The Whispering Hour
Last month one of our commenters, COB, opined at this site concerning our coming pattern of Sunday worship:
When something is good, and helpful, you want more of it. When it’s not helpful, you want less of it. We have God specifically telling us that church time is more harmful than helpful. [. . .] If what we need is actually LESS time together, then the membership itself is actually not only not helping each other but potentially harmful.
When I read those words, it called to mind a time not long ago, when my wife came home from the Relief Society meeting feeling underserved. She felt that every meeting and lesson had to be so concerned with those living Plan B—the single or divorced, the working mothers—that traditional mothers like herself were being given no support in living out their roles: they had to just figure out everything on their own.
The family model that Kimball, Benson, and Hinckley exhorted of one-income families with an employed father and a homemaking mother received no mention in our current manual on the teachings of President Benson, used by the Relief Societies and Melchizedek priesthood quorums. How will my children and their spouses seek to live after that model if the LDS church has ceased to teach it? Am I going to whisper privately to them about “old, purer ways” that even the church at large has forgotten, but we in our family preserve? That sounds divisive.
We’ve since been commanded to now divide after two hours together and teach our families privately more intensely than we did before.
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | No Tag
G.
November 1, 2018
Post of the week. That is something that has bothered me too. But I am excited to live as much of the gospel as by God’s grace my family is able.
G.
November 1, 2018
Post of the week. That is something that has bothered me too. But I am excited to live as much of the gospel as by God’s grace my family is able.
I disagree with COB, though. Getting rid of church altogether would mean it was harmful. Getting rid of one hour probably just means diminishing marginal returns, or other gains to be made elsewhere.
Bookslinger
November 1, 2018
It was explicitly stated that children are now supposed to get more of the gospel from the parents, as opposed to from the church.
Okay, but what then of the adults, both parents and empty nesters of all stripes? My memory is getting fuzzy already conflating what I heard at conference, and what I read in blogs. Cottage meetings and group FHEs?
I did skim the text copy of Elder Cook’s and Elder Soares’ talks. Both mentioned ad-hoc socializing at the chapel after Sunday meetings.
I have been participating in a group FHE, which has been going on for amost 2 years, with one empty-nester couple, one widow, two divorced guys, and me (never married).
E.C.
November 1, 2018
Was just rereading Elder Cook’s talk on home church – he was very careful to note that the church buildings would not be closed up as soon as church was done. At several points he suggested that one of the reasons they are making this change is so that we, as members, can CHOOSE to spend time with one another outside of a formal church setting – in the building after church, in study groups, in home evening groups, and so on. He used the term ‘gospel sociality’ to describe this, which I find fascinating. I think this is where they hope the gains will be – deep friendships such as the Saints enjoyed in the early days of the Church. It brings to mind the story Elder Christofferson gave of a beet farmer who attended to many untimely family funerals, and came back to find his fields harvested by members of his elders quorum. He’d cultivated friendships along with his beets and his religion, which stood him in good stead in difficult days.
Their clearly stated goal is “to obtain a deep and lasting conversion of adults and the rising generation.” They are explicitly asking us to counsel together and seek revelation for our neighbors and friends (while not looking beyond the mark), as ministers and as seekers of truth and righteousness – together.
I was reading a totally unrelated book, in which the author pointed out that ‘righteousness’ used to mean ‘a right relationship with God and man’. This seems to be what the Brethren are hoping these changes will produce.
Bookslinger
November 1, 2018
It occurred to me just before EC posted her comment, that a soundbite explanation for the changes could be “‘Raise the Bar’ for parents.”
JRL in AZ
November 2, 2018
“Raise the Bar for Parents.” I love it. I am going to use that.
Bookslinger
November 3, 2018
G’s right. There are more factors and dimensions that COB didn’t take into account in his analysis.
There are some big-picture things going on. This is setting the stage for future developments.
Three points that immediately came to my mind were:
1) attention span of both children and adults. G’s diminishing returns.
2) 3 hours of sunday church meetings were turning off too many investigators and potential converts.
3) Socializing and fellowship has _not_ been happening as deeply and frequently as needed in and around our Sunday classes. Lowered attention span, etc, was causing people to arrive at the last second, and leave at first opportunity, and most people sit passively in classes, even with able teachers. And even with good classroom participation, that’s still not the same as fellowship and relationship-building.
I expect further emphasis/reminders on post-meeting socializing at the meetinghouse.
Agellius
November 5, 2018
“How will my children and their spouses seek to live after that model if the LDS church has ceased to teach it? Am I going to whisper privately to them about “old, purer ways” that even the church at large has forgotten, but we in our family preserve?”
Yeah. This is how I have been feeling for years.
My explanation to my kids is that, yes, the Church of the present day seems to have forgotten these things. But the present-day Church is not the whole Church. The Church spans time as well as space, heaven as well as earth, the Church Triumphant as well as Militant. Being a remnant on earth doesn’t mean we’re divided from the Church. It may mean the present-day Church, in certain respects, is divided from the Church of the Ages. You only have to read books that are more than 50 years old to realize that we’re standing with the majority of the Church, in terms of time.
Fortunately we’re not that isolated even in the present. The Church is so big that even a minority adds up to many thousands, and we manage to find each other.