Hmm.

One of the issues with the Home Teaching Programme was that only a few of the ward members bothered to do it. Most didn’t bother, or just put in the odd phone call. With the really dedicated members focussing on a few of the families that were interested or needed support. It was a real problem meeting the 100% numbers, and embarrassing to report the shortfall each month.

It seems all that Nelson has done is amend the programme to match the activity that is actually happening and called it something different. Suddenly it’s a successful new programme rather than a failing old one, even though nothing has actually changed.

Spin Doctiring 101.

Look we know not 1 in a 100 HT reports was accurate- men lied their asses off to get the right number or have the stake president breathing down their necks. So no reports so no more lying and probably a lot less ministering which is all good!

I do think if they execute this change properly(a big if, I know) that you might actually see an increase in households actually contacted(as opposed to the pencil whipping that went on before). The previous model was so overwhelming to many members that I know that it wasn't uncommon for them to just not really try. By removing the completion exciting, allowing for social media usage and moving to a more targeted strategy the could potentially do much more good.

Note that this is just based of my personal experience and perhaps I've read the situation wrong entirely.

A few years ago we had an EQ President that was not only exceptionally honest, but also exceptionally lazy. There was actually a month where he turned in a report of 0% home teaching to the Stake!

So some people are freaking out about people calling such mundane policy changes as "revelation". I think this is a good thing for the church, to move the church and members in a direction where revelation is not considered so grand.

http://www.churchistrue.com/blog/russel ... our-lives/

This new and improved version of what constitutes revelation in the church used to be known as "common sense".

I am so not a preacher...but I have been touting common sense for years..somehow it is gratifying to find that hey...I am okay..I was right!!

You do realize the power you are giving local leadership when you define a policy as a revelation?

Any action by a member that violates a policy has now been elevated to rejecting a revelation.

It does not water down what the term revelation means, it destroys it.

It also allows top leadership to claim direct instructions from God in anything they say as a policy. It, in essence, makes our leadership look like any other church leadership.

And, on top of that you are increasing the expectations of members when they hear new policies. Think in terms of the "revelation" to lower the age of missionaries. It has not had the expected impact on males serving missions it was intended to have. So are we looking at a failed revelation or a failed policy? Or is that just one of things where after the fact we change it back to just a policy when it is clear it has failed. So only those successful polices are classified as revelation.

If you want to see how history treated the Church when it tried the same sort of thing in Joseph Smith's time, just look at all the members Joseph Smith drove away by trying to label anything and everything he said as revelation. "Hey buy shares in my bank or house because I have a revelation that says you should." There is a reason that most of the "revelations" Joseph Smith claimed to receive never made it into the canon, they were just policies that did not work out.

This is a really bad idea on all fronts.

Give me a break.

Get real. The church is practically built around having a prophet that talks to God. It is a major cornerstone of why the church is "true". Catholics, Hindus, or even The Church of Scientology can just as reasonably claim revelation with this lame definition. That people will call a mundane program reorganization a revelation just shows how starved members are for one.

Seriously.

I predict more personal info/gossip will be forwarded to the bishop by the monsters- i mean ministers , trying to kiss a## or just passing something juicy to the leaders-called deceitful spying since all these personal contacts are not confidential and that never stopped the HT's.

by the way in my wife wife's ward there is a mandate for the relief society prez to do 1:1 interviews of all women and the same for the EQ- juist "getting to know you,getting to know all about you, so i can rat you out to the ward council, my spouse and the bishop".

this is crazy!

And we thought Gordon B. Hinckley was the king of mainstreaming.

Mormons having 'Ministers' who would have thought?

I don't get why people think this is such a big deal and ground breaking changes and revelation from god. When I was an EQP back in 2010 we did this exact thing. It is just common sense. I combined Elders and HPs, and I assigned one man to three or four families and told them I didn't care how or when or with whom they did their work, but to please contact and make sure these folks were doing okay. There was no competition or separation of HT and VT, and as long as we had somebody assigned we didn't care, and I would often talk with the RSP to coordinate assignments We simply tried our best to take care of people.

Most of us just went with our wives or husbands, or even our kids, and did the job. Sometimes we just stopped by by ourselves without any type of "HT" companion. Who cares? No big deal, just make sure folks are okay and the hell with all the STUPID Pharisaical Mormon rules. At first I told the BP that we were not doing reports. The Stake people freaked out, so I told the quorums I didn't care how they contacted them, even if it was an email or a Facebook message, to count it as contact on the official reports on both VT and HT reports to just to get the Stake off my back.

Eventually they axed the whole thing because we weren't following the HT or VT rules and said I wasn't supportive of the prophetic approved church programs. Even though it was working pretty good...we weren't following the Pharisaical order of things which are so so important to the Mormon people. Our branch is no longer even open. It went from 40+ to ____ pretty well overnight when they kicked me out.

Maybe Monson should have given me a call for advice on this? Maybe I should be the Mormon prophet? It's been obvious to me for at least a decade that the HT and VT programs don't work.

So much control over so many by so few. Right now, it could be argued, Sean Hannity is setting world policy. I'm kinda curious as to who is actually running things in the deep state of Mormondom.

Wow, just wow. The cult is disgusting. It deserves whatever it gets. Don't even get me started!

it really was/is a non event. Just a reshuffling. Much ado about nothing.

Yes.