Because there are not enough meetings

[Jacob]

I received the following email:

The Elders Quorum Presidency has asked that we hold a district meeting this month to go over our Quorum goals for 2011. Our district will meet at my home this Sunday. We'll have a good afternoon snack and go over our district and quorum goals. I also have something to hand out from the EQ Presidency.
...
Thanks for all of your hard work during 2010. Our district was successful in contacting every family during the month of December. Let's make 2011 another great year for the brotherhood of our Quorum and the strength of our Ward Family.

Has anyone ever heard of an Elder's Quorum district meeting? The districts exist only for the purposes of putting someone (the district leader) in charge of bugging the Elders under his purview about doing their home teaching and gathering the numbers for the presidency. This is typical in large Utah wards like mine.

But a district goal setting meeting? Is it possible that somebody's EQ pres is just a little too green off of his mission?

He's asked for an RSVP and I've debated whether to simply say I won't be there or say I won't be there because it sounds like a waste of time.
But I don't know the elders in the ward very well and this guy is a good guy, so maybe I'll go for the social aspect. But then I'm not sure I'll be able to hide my disdain for the idea of setting home teaching goal.

100% for 2011!

By the way, home teaching is awesome! If you don't have a testimony of it, you need to get one! Even if you've been doing it for 20 years. Sincerely, every bishop and elder's quorum president I've had.

[Clark Addison]

It's not an additional meeting if you don't go to it.

[TripletDaddy]

EQ district meetings after Church?

I will not be in attendance.

[wally]

I received the following email:



Has anyone ever heard of an Elder's Quorum district meeting? The districts exist only for the purposes of putting someone (the district leader) in charge of bugging the Elders under his purview about doing their home teaching and gathering the numbers for the presidency. This is typical in large Utah wards like mine.

But a district goal setting meeting? Is it possible that somebody's EQ pres is just a little too green off of his mission?

He's asked for an RSVP and I've debated whether to simply say I won't be there or say I won't be there because it sounds like a waste of time.
But I don't know the elders in the ward very well and this guy is a good guy, so maybe I'll go for the social aspect. But then I'm not sure I'll be able to hide my disdain for the idea of setting home teaching goal.

100% for 2011!

By the way, home teaching is awesome! If you don't have a testimony of it, you need to get one! Even if you've been doing it for 20 years. Sincerely, every bishop and elder's quorum president I've had.

You should reply-all saying this:

Can you email all of us the goals so we can get started on them prior to the meeting?

Also, if we are able to start on the goals early, that might mean that they are self-explanitory. If this is the case, is there any way that we can just cancel the meeting so that we can spend Sunday with our families, or home teaching?

[TripletDaddy]

Another option is to form an exploratory committee of 3 EQ members, meeting weekly for an entire quarter to discuss the pros and cons of the proposed EQ district meeting.

This would also give more elders a chance to serve in the ward.

[Commando]

I received the following email:



Has anyone ever heard of an Elder's Quorum district meeting? The districts exist only for the purposes of putting someone (the district leader) in charge of bugging the Elders under his purview about doing their home teaching and gathering the numbers for the presidency. This is typical in large Utah wards like mine.

But a district goal setting meeting? Is it possible that somebody's EQ pres is just a little too green off of his mission?

He's asked for an RSVP and I've debated whether to simply say I won't be there or say I won't be there because it sounds like a waste of time.
But I don't know the elders in the ward very well and this guy is a good guy, so maybe I'll go for the social aspect. But then I'm not sure I'll be able to hide my disdain for the idea of setting home teaching goal.

100% for 2011!

By the way, home teaching is awesome! If you don't have a testimony of it, you need to get one! Even if you've been doing it for 20 years. Sincerely, every bishop and elder's quorum president I've had.

This is your chance to commit your quorum to not having any superfluous out-of-church meetings for the year 2011!

[Surfah]

That's funny. I'd be busy that evening. In almost 6 months now as EQP I have had only one formal EQ presidency meeting at my house. All the others have been in the hallway during the second hour or via email/text.

[Paperback Writer]

The problem with EQ meetings is that it seems the only time guys in the quorum get together is to get preached to about HT, FHE, family prayer and scripture studies, etc. Who wants to sign up for that?

What needs to happen is that the guy in charge needs to schedule a group lunch, or pizza party, or pick-up BB game. And mention that before the activity we have to cover a small agenda item: "share a few ideas that help us become more consistent and better home teachers". Should only take 10-15 minutes before the activity and staying for the activity is optional.

Edit: On second thought just have a few activities if people are interested. Rest can be done via texts - like that idea.

[Jacob]

You should reply-all saying this:

I was going to reply all, but then i noticed that he only sent the email to me, and included my name as the greeting line in the body of the email. I thought ti was strange if he sent out an individual email to everybody. Maybe I'm the only one that didn't answer his phone?

[TheAzzuri]

That's funny. I'd be busy that evening. In almost 6 months now as EQP I have had only one formal EQ presidency meeting at my house. All the others have been in the hallway during the second hour or via email/text.

I'd also recommend skype. It's been very helpful.

[TheAzzuri]

The problem with EQ meetings is that it seems the only time guys in the quorum get together is to get preached to about HT, FHE, family prayer and scripture studies, etc. Who wants to sign up for that?

What needs to happen is that the guy in charge needs to schedule a group lunch, or pizza party, or pick-up BB game. And mention that before the activity we have to cover a small agenda item: "share a few ideas that help us become more consistent and better home teachers". Should only take 10-15 minutes before the activity and staying for the activity is optional.

Edit: On second thought just have a few activities if people are interested. Rest can be done via texts - like that idea.

I think it's even better to just have the parties. The rest of it can just happen during the 3rd hour.

[wally]

That's funny. I'd be busy that evening. In almost 6 months now as EQP I have had only one formal EQ presidency meeting at my house. All the others have been in the hallway during the second hour or via email/text.

This is how it ought to be.

[Jacob]

I think it's even better to just have the partys. The rest of it can just happen during the 3rd hour.

You would think that's the point of the weekly quorum meeting, no? Here was my response:

I'm leaning towards not attending out of principal. Isn't this something that we could do during the last 5 or 10 minutes of EQ meeting on Sunday? Isn't that the purpose of our regular quorum meetings?

[TripletDaddy]

The Church should hire some FP&A consultant (maybe one of our own Cuffers) to do a study.

1. How much time collectively is spent discussing home teaching.
2. How much time collectively is spent doing home teaching.
3. How much time is spent doing anything with the information gleaned from home teaching
4. What sort of change in HT percentages as a result of all this discussion.

My guess is that of the 4 items listed above, item 1 will be the biggest number and then it will gradually descend from there. I just don't think the EQ gets a lot of long-term traction from all this HT obsession.

[wally]

The Church should hire some FP&A consultant (maybe one of our own Cuffers) to do a study.

1. How much time collectively is spent discussing home teaching.
2. How much time collectively is spent doing home teaching.
3. How much time is spent doing anything with the information gleaned from home teaching
4. What sort of change in HT percentages as a result of all this discussion.

My guess is that of the 4 items listed above, item 1 will be the biggest number and then it will gradually descend from there. I just don't think the EQ gets a lot of long-term traction from all this HT obsession.

I totally agree.

And all the excessive talk about it always ends up making the act of hometeaching more robotic.

I once lived in a EQ where we were specifically asked (by the SP) to find out how our families were doing financially. Not just a passing "How are you doing, and how is work?" But a specific "Do you have enough means to support your family?"

It was during the beginning of the housing crunch, so in some respects I can understand the impetus, but should we be digging stuff up, or letting it emerge organically?

I am all in favor of home teaching, but for heavens sake, just let me do it my way.