NOM

I almost died of boredom today. Let me explain. After about 5 years of being in the YM organization, I returned to the EQ. This was my first visit in 5 years, and first since the HPG and EQ were combined. The quorum started off with asking about any missionary moments...the designated quorum yacker related several experiences of sharing the gospel to inactives and heathens during the week. The lesson of reading a Q15 talk then followed. Twice I felt inspired to leave, but didn’t. As a consequence, boredom overcame me like the feeling one gets waking up turned around in a mummy sleeping bag, unable to find the opening... I kept looking at the clock, trying to use my priesthoods to move it forward...my priesthood power was insufficient to move time.
I was near death by the end of class...zero knowledge added to my repertoire.

2bizE wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 09, 2020 2:45 pm

Twice I felt inspired to leave, but didn’t.

You should never ignore promptings of the spirit.

2bizE wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 09, 2020 2:45 pm

After about 5 years of being in the YM organization, I returned to the EQ. This was my first visit in 5 years,

That's kind of what finally did it for me. With Primary, nursery, clerk, and YM it had been years since I had attended EQ / SS. My wife and I had been doing nursery together. They kept promising they would release us because we had been in nursery almost two years. We tried to tell them not to bother. We fulfilled our nursery callings reliably but otherwise our attendance and timeliness had been sliding. I'm sure they released me and didn't call me to anything with the intention that I'd get back into adult classes and strengthen my testimony. I went the first week and made it half way through SS and just through the beginning of EQ before I felt like such a stranger in a strange land (a very strange land) that I got up and left. I managed the same thing the next week. And then I gave up and never went back. My wife continued to take the kids and lasted about another 9 months.

Going back to SS / EQ was so painful.

So, having now been in charge of EQ for... 6 months, I both empathize with this post, and also somewhat that fear it.

EQ only happens twice a month. We only have a single guy called as an actual teacher so he teaches one week each month, while someone from the EQ presidency teaches the other. The guy with the calling, and one of the presidency members are terrible teachers. They mostly just lecture. Occasionally, one of us and break into their thought stream and get a (hopefully) thought-provoking comment or question in. Sometimes that will lead to an actual discussion for a minute or two before the "discussion leader" wrestles back the conversation and resumes droning on.

I try not to blame them too much. It's likely that neither of them have any experience leading group meetings or discussions outside of teaching primary. And they're trying to do just what primary taught them. The problem is, it didn't work for kids (when was the last time a primary child came home and remembered what they talked about?), and it REALLY doesn't work on adults.

I really try to kick off real conversations in our meetings. This past week we introduced the fact that future lessons will include the 13 GT Essays, including the illusive polygamy essays (https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comment ... rriage_in/).

This first essay lesson was a softball lesson on JS's teachings on the Temple, Women, and Priesthood. It lead to a fun discussion about how women can obviously invoke healing blessings (if you believe that sort of thing, anyway), so why do we need to use oil/priesthood at all? Someone suggested it had to do with severity of the sickness, but the group quickly decided that there was no basis for assuming that. The conversation bounced around for about 10-12 minutes before someone found James 5:14 which was Grant's justification for denying women the ability to heal and limited it to priesthood holders only. Someone asked why NT and D&C both say healing is a spiritual gift and neither of them specify a gender, and yet, we ignore those and follow James 5:14? It's almost like we pick and choose the scriptures that give the COB more control!... but no one went that far in their explanations. After that the discussion moved on to other things.

One member of the group tried to bring D&C 131:5's "sure word of prophecy" and link it to "calling and election made sure" by asking if we are guaranteed salvation after temple marriage. That could have been a fun discussion too. I briefly considered mentioning the second anointing, but didn't go that far... yet. That line of thought didn't really take hold in the group and we moved on to other things. All in all it was more discussion and actual thought than I've seen for a very long time.

While in our bishopric I tried unsuccessfully for years to have 5th sunday lessons on the GT essays, but was continually shut down by the bishop and/or the ward council. But then they screwed up and called me as EQP, now I can control the lesson subject, and I will.

græy wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 10, 2020 3:02 pm

The guy with the calling, and one of the presidency members are terrible teachers. They mostly just lecture. Occasionally, one of us and break into their thought stream and get a (hopefully) thought-provoking comment or question in. Sometimes that will lead to an actual discussion for a minute or two before the "discussion leader" wrestles back the conversation and resumes droning on.

I really wouldn't blame the teacher. The result you're seeing is intentional. That's what the church leaders want and it's clearly consistent with the design of the teaching materials.

Jeffret wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 10, 2020 4:17 pm

græy wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 10, 2020 3:02 pm

The guy with the calling, and one of the presidency members are terrible teachers. They mostly just lecture. Occasionally, one of us and break into their thought stream and get a (hopefully) thought-provoking comment or question in. Sometimes that will lead to an actual discussion for a minute or two before the "discussion leader" wrestles back the conversation and resumes droning on.

I really wouldn't blame the teacher. The result you're seeing is intentional. That's what the church leaders want and it's clearly consistent with the design of the teaching materials.

You are correct. My very next line...

græy wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 10, 2020 3:02 pm

I try not to blame them too much. It's likely that neither of them have any experience leading group meetings or discussions outside of teaching primary. And they're trying to do just what primary taught them. The problem is, it didn't work for kids (when was the last time a primary child came home and remembered what they talked about?), and it REALLY doesn't work on adults.

Yes, but my point was that it really can't be blamed on Primary, either. It's the desired state for adult lessons. Decades ago I taught EQ (and my wife taught RS at the same time) and it was possible to use the lesson manuals as the starting point for decent lessons. With the introduction of the "Teachings of ..." series they killed that idea. Church leadership / lesson manual creators constructed a careful narrative of hand-selected quotes to bolster currently acceptable ideas, no matter how much they had to massacre the original ideas. They chose the most uninteresting things possible to not engender discussion because of the things they were carefully excising. At the same time, they ramped up the demands to not use any outside material, because of the potential uncorrelated statements that lay inside the ellipsis or just outside the bounds of the selected quote. This got worse as they continued to historical prophets and focused more on bland, meaningless, repeated conference addresses that everyone slept through the first time.

The last time I taught adults (EQ, years ago now) was in a ward we were visiting. Their instructor didn't show and rather than sit through totally unprepared ramblings, I volunteered to teach. It was supposed to be something from a "Teachings of ..." manual, but I didn't even look at that. I just grabbed the scriptures and talked about the example of Jesus in the NT. It seemed to go over really well with lots of interesting class participation. Admittedly, that's a topic that's fresh in Mormonism, as it's rarely broached.

græy wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 10, 2020 3:02 pm

This first essay lesson was a softball lesson on JS's teachings on the Temple, Women, and Priesthood. It lead to a fun discussion about how women can obviously invoke healing blessings (if you believe that sort of thing, anyway), so why do we need to use oil/priesthood at all? Someone suggested it had to do with severity of the sickness, but the group quickly decided that there was no basis for assuming that. The conversation bounced around for about 10-12 minutes before someone found James 5:14 which was Grant's justification for denying women the ability to heal and limited it to priesthood holders only. Someone asked why NT and D&C both say healing is a spiritual gift and neither of them specify a gender, and yet, we ignore those and follow James 5:14? It's almost like we pick and choose the scriptures that give the COB more control!... but no one went that far in their explanations. After that the discussion moved on to other things.

One member of the group tried to bring D&C 131:5's "sure word of prophecy" and link it to "calling and election made sure" by asking if we are guaranteed salvation after temple marriage. That could have been a fun discussion too. I briefly considered mentioning the second anointing, but didn't go that far... yet. That line of thought didn't really take hold in the group and we moved on to other things. All in all it was more discussion and actual thought than I've seen for a very long time.

While in our bishopric I tried unsuccessfully for years to have 5th sunday lessons on the GT essays, but was continually shut down by the bishop and/or the ward council. But then they screwed up and called me as EQP, now I can control the lesson subject, and I will.

I would bet it was a more satisfying lesson than most of them had experienced for years.

Re: the bold and colored part above - That's awesome! You're doing your bit to make it more interesting and valuable to the class members.

Jeffret wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 11, 2020 10:14 am

Yes, but my point was that it really can't be blamed on Primary, either. It's the desired state for adult lessons.

I still agree 100% with you. Your point is the point I was trying to make. I probably needlessly called out primary specifically, but I really meant any setting where you take the class manual at its face and use it word for word in the lesson.

Mormon doctrine is a mile wide and an inch deep, but the lessons (from any of the correlated manuals) narrow it down even further to a 1ft x 1inch section of that river.

Jeffret wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 11, 2020 10:14 am

... At the same time, they ramped up the demands to not use any outside material, because of the potential uncorrelated statements that lay inside the ellipsis or just outside the bounds of the selected quote. This got worse as they continued to historical prophets and focused more on bland, meaningless, repeated conference addresses that everyone slept through the first time.
...

My advice would be to teach the lesson the way you want to teach it, even if that means using outside sources. If someone complains or it becomes an issue, leaders can call someone else that will read from the manual.

græy wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 11, 2020 2:15 pm

I still agree 100% with you. Your point is the point I was trying to make. I probably needlessly called out primary specifically, but I really meant any setting where you take the class manual at its face and use it word for word in the lesson.

Mormon doctrine is a mile wide and an inch deep, but the lessons (from any of the correlated manuals) narrow it down even further to a 1ft x 1inch section of that river.

Ah, okay, that makes sense. Mainly I wanted to talk about how it has gotten worse over the last couple of decades or so. And some about my experience.

nibbler wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 11, 2020 3:02 pm

Jeffret wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 11, 2020 10:14 am

... At the same time, they ramped up the demands to not use any outside material, because of the potential uncorrelated statements that lay inside the ellipsis or just outside the bounds of the selected quote. This got worse as they continued to historical prophets and focused more on bland, meaningless, repeated conference addresses that everyone slept through the first time.
...

My advice would be to teach the lesson the way you want to teach it, even if that means using outside sources. If someone complains or it becomes an issue, leaders can call someone else that will read from the manual.

They hate having to call new people. It always upsets the temporary homeostasis they've carefully constructed. You're pretty safe tipping the canoe as long as you don't capsize it.

So, I returned to EQ on Sunday to see if it was still like spending an hour at the DMV without any type of entertainment....
This time there was a one-sided discussion on why people leave the church. I wanted so badly to contribute, but didn’t.... It was almost entirely people only leave because they don’t have a testimony or they sin. I learned of the painstaking process Mormon went through to preserve the plates and having reviewed thousands of nephite writings to prepare the gold plates for our day... I didn’t have the heart to explain that the plates were not even used in the “translation” process.

double post

I have to add my own EQ experience on Sunday. The lesson was on receiving personal revelation and most of the content concerned living your life to receive that revelation. I brought up the example of people being inspired to "continue practicing plural marriage" to see if anyone had a reliable way to determine how the FLDS were wrong. My comment was largely ignored. They model they largely supported was that "Inspiration means Following the Prophet." This was never overtly stated, but the conclusion was still clear.

StarbucksMom wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 25, 2020 8:56 am

2bizE wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 24, 2020 5:00 pm

So, I returned to EQ on Sunday to see if it was still like spending an hour at the DMV without any type of entertainment....

LOL This is why I don’t waste ANY of my precious time left on earth at RS or Homemaking meetings (or whatever they’re called). I HATE them, always did. It’s fuzzy, but I think the last time I went, the RS prez taught and was literally gushing over how lucky RS sisters back in JS’s day were to attend classes where he instructed just them.
She was super animated like “Can you EVEN imagine?” That was pretty much it, even if I went one more time.

I imagine RS with JS was like a Tinder meetup. He married half of the women in the RS and their daughters and sisters.

**double post

I imagine RS with JS was like a Tinder meetup. He married half of the women in the RS and their daughters and sisters.

I know! I was sitting there wanting to scream “He was mentally undressing all of them, fantasizing about which ones to have sex with next. What woman (besides the brain dead bachelor bimbos) would want to be there?”