help with various project. We wanted to get the guys together and have someone show everybody how to do a certain repair on a car or house or something. We'd follow it up with food, of course...
Jess, I like that idea. I'm gonna pass that one on.
VT has the same problems HT does. I drives me bonkers that your VT is counted if you just call once a month and talk to her. I've even had a VT supervisor tell me that if I just talk to my ladies in the hall at church that it would count. That's hardly taking care of the women I'm supposed to look after. Perhaps if I lived in a remote area of the church and couldn't physically visit, that would suffice, but in our circumstances we should simply do better.
This post kinda sounds like what I was frustrated about a few weeks ago. If we all just do our very best to magnify our callings, all of our whole wards would be a little better.
The manrichment idea has been thrown around a few times but we are hesitant to take fathers away from their families when they already spend an obscene amount of time at work. It is, however, a very good idea.
You all should read the old conference address of W. Grant Bangerter in the 1974 (I think) priesthood session. Look it up and I promise you that you will love his comments. He gets right to the points in your post, Jason.
Dad Clark
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