The New Elders Quorum

[Bremguy]

This is to the guys who have attended the newly formed Elders Quorums.

What are your overall experience, impression or other thoughts about the combining?

For me, it feels like I have been demoted from a High School Class to a Junior High Class.
I have little in common with any of the younger Elders, I just don't get any thing from going.

[TheRoadSouth]

I’m not having a very I’m good experience with it yet. But, it does take some time to adjust to having a whole new group of people in your quorum. Overall, I’m just not seeing it as being much better, if at all. CERTAINLY not “revelation”.

[Corsair]

It has not been particularly exciting. It's a larger group, but my ward is still forming how this will work going forward. But early signs do not show that anything revolutionary are happening yet. It looks like it will largely look like it did before, but the reporting will be more lenient.

[asa]

What was previously generally boring is now really boring. In my ward with 30 HP and 15 Elders the group which was too large to begin with has gone past the critical mass so that free discussion and sharing ideas is even more difficult. My brother in the South thinks it is a very bad decision and of course contrary to the Scriptures ( Section 107 : 89) but no one seems to care what they say these days

[Corsair]

What was previously generally boring is now really boring. In my ward with 30 HP and 15 Elders the group which was too large to begin with has gone past the critical mass so that free discussion and sharing ideas is even more difficult. My brother in the South thinks it is a very bad decision and of course contrary to the Scriptures ( Section 107 : 89) but no one seems to care what they say these days

I was a child when the quorums of Seventy were dissolved from the wards. My father was a Seventy at the time and was made a High Priest. However, the change bugged me because there were three Aaronic priesthood quorums (Deacon, Teacher, Priest) and three Melchizedek priesthood quorums (Elder, Seventy, High Priest). After that change it was three and two and we all got used to it. Now the men and women are organizationally identical even though the teenagers are still in groups.

I am somewhat prejudiced against giving the institutional church a break. But something useful might evolve out of this flailing reorganization. Most of it will be useless side effects, but I prophesy that we will hear some tear inducing stories in October conference on the successes of this reorganization of the priesthood quorums. There will be a few cases where mixing up the age groups resulted in some good things happening. It will be statistically irrelevant, but will be promoted as evidence of Nelson's inspired leadership.

[Cadahangel]

The problem with readily available material out there and more and more faith crisis happening on a daily basis they had to combine because young people are leaving and they don't have anyone to be in presidencies. It shows the true state of things for sure!

[nibbler]

What was previously generally boring is now really boring. In my ward with 30 HP and 15 Elders the group which was too large to begin with has gone past the critical mass so that free discussion and sharing ideas is even more difficult. My brother in the South thinks it is a very bad decision and of course contrary to the Scriptures ( Section 107 : 89) but no one seems to care what they say these days

This has been my experience, though the numbers in my case are closer to 50:50.

It's just a larger group of people rehashing a general conference talk that has exactly zero relevance to my life.

I agree that the larger the group the less of a discussion and the more one-way lecture things become. It already felt like too much of a one-way lecture before the change, now it's slightly worse.

Just get the "you aren't doing enough, you should feel bad, do more" whip crack over with during opening exercises, then let us split off into small cliquish groups where we can have real discussions.

[wtfluff]

I hope I die before I attend a High Elders Priest Quorum meeting.

[Bremguy]

I hope I die before I attend a High Elders Priest Quorum meeting.

If you did attend one, you just may die from the stifling boredom.
Rehashed GC talks from Rehashed GC talk years before. Not much in it for me.

My experience is, the talks are meant to make one a better Mormon, not necessarily a better person or Christain.

[Corsair]

I hope I die before I attend a High Elders Priest Quorum meeting.

It's a source of cold comfort that with this new combined quorum structure I don't ever have to be that guy that gets moved up to to High Priests out of pity just because I hit some arbitrary age. They can leave me as a slacker Elder forever as long as I have to keep attending.

[dareka]

It's a source of cold comfort that with this new combined quorum structure I don't ever have to be that guy that gets moved up to to High Priests out of pity just because I hit some arbitrary age. They can leave me as a slacker Elder forever as long as I have to keep attending.

I'd so far dodged that bullet, and I was hoping to remain an Elder forever. Not that I attended quorum meetings that much, but when I did I preferred the younger average age. I may be physically older than most of them, but I still feel like I belong with the younger guys. On top of that, there are a few guys I can't stand who are High Priests, and I'd hoped not to be in the same quorum with them. Ever.

Now we're all one big happy quorum. I've attended quorum meeting just once since the change. I hated it, and it wasn't even a General Conference talk rehash that week, nor a quorum council (or whatever it's called). The lesson was about as intellectually stimulating as watching paint dry while overdosed on Benedryl. I'm hoping to avoid quorum meetings as much as possible going forward.

[glass shelf]

Do you feel the New Elders Quorum is now more similar to what RS has long been?

[Bremguy]

Do you feel the New Elders Quorum is now more similar to what RS has long been?

I have a hunch, it may never be what the RS is. From what ours looks like, it has the same form as did the EQ and HP groups as before.
President, 2 councilors, Secretary, a few instructors. No one has been called to be compassionate this or that.

Also, to become like the RS, it would take a real NOM type to make it work. I dont think a TBM could pull it off. Most are too stuck in the various handbooks to think outside them. I could be wrong. I wish I was, but I dont think I will be.