No Home Teaching = No Temple Recommend

[Surfah]

That's pretty funny - they should have jars made of different materials so that the sound leaves no doubt which jar the marble ended up in.

Reminds me of Homer, Iliad 24.527-33 (Achilles addressing Priam)
"Two jars of gifts are seated on Zeus’ floor, from which he gives either curses or blessings:
To he whom Thunderbolting Zeus gives a mixture of these, sometimes he comes to bad, and sometimes to good. But to him that he gives only from the mournful jar, Zeus makes despised, and causes ravenous evil to drive him to and fro throughout the land, honored by neither gods nor mortals.

(cf. Plato’s citation at Republic 2. 379d)

Canyon HS, famous for DJ DiLuigi, pulled a prank at graduation where all the seniors had a marble and would hand it to the principal as he handed them the diploma. The principal handled the situation awkwardly and took caution not to drop any of the marbles. You can imagine his dilemma with several hundred students. Thanks to them our school district made us sign zero tolerance contracts for commencement exercises. They didn't give us our actual diplomas until after the ceremony and we had shown compliance.

[KillerDog]

Whoa there, tiger. We have to put our name on a little piece of paper with a fish on it and say if we had FHE that week; there's a little goldfish bowl in the foyer. Our ward has a goal of having 1200 FHEs this year. The RS has two bowls up front on the table where their stand is. When you walk in the door, they hand you a marble, and in front of everyone, you have to walk up in front of everyone and drop it in the "did VT this week" or "didn't do VT this week" glass jars. The make a loud clinking sound.

My protests of these public displays of putative piety fell on deaf ears, because, "Brother Williams, we have to have some accountability." WTF are PPIs for then?


I hate the Stephencoveyization of the Church.

The meetings about setting our ward's goals for 2009 were all about objectives, and appropriate measures, and 'optimizing our schedules' so we could 'maximize' our 'spiritual output' through stretching ourselves to reach 'challenging goals.' They always glossed this over by reminding us at the end "Remember, this isn't about numbers, it's about raising our collective spirituality through serving others."

VOMIT.

I'm sorry but I think that is insane. Those sorts of public displays wouldn't increase my desire to participate. Instead, they would increase my desire to lead a revolt against the program. Nothing stops those sorts of things like a DROP in home teaching.

[Solon]

Canyon HS, famous for DJ DiLuigi, pulled a prank at graduation where all the seniors had a marble and would hand it to the principal as he handed them the diploma. The principal handled the situation awkwardly and took caution not to drop any of the marbles. You can imagine his dilemma with several hundred students. Thanks to them our school district made us sign zero tolerance contracts for commencement exercises. They didn't give us our actual diplomas until after the ceremony and we had shown compliance.

Good idea, surfah.

Wuap - have your wife bring about 300 marbles to church on Sunday and just pour them into one of the jars. I imagine all sorts of three-stogies-like follies would ensue.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Whoa there, tiger. We have to put our name on a little piece of paper with a fish on it and say if we had FHE that week; there's a little goldfish bowl in the foyer. Our ward has a goal of having 1200 FHEs this year. The RS has two bowls up front on the table where their stand is. When you walk in the door, they hand you a marble, and in front of everyone, you have to walk up in front of everyone and drop it in the "did VT this week" or "didn't do VT this week" glass jars. The make a loud clinking sound.

My protests of these public displays of putative piety fell on deaf ears, because, "Brother Williams, we have to have some accountability." WTF are PPIs for then?


I hate the Stephencoveyization of the Church.

The meetings about setting our ward's goals for 2009 were all about objectives, and appropriate measures, and 'optimizing our schedules' so we could 'maximize' our 'spiritual output' through stretching ourselves to reach 'challenging goals.' They always glossed this over by reminding us at the end "Remember, this isn't about numbers, it's about raising our collective spirituality through serving others."

VOMIT.

Wow. What will we have next? Phylacteries to be worn if you had FHE that week?

[cowboy]

I hate the Stephencoveyization of the Church.

I hate the stephencoveyization of everything. He spoke to us at the MTC and I've hated him ever since. I won't read his books, and I refuse to acknowledge his habits. Prideful, I know, but he was a jerk.

[The_Tick]

I am doing my Home Teaching tonight.

Only the husband is in town, as his wife is helping their daughter with their new grandchild.

We are going to watch The Hangover.

[wuapinmon]

So, I may get released soon. We'll see. We had a meeting today after church: bishopric, EQPdcy, HPGLship, and Exec Sec. An hour into the 90 minute meeting, the bishop gave us his plan for motivating people who refuse to home teach. The first steps were challenging, motivation, re-challenging, and when he gets to the end of the steps, he reiterates that not doing your home teaching is violating your temple covenants. I wait for the older brethren in the room to speak up, after a minute, when there's a natural break in the coversation, I unload with both barrels in as pleasant and non-confrontational a tone as I can muster (my heart was pounding in my chest so hard I could feel it):

• Respectfully, I think you're wrong.
• We are not under the law of consecration right now
• There is no spiritual and temporal division on the law.
• People have claim upon the Church if you're going to try and enforce that law.
• You're adding questions to the temple recommend interview.
• You don't get to pick and choose which duties you're going to make requirements.
• So, what is the standard then? 100%, 50%, 10%? Is it applied uniformly across the Church? Is the next stake over going to have different rules?

He tactfully said that he understood my disagreement. An old-timer started to ask me if I sustained the Prophet and Local leadership, but the bishop headed him off. If he'd've finished the question, I was going to go with this being a Church of common consent and my belief that dissension is not sedition.

I can't believe we're still doing this. The bishop did note that he's never taken away anyone's recommend for not doing their home teaching, but he has made people go request an assignment if they didn't have one before issuing a recommend.

I am reaching the point where I find myself contemplating taking a break from church.

[Viking]

So, I may get released soon. We'll see. We had a meeting today after church: bishopric, EQPdcy, HPGLship, and Exec Sec. An hour into the 90 minute meeting, the bishop gave us his plan for motivating people who refuse to home teach. The first steps were challenging, motivation, re-challenging, and when he gets to the end of the steps, he reiterates that not doing your home teaching is violating your temple covenants. I wait for the older brethren in the room to speak up, after a minute, when there's a natural break in the coversation, I unload with both barrels in as pleasant and non-confrontational a tone as I can muster (my heart was pounding in my chest so hard I could feel it):

• Respectfully, I think you're wrong.
• We are not under the law of consecration right now
• There is no spiritual and temporal division on the law.
• People have claim upon the Church if you're going to try and enforce that law.
• You're adding questions to the temple recommend interview.
• You don't get to pick and choose which duties you're going to make requirements.
• So, what is the standard then? 100%, 50%, 10%? Is it applied uniformly across the Church? Is the next stake over going to have different rules?

He tactfully said that he understood my disagreement. An old-timer started to ask me if I sustained the Prophet and Local leadership, but the bishop headed him off. If he'd've finished the question, I was going to go with this being a Church of common consent and my belief that dissension is not sedition.

I can't believe we're still doing this. The bishop did note that he's never taken away anyone's recommend for not doing their home teaching, but he has made people go request an assignment if they didn't have one before issuing a recommend.

I am reaching the point where I find myself contemplating taking a break from church.

Hang in there. Just sounds like you have weird crew on your hands.

[pellegrino]

So, I may get released soon. We'll see. We had a meeting today after church: bishopric, EQPdcy, HPGLship, and Exec Sec. An hour into the 90 minute meeting, the bishop gave us his plan for motivating people who refuse to home teach. The first steps were challenging, motivation, re-challenging, and when he gets to the end of the steps, he reiterates that not doing your home teaching is violating your temple covenants. I wait for the older brethren in the room to speak up, after a minute, when there's a natural break in the coversation, I unload with both barrels in as pleasant and non-confrontational a tone as I can muster (my heart was pounding in my chest so hard I could feel it):

• Respectfully, I think you're wrong.
• We are not under the law of consecration right now
• There is no spiritual and temporal division on the law.
• People have claim upon the Church if you're going to try and enforce that law.
• You're adding questions to the temple recommend interview.
• You don't get to pick and choose which duties you're going to make requirements.
• So, what is the standard then? 100%, 50%, 10%? Is it applied uniformly across the Church? Is the next stake over going to have different rules?

He tactfully said that he understood my disagreement. An old-timer started to ask me if I sustained the Prophet and Local leadership, but the bishop headed him off. If he'd've finished the question, I was going to go with this being a Church of common consent and my belief that dissension is not sedition.

I can't believe we're still doing this. The bishop did note that he's never taken away anyone's recommend for not doing their home teaching, but he has made people go request an assignment if they didn't have one before issuing a recommend.

I am reaching the point where I find myself contemplating taking a break from church.

I don't think you'll be released over that, especially because the bishop prevented Brother Crusty G from fully insulting you.

[SoCalCoug]

That is pretty unusual to have all of your families refusing to let you come by. Do you have a reputation for staying way to long during your visits.

Okay, you've just hit on my big pet peeve - my last two HT companions have been particularly long-winded - They'll want to set consecutive appointments an hour apart.

This is a huge reason why I hate home teaching.

[jay santos]

So, I may get released soon. We'll see. We had a meeting today after church: bishopric, EQPdcy, HPGLship, and Exec Sec. An hour into the 90 minute meeting, the bishop gave us his plan for motivating people who refuse to home teach. The first steps were challenging, motivation, re-challenging, and when he gets to the end of the steps, he reiterates that not doing your home teaching is violating your temple covenants. I wait for the older brethren in the room to speak up, after a minute, when there's a natural break in the coversation, I unload with both barrels in as pleasant and non-confrontational a tone as I can muster (my heart was pounding in my chest so hard I could feel it):

• Respectfully, I think you're wrong.
• We are not under the law of consecration right now
• There is no spiritual and temporal division on the law.
• People have claim upon the Church if you're going to try and enforce that law.
• You're adding questions to the temple recommend interview.
• You don't get to pick and choose which duties you're going to make requirements.
• So, what is the standard then? 100%, 50%, 10%? Is it applied uniformly across the Church? Is the next stake over going to have different rules?

He tactfully said that he understood my disagreement. An old-timer started to ask me if I sustained the Prophet and Local leadership, but the bishop headed him off. If he'd've finished the question, I was going to go with this being a Church of common consent and my belief that dissension is not sedition.

I can't believe we're still doing this. The bishop did note that he's never taken away anyone's recommend for not doing their home teaching, but he has made people go request an assignment if they didn't have one before issuing a recommend.

I am reaching the point where I find myself contemplating taking a break from church.

Why are you so mad about it? The bishop said he's never taken someone's recommend for not doing their home teaching. He's just trying to motivate you.

[Jacob]

So, I may get released soon. We'll see. We had a meeting today after church: bishopric, EQPdcy, HPGLship, and Exec Sec. An hour into the 90 minute meeting, the bishop gave us his plan for motivating people who refuse to home teach. The first steps were challenging, motivation, re-challenging, and when he gets to the end of the steps, he reiterates that not doing your home teaching is violating your temple covenants. I wait for the older brethren in the room to speak up, after a minute, when there's a natural break in the coversation, I unload with both barrels in as pleasant and non-confrontational a tone as I can muster (my heart was pounding in my chest so hard I could feel it):

• Respectfully, I think you're wrong.
• We are not under the law of consecration right now
• There is no spiritual and temporal division on the law.
• People have claim upon the Church if you're going to try and enforce that law.
• You're adding questions to the temple recommend interview.
• You don't get to pick and choose which duties you're going to make requirements.
• So, what is the standard then? 100%, 50%, 10%? Is it applied uniformly across the Church? Is the next stake over going to have different rules?

He tactfully said that he understood my disagreement. An old-timer started to ask me if I sustained the Prophet and Local leadership, but the bishop headed him off. If he'd've finished the question, I was going to go with this being a Church of common consent and my belief that dissension is not sedition.

I can't believe we're still doing this. The bishop did note that he's never taken away anyone's recommend for not doing their home teaching, but he has made people go request an assignment if they didn't have one before issuing a recommend.

I am reaching the point where I find myself contemplating taking a break from church.

I'm confused as to why you keep bringing up the law of consecration. What's that got to do with home teaching?

[pellegrino]

I'm confused as to why you keep bringing up the law of consecration. What's that got to do with home teaching?

about as much as home teaching has to do with your temple covenants.

[wuapinmon]

Why are you so mad about it? The bishop said he's never taken someone's recommend for not doing their home teaching. He's just trying to motivate you.

I do my home teaching, so there's no need to motivate me. The issue is using the threat of losing a recommend to lord over someone and guilt them into doing something that they don't want to do. I really dislike this idea. It leads to things like the Word of Wisdom becoming a metric for temple worthiness when it wasn't intended to be that way.

[creekster]

It leads to things like the Word of Wisdom becoming a metric for temple worthiness when it wasn't intended to be that way.

Apart from the temple recommend question, of course.