Melchizedek priesthood quorums

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Anddenex said:

I would assume things remain constant, the stake president assigns who will be presiding when all three bishopric members are gone, and I would assume it would fall to a high priest; however, it very well now could fall to the EQP.

It is similar to stating that the home teaching routes will change.  An elderly single woman was usually assigned to High Priests.  Now, she may be assigned to an elder.  Is that a change?

Currently the Stake President may assign ANY priesthood holder to preside when the entire bishopric is gone.  But there was a "go to" person in the HPGL.  Now the go to person will be the MPQL which may be an elder.

If we understand that home teaching routes are affected, we find that the person who presides in the absence of the bishopric is also affected in the exact same way.

[mirkwood]

20 hours ago, Sunday21 said:

 

I teach RS now. For some reason, this means that I attend Teacher Training with the Sunday School teachers. The brother who teaches Teacher Training is proud that he never prepares. Instead we read through the lesson and if someone wishes to make a comment, then this becomes the lesson. Now I admit that this approach does lead to interesting content, most of the time but not always. 

 

If you are talking the second hour (and third hour) Teacher Council each month, you are attending because you are a teacher. That is the purpose  It is a teacher council.  If the person leading out is "teaching" a lesson, they are doing it wrong.  It is a council...a directed discussion on a topic.  It is supposed to be all the attendees making comments and potentially addressing concerns.  

 

I'm catching some flak from my bishop and stake SS presidency because I don't do meetings for the sake of meetings with my SS presidency.  I have them as I need them.

 

 

We have several High Priests whose egos are stroking out about this change.  *snicker*, Priesthood this week is going to be entertaining.

 

Edited April 3, 2018 by mirkwood

[NeuroTypical]

 Heh.  I just updated my LDSTools app.  I know the bishopric and clerks - none of them will have been to church to make any changes yet.  So there are changes, pushed down by HQ.

- There is no more High Priests group to click. 
- There are no Elders quorum presidency/secretary/teachers listed.
- I am assigned to a ministering companionship.  He is my old home teaching companion.
- My companion and I are assigned to minster some families.  They are my old home teaching families. 
- I have someone assigned to minister to me.  He is my old home teacher. 

We got our tops down direction, but at the end of the day, it's still up to us, the individual members, to change and do different.  I'm looking forward to it! 

Edited April 3, 2018 by NeuroTypical

[zil]

28 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

 Heh.  I just updated my LDSTools app.  ...

- I am assigned to a ministering companionship.  He is my old home teaching companion.
- My companion and I are assigned to minster some families.  They are my old home teaching families. 
- I have someone assigned to minister to me.  He is my old home teacher.

...

So, I sync'ed LDSTools just now.  The "tab" is still "HOME AND VISITING TEACHING" (sic, not yelling).  on that tab, it shows the family's "Home Teachers" and the sister's "Visiting Teachers", and the brother's "Home Teaching Assignment" and the sister's "Visiting Teaching Assignment".  If you're saying these terms are removed from your LDSTools and replaced with "Ministering", that implies at least one of the other teams is faster than the Android team.

[zil]

Ah ha.  I don't let apps update automatically - too many update from good to stupid.  LDSTools had an update waiting.  Installed.  Sync'ed again, just for funs.  HT/VT gone.  Ministering present.  I have access to reports I don't think I had access to before.  And a new couple have moved into the ward.  And their photos are in the app (this is always a good predictor of whether they're active).

[John_Pack_Lambert]

On 3/31/2018 at 9:01 PM, The Folk Prophet said:

I think they directed Stake Presidents to release you. So probably not quite yet.

Plus, the stake presidency could leave in the current EQP. My fiancee's branch already did a joint priesthood meeting. However they did have a designated High Preist group leader, so that calling is elimanated.

 

This means the gender balance in ward council will be a little closer. Also ward Preisthood Executive Comittee (PEC) meetings have been elimanted. All matters will now be either handled in bishopric meeting or ward council. However expanded bishopric meetings could be used for some sensative issues. Stake PEC meeting is now redesignated the high council meeting. 

 

These changes alone seem to be big enough to merit a new Church Handbook of Instruction. Especially when combined with new directives on making at least two adults president in all classes and activities for children and youth, new directives on interviewing, the replacement of home/visiting teaching with ministering, the inclusion of young women in ministering. 

[John_Pack_Lambert]

I believe in the absence of all three members of the bishopric the EQP presides. This is what we did in a YSA ward I was in. Or does the member of the high council preside? This is why a totally new Church Handbook of Instructions, that formally answers that question seems needed.

 

Multiple elder's quorums should be by clear assignment, but should not be de facto recreations of the HP/Elders split. In a ward, like one in Provo my brother and his wife were in about 7 years ago, with 2 Elders quorums and one small high priest group, the high priests will probably be split off quickly for the short term. The request to implement it quickly means that stake presidents will probably be very busy this week.

 

Another thing affected is high preist and elders activities. I know my ward had periodic elders quorum activities, we did one where we went to a gun range and shot shotguns last November for example. 

 

Another plus is that the oddities of fellowshipping older male converts is elimanated. It was often a good question where to but a new convert who was a 55-year-old male. 

[John_Pack_Lambert]

Changes in the way the priesthood is organized are nothing new. It was not until the 1880s that ordination of young men to the Aaronic priesthood became regular. However that mainly just involved ordination as deacons. The current plan to advance from deacon, to teacher, to priest was not implemented until I believe 1908. 

 

President Eyring in his talk of geographical wards and comapnies was onto something. What he didn't point out was that bishop's in early Utah oversaw temporal matters, but it was not until the 1870s that wards as congregations and not just geographical areas came about. Stake clerks were paid until the 1920s at least, in part because they and bishops oversaw a lot of temporal matters now handled by full time employees of the Office of the Presiding Bishopric.

 

In Salt Lake City they had one large church meeting in the tabernacle until I believe the 1870s. It was also not until the 1870s that the Salt Lake Stake was reduced to covering just Salt Lake County. In 1901 the stake was reduced to just Salt Lake City, and in 1904 Salt Lake City was divided into 4 stakes. Still when Bryant S. Hinckley was president of the Liberty Stake in Salt Lake City, his stake had I believe 22 wards and 20,000 members. The largest stake study has a combined number of I believe 17 wards and branches, and two of the Tongan Stakes in Utah have 15 wards a piece. New stakes often have just 5 wards, and stakes with over 12 wards and branches are probably less than 2% of the 3000+ stakes.

 

Seventies were a local calling with responsibility for missionary work at the local level until the 1980s. My father was the ward seventies group leader at the time I was born in 1980, essentially what a ward mission leader is today. I believe each stake also had seven presidents of the 70, somewhat like the later stake mission presidency, which in turn was elimanated in 2002. 2002 also saw stake missionaries become ward missionaries.

 

In the early 1950s most stakes, including the Detroit Stake, did not have full time missionaries serving in their boundaries. The idea was that in a stake missionary work would be carried on by the members through stake missionaries and the seventies quorum. My grandmother in the Oakland California Stake was a stake missionary at this time. She and her companion, they designated companionships, would go out a few nights a week, and they had a specific teaching pool. A bit later stake missionaries and full time missionaries would operate in the same areas, but basically in competition against eachother. 

 

As Elder Holland alluded to in the 19th-century the progam was known as block teaching, and those involved spoke of themselves as Melchezidek priesthood holders called to proactively act in the Aaronic priesthood. This was not an assignment to all brethren, but a select few. Ward teaching was what it was known as until the early 1960s, and I think then it was also not all breathren.

 

Home teaching was inaugurated in the early 1960s and was part of the larger work of priesthood correlation. 

 

The Church in the 1960s also had adult Aaronic priesthood classes. This was for adults who had not been advanced to the Melchizedek priesthood, and they went here instead of to elders quorum. This was often brethren returning from long periods of inactivity, plus recent converts. 

 

The missionary age was 20 in the 1950s, than in about 1960 moved to 19. On the other hand Hugh Nibley in 1927 went on a mission at age 17. Until 1900 a mission call was a possiblity for any priesthood holder, no matter his age. Couples of various ages would serve, but so did many married men who left behind a wife and children. Joseph Fielding Smith left behind a wife who had recently had a miscarriage when he went on his mission. On the other hand David O. McKay just a little before had gone on a mission as a single young man.

 

The shift to the modern missionary system was gradual. The first full time, single sister missionaries were called in 1901. The 3-year, married man with wife plan for mission presidents was not fully implemented until the 1930s. Mission president counselors being local brethren called as such did not really come into being until the 1950s, although I had a roommate at BYU who on his mission about 2000 in Russia had a mission president setrving without any conselors. On my mission in Las Vegas from 2000-2002 my mission president always had 3 counselors at a time. 

 

When my grandfather was president of the Appleton Wisconsin Branch about 1960, there was a dependent branch under it. This is what would be called a group. In the 1990s my fiancee's branch was formed, with just one Melchizedek Priesthood holder in it. I believe current directives say a branch in a stake cannot be formed without at least 5 active full tithe paying Melchezidek Priesthood holders. There are groups in many stakes, some language-specific, and some like the Channel Island group off the coast of California, that operate under existing wards or maybe on occasion branches. In Districts and Missions, a times there is an administrative branch formed with the district or mission president being the branch president. This branch exists to hold the records of those living beyond the boundaries of formal wards and branches, and supervises groups that exist outside boundaries as well. In stakes it is thought that wards can do the supervising of all groups. On my mission there was a ward with 3 counselors in the bishopric, one of the counselors was the leader of the Spanish-language group.

[John_Pack_Lambert]

In the 1950s new convert men were ordained deasoncs, then teachers than priests. Today they are just ordained priests.

 

Policies on the time between baptism and temple ordinances have changes over time as well. In the 1920s Elder Neal A. Maxwell's parents were married in the temple although his father had only been a member for about three months at the time.

 

I am not sure when the policy of waiting a year from baptism for endowments or sealings was instituted. It may have been the 1930s, because some things I have read suggest that the during World War II policy that allowed for civil marriage and then sealing in the temple whenever it could be done was seen as an excemption. James E. Faust, who would be counselor in the First Presidency to Gordon B. Hinckley, and his wife Ruth initially planned to get married civially, but Brother Faust managed to get a long enough furlough from the army that he was able to go to Salt Lake City and get married in the temple to Ruth there.

 

I have also been told that in areas far from the nearest temple in the 1950s the policy was that couples could get married civilly and then travel to the temple and get married. Today this policy exists for any country that requires civil marriage, although the policy gives a limited, maybe few weeks depending on various issues time to do the temple sealing, otherwise the couple has to wait a year.

 

In the 1970s if a couple got married civilly the requirement was to wait a year for a temple sealing. This seems to have been the policy until about 2000. In about the later year the policy was changed a little. Now if one or both of those getting married has been a member less than a year, they can get married civilly and then get sealed when the most recent convert of them reaches a year since baptism. Also, although couples who get married civilly not because of recent convert status have to wait a year to get sealed in the temple, that is the only ordinance they need to wait a year for. That is, they can receive their own endowments or do vicarious work for others as quickly afterward as they get a reccomend. I am not aware of this being a change from the past.

[John_Pack_Lambert]

Policies on temple work as changing over time is a issue of change in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that is not heavily traced. Much of this is because of the sacred nature of the ceremonies. One thing to remember if you do come across any discussion of such changes is that God speaks to people in their language, and so the form of God's message is translated and revised to meet our current understandings.

 

A big change that I have been able to trace is the level of the role of the temple in the lives of Church members. The most dramatic is the increased participation in baptisms for the dead. I had a bishop who grew up as an active Church member in Colorado, he turned 20 in the mid-1970s, and he never once did baptisms for the dead as a youth. On the other hand I remember treaching a primary class here in Michigan where one of the girls in the class had already been to do baptisms for the dead 3 times. It was in November and her birthday had been back in February, so she had been 12 for 10 months or so. This was all ward sponsored trips, and before the more recent rise of family baptism times. 

 

The added role of ministering for young women compliments the added roles for both young men and young women in the temple announced last December. The changes announced in general conference might best be seen as part of that change. 

 

 

[John_Pack_Lambert]

On 3/31/2018 at 11:41 PM, person0 said:

The one running the meeting and the one presiding are two completely different things.  The way I understand the scriptures, as of right now if a HP is present, they must preside, even if they are not the one conducting the meeting.

But the EQP can be an elder and is he not presiding in elder's quorum? This makes me think that either the High councilor or a member of the stake presidency should preside. I think when I was in a YSA ward on at least one occasion when our whole bishopric was gone, a member of the stake presidency came to preside, although the EQP conducted the meeting.

 

On the other hand, I believe in my fiancee's branch, the Branch President is designated as presiding, except when a member of the stake presidency is there. He is an elder, but there are at least 4 high priests in the branch. They even had a high priest group leader.  A statement by Elder Christopherson in general conference gave me the impression that this is how it is meant to be. 

 

For that matter an emeritus seventy does not preside at every meeting he attends. I think this is why we have the rule of the new high priest quorum. Only the current members of the high priest quorum are functioning high priests. This would indicate to me that if any member of the bishopric, stake presidency, high council, or a functioning patriarch is present, they preside. If not any of those, than the EQP presides, it does not matter if there is a man in the audience who is an emeritus seventy, a former area seventy, or who was patriarch back in the Bloomfield Hills Michigan Stake before he relocated to Utah (our patriarchs seem to like to do that, even though the two I am thinking of were both converts born and raised in the greater Detroit area). It is current functioning priesthood office, not ordination that matters.

 

 

[John_Pack_Lambert]

On 4/1/2018 at 2:04 AM, askandanswer said:

Those who have been around for a while probably still remember the dissolving of ward Seventies quorums. Was that the late 70's or early 80's?

About 1986. I might be a little off, but it was done when Ezra Taft Benson was president of the Church, and he was president starting in November of 1985. 

 

Technically since I was born in 1980 I do not remember this. However either when I was born or within less than 4 months after I was born my father was made ward seventies group leader. This was more or less like being ward mission leader today. On my mission in 2000-2002 I knew at least one brother, the one I am thinking of was our ward mission leader, who still held the office of seventy because he had not been ordained a high priest. My father was ordained a high priest in 1991.He had been meeting with the elders for a few years before that.

 

There were only 7 General Authority Seventies in 1970. However there was the office of Assistant to the Quorum of the 12. President Hinckley held that general authority office for a few years before his call to the 12. that office was organized in 1941, with Marion G. Romney being the first so called, although Sylvester Q. Cannon had been designated counselor to the Quorum of the 12 for a few years in the 1930s between his released as presiding bishop and call to the Quorum of the 12.

 

In 1975 3 additional general authority seventies were called, bringing the number to 10. In 1976 all Assistants to the Quorum of the 12 were redesignated 70. In 1978 the first issuings of emeritus status were given. Up until then all general authorities, with the possible exemption of members of the presiding bishopric, served actively as such until the time of their death, at least in theory. In 1985 the first limited time calls to the 70 were given. In 1988 those with limited time calls were designated the Second Quortum of the 70. At some point a few of these Second Quorum members, I believe including Augusto A. Lim from the Philippines among others, continued to reside in their homes and work full time. The success of this pilot project lead to Area Authorities replacing Regional Representatives of the 12 in 1995. They were then redesignated Area Authority Seventies in 1997, although over time the name changed to just Area Seventies.

 

Originally the Second Quorum of 70 served for just five years. Elder Gong's father-in-law, Richard P. Lindsay, was a member of the Second Quorum of the 70 when it was a 5-year-assignment. After the implementing of Area Seventies, the second quorum tended to get smaller, and service in it started to edge above 5 years. For that matter when Area Seventies were first announced there were going to be in general only about 5 year calls. Many men have only served that long, but I believe J. Willard Marriott Jr. served from 1997-2011. 

 

The current system of using the term General Authority Seventy and not designating which quorum the General Authority Seventies are in began in about 2013, but was implemented fairly quitely. 

[zil]

1 hour ago, John_Pack_Lambert said:

All matters will now be either handled in bishopric meeting or ward council.

Actually, there are new meetings:

1) EQ Presidency + RS Presidency to discuss ministering.

2) EP President + RS President + Bishop to discuss ministering.

[John_Pack_Lambert]

Other changes over time include the speakers in general conference, and the general auxiliary presidencies. 

 

When 1918 dawned Joseph F. Smith was both general Sunday School superintendent and President of the Church. He was also both YMMIA general president and president of the Church. In the Sunday School his assistants were David O. McKay and Stephen L. Richards, both aposltes, who would be president of the Church and First Conselor in the First Presidency for a time starting in 1951. The assistants in the YMMIA were Heber J. Grant, president of the Quorum of the 12, and B. H. Roberts, one of the 7 presidents of the 70, thus one of only 7 General Authority Seventy and one of only 26 general authorites. It is 26 because there were the First Presidency, Quorum of the 12, 7 presidents of the 70 (also know as the Council of the 70) and the Patriarch to the Church also called the presiding patriarch. The last at the time was Hyrum Gibbs Smith (Hyrum G. Smith), a grandson of John Smith the older brother of Joseph F. Smith, and the father of Elder Gee Smith (Eldred G. Smith), who would be the last holder of that office up until being granted emeritus status in 1978, and who died only in 2013. Hyrum G. Smith was made Presiding Patriach in 1912, so over a century before his son died. Hyrum G. Smith was only 32 when given the 32 when given the office and died at age 57. There office was filled by a descendent of Joseph F. Smith, vacant, and filled on an acting basis by George F. Richards, father of LeGrande Richards, in the interim between 1932 and 1946 when Eldred G. Smith was given the office. 

 

Before the end of 1918 the SUnday School and YMMIA general leadership was changed. After the change David O. McKay, an apostle, became Sunday School General Superintendant. He had Stephen L. Richards as first assistant, but his second assistant was George D. Pyper, who was not a general authority. David O. McKay remained as General Superintendent of the Sunday School until 1934 when he was called as a member of the First Presidency. This despite the fact that for part of the 1920s he was president of the European Mission, directly supervising work in Britain and overseeing mission presidents on the continent. David O. McKAy was Ezra Taft Benson's mission president.

[John_Pack_Lambert]

After David O. McKay was called to the 1st presidency, George D. Pyper became the general superintendant of the Sunday School. His two assistants were not general authorities. Although they both were later General Sunday School superintendents. In 1971 the office was renamed General Sunday School President, with the assistants renamed counselors. The first man to be designated General Sunday School president was Russell M. Nelson who served from 1971-1979, after which he became a regional representative. From 1979 until 2004 current general authority seventies were the General Sunday School presidency. From 2004 on the General Sunday School presidency has consisted of men who are not currently general authorities and thus are male general officers of the Church. However Tad R. Callister the current General Sunday School president was a general authority seventy before being made General Sunday School president. Since 2004 the term of service seems to be fixed at no more than 5 years.

 

 

[John_Pack_Lambert]

The Young Men General Presidency had even higher turnover over time. In 1921 Anthony W. Ivins took the lead, with B. H. Roberts as first assistant, and newly called apostle Richard R. Lyman as second counselor. In 1921 Anthony W. Ivins was called to be a member of the First Presidency, and George Albert Smith became YMMIA General President. In 1935 he was replaced by Albert E. Bowen, who was released in 1937 when he was made an apostle. From 1937 to 1948 George Q. Morris headed the YMMIA. He would become an apostle in 1954. Through 1974 there were verious other presidents, ending with Robert L. Backman who became a general authority in 1978. In 1974 the young men organization was put under the general leadership of the Presiding Bishopric. In 1977 Neil D. Schaerrer was made Young Men General President. He was born in 1930, and so younger than the Sunday School General President at the time. He would die in 1985. In 1979 Schaerrer was succeeded by Backman, who was now a general authority. In 2004 the Young Men General Presidency was changed so those in it were not general authorities. David L. Beck, who was the second recent non-GA Young Men General President, served for 6 years. This made it so now with the 5 year rotation and 5 General Presidencies, one general presidency will change each year. Adrian Ochoa who was second counselor to David L. Beck when he was first called was later made a General Authority.

[John_Pack_Lambert]

The general presidencies of women's organizations have changed even more over time.

The first 5 general relief society presidents were each married to a member of the first presidency. Although other than the first two, they were widows the whole time they were Relief Society General President. Emmelin B. Wells who was General Relief Society President from 1910-1921 had been a widow (for the second time) since 1882. She had originally married at age 15 a 16 year-old recent convert in Massachusetts before migrating to Nauvoo. Emmeline B. Wells who was General President of the Relief Society 100 years ago had been part of the relief society in Nauvoo. Up until then being Relief Society General President was a lifelong calling. In 1921 President Grant told Sister Wells he was going to release her. One of President Grant's wives was Emmeline Wells step-daughters. That wife of President Grant was dead by the time he became president of the Church. So although President Grant was a polygamist, he had three wives at once and served time in prison for the crime of unlawful cohabitation (that is he lived up to the temple covenants he had made with his wife, the evidence used to send him to prison was the birth to Emily Wells Grant of Frances Marion Grant, who would later be wife of a US senator), he only had one wife while he was president of the Church. George Albert Smith had no living wife while he was president of the Church, his beloved Lucy Woodruff Smith, the daughter of Wilford Woodruff Jr, having died in 1935 10 years before he became president of the Church (less than the 13 Denzel W. Nelson died before Russell M. Nelson became president of the Church). 

 

 

 

[John_Pack_Lambert]

After Emmeline B. Wells only one General Relief Society President had a general authority husband, and he was excommunicated for adultery while she was General Relief Society President. Sister Wells died before she was formally released. After that General Relief Society Presidents were released before death. However Belle S. Spafford served for 29 years. Barbara B. Smith served 10 years from 1974-1984. Barbara W. Winder served six years. Elaine L. Jack served 7 years. The four general presidents before Sister Bingham all served 5 years. Interestingly enough no Relief Society General Presidency from Sister Winder on has had a change of who the counselors are to the president. 

[John_Pack_Lambert]

Under President Grant the general relief society and young women presidents were on one or two occasions asked to speak in general conference. However when Sister Elaine Cannon, general young women president from 1978-1984 spoke in general conference, it was the first time a sister had spoken there in a while.

 

As late as the 1980s I believe on one occasion a youth spoke in general preisthood meeting. All US based mission presidents gave talks at general conference in the 1930s. The first sister to speak at general conference may have been a recently returned young single sister missionary who spoke in 1903, she was working at the Bureau of Information ,the predecessor of the Visitors Center on Temple Square. She spoke to the outside overflow crowd. They also had speakers in both the tabernacle and the assembly hall. 

 

General Conference ran three days until the 1970s and there was an additional Welfare Meeting on Sunday mornings until some time in the 1980s. Until about 1984 every General Authority spoke at every conference, unless they were not healthy enough to do so.

 

The 3 sisters speaking in regular general sessions we saw at this last conference may be a record, I am not sure. I felt all talks were better integrated than has been seen in some conferences, and Sister Bingham speaking as one of two speakers elaborating President Nelson's remarks was very awesome. Sister Oscarson's talk in hindsight also clearly foreshadowed the changes that would be announced the following day, as well as connecting them with the changes announced late last year to who can do what with baptisms for the dead.

 

 

[John_Pack_Lambert]

On 4/1/2018 at 6:44 AM, Sunday21 said:

I am clueless. Why does having HPs and elders meet together matter?, other than one person doesn’t have to run a meeting?

The issue is not meeting. There is no more High priest group. The calling of High Preist group leader is elimanted. Ministering (the successor of home teaching) is done by the elders quorum. Companionships can be an elder and a high priest, wheras before elders served with elders or Aaronic priesthood and high priests served with high priests or Aaronic priesthood. Although a few years ago my brother's ward in Midland, Michigan had elders and high priests assigned as home teaching companions, and when I was in YSA wards at times my HT companion was a bishopric member who was a high priest. 

 

This also elimanated the past situation where temple baptistry or bishop's storehouse assignments were Elder's Quorum or High Priest specific. Although at least in my ward it often seemed that people helped out regardless of which quorum was assigned. The assignments were normally announced in priesthood opening exercises. 

 

My fiancee's branch already had elders and high priests in one meeting. Statements in general priesthood meeting indicate that such joint meetings also happen as a matter of course in some wards in West Africa, where basically all the high priests were currently in the bishopric. I have also seen wards in Michigan do joint meetings on Sundays when many people were out of town, or EQPs were in transition. 

 

I have seen both Elders Quorums and High Preists do various quorum/group activities. EQs more often things like bowling or shotgun shooting where just the men come, high priests groups social dinners where wives are invited too. Such activities can still occur, but will now be open to all Melchizedek Priesthood holders and prospective elders at a minimum. Sometime I have heard the ward basketball team referred to as being a team of elders, but I have also known not just young high priests, but high priests well into their 60s who participated, and the most active basketballer in my current ward is a high priest, so I do not think this will mean an actual change.

 

The big change is no high priest group leadership. This elimanates at least 4 callings (assuming there was a high priest group secretary). It also elimanates some of the teacher positions, although since EQP and HPG usually had more than one teacher, but not neccesarily a full 3 teachers for all non-presidency Sunday's, the number change there is hard to say. 

 

 

[John_Pack_Lambert]

On 4/1/2018 at 6:20 PM, NeedleinA said:

No more ward level PEC now either. Could either mean a free Sunday OR filled with another Ward Council??

Well, the bishopric still meets as many Sundays. There can also be expanded bishopric meetings, or some matters previously discussed in PEC can be covered in Ward council. 16 years ago I was in a ward where we had ward council every Sunday, and they had all the EQPresidency come to ward council. It was a YSA ward. 

 

On the other hand, the 2010 handbook revisions moved the ward council from being a meeting to being an organization that meets. Well, maybe not quite, but I think the balance between those two ideas of it was shifted from the former to the latter.

 

The council system of the Church has expanded a lot over recent years. Teacher councils and quorum/relief society councils are major examples. The regional coordinating councils presided over by an Area Seventy are another recent innovation, I think post-dating the establishment of area seventies in 1997. When there were Regional Representatives there were not councils. 

 

The role of Church areas has also expanded over time. Temporal affairs outside the US, and even the operations of the Church History Department, are largely handled at the area level. A key figure in this is the Area Director of Temporal Affairs, an office that Elder Soares held for several years before he became a general authority, for the Brazil South Area. The number of areas has been reduced as more operations were devolved from Church headquarters to areas. Also, in about 2000 many areas had an Area Seventy in the presidency. Today the only area with an Area Seventy serving in the presidency is the Europe East Area where a Russian man who is an area seventy serves as a counselor in the Area Presidency.

 

When President Hinckley was area supervisor of the Church in Asia he served in that position without counselors. He also did so while living in the US. On the other hand President Benson at the same time held the essreically same position, although his title was European Mission President, and he and his wife lived in a house in Frankfurt, Germany. On one occasion President and Sister Hinckley stopped in with the Benson's in Germany on their way back from being in Asia.

 

 

[John_Pack_Lambert]

I have to admit that I still grate in my mind when members of my ward, including the bishopric, refer to it as "the teaching in the Savior's way class" instead of calling it a teacher council meeting.  The fact that it is a council and not a class, not an inservice, not a teacher training meeting, is key. Although from what my father has told me of how the meeting was actually run when he was in the Sunday School presidency, it appears that the meeting does run as a council even if it is misnamed by ward leadership.

[John_Pack_Lambert]

On 4/2/2018 at 11:19 AM, NeedleinA said:

That would be my vote as well. You could always call for an emergency Ward Council if something big came up and it couldn't wait until the next week, but as a rule of thumb I would leave it open rather than fill it for meeting's sake.

One branch in my stake they discontinued Sunday morning council meetings so that members of the ward council could assist in driving branch members to church. This was after the decision to sell the huge, costly to maintain building that involved them always having sacrament meeting feel small. It was a building built as a Greek Orthodox Church. The new chapel is A-not in branch boundaries B-outside Detroit, which means you can't drive there if you have no insurance or registration or your viehicle, which some branch members lack. C-not on a bus route, let alone one that runs on Sunday. The closest one can get to there by bus on Sunday is about a mile and a half away, even though it is just a mile outside Detroit, and Southfield the city where it is is part of the Suburban bus system. 

 

About half the branch lives in the inner suburbs, the other half in Detroit. Almost all the members in the suburbs are white and in the city black. One of the city members is the member of the high council assigned to my ward. So the only black person at most our ward meetings is a member of the high council. If I moved my fiancee out to our ward after our marriage that would change, but I digress. We will at least initially however live in her branch, which also has the suburb/city; black, white split. Her branch has a reasonable branch sized LDS built chapel within the city boundaries. On the other hand, the Palmer Park branch has members with no cars who are white, often elderly, people in the near suburbs. The most affluent areas in the branch are in the city limits. The suburban white members include a man who works as a building engineer for the Church. They are often enducated but not generally affluent, and some of the suburb areas are known as Hazel Tucky because they have so many Appalachian whites who live up to stereotypes of Appachian whites. 

 

The Belle Isle branch where my fiancee lives has orders of magnitude of trouble. For what it is worth, many of the suburban members in the Palmer Park Branch grew up in Detroit and they tend to have very deep connections to the area. In Belle Isle Branch the suburban members are almost all transplants from elsewhere, mainly California, Utah and Idaho. Palmer Park also has a much higher number of stalwart, married black priesthood holders. Many of them with active member wives. There is only one couple in Palmer Park Branch at present that is black, active and the husband is a Melchizedek Priesthood holder. The branch presidency, the elders quorum president, the high priest group leader are all white. In Palmer park the pbranch president is a native of Haiti raised in the Bahamas whose son was the first person to recieve his own endowment in the Detroit Temple and whose Haitian-born wife has been a temple worked at the Detroit Temple since at least 2002. One counselor is white, the other is a black man who used to be on the high council, who works as a police officer and is fully active. The black man who is the high councilor assigned to my ward is one of only two high councselors I have ever had give a talk with their wife giving the companion talk. In Palmer Park branch the last two men who presided who were not black were a man of partial Indian (as in his ancestors came from India, OK, only one in the 1850s, who was half British and half Indian and moved to Salt Lake City, but still) and of partial Cherokee descent (both he and his wife are part Cherokee, although how much I am not totally sure, I think each about one eighth). 

[John_Pack_Lambert]

The Palmer Park/Belle Isle contrast goes deeper. In Palmer Park there are members who have been actively involved in Michigan Mormon matters since at least the 1960s. If there is one draw back the suburban "white" (see my comments about Native American and Indian ancestry) tend to be well over 55. There are exceptions, such as the man who works as a church engineer (including overseeing maintenance for the Detroit Temple), whi is probably not quite 50. There is also one couple that work as school teachers and live in the city of Detroit itself. Belle Isle Branch has no active white couples living in Detroit, and in fact only one active black couple living in the city. When I get married the blance will change a little, although we will be an active biracial couple. Belle Isle Branch did have a black sister who was baptized there in about 2010 who later served a mission, graduated from BYU-Idaho and married a man who she met at BYU-Idaho (a white man for what it is worth), but they live elsewhere now. Both branches have often seen young active members move away, especially inner city resident ones escaping the city as they pursue an education.

 

Belle Isle Branch at one point did have a biracial couple who had met in another branch where the white husband was branch president (and a YUPI resident of a high cost high rise in mid-town Detroit) and the wife was a black woman who grew up in the projects. They lived in the Grosse Pointe (aka super ritzy suburband) part of Belle Isle Branch, but were only there a few years before moving to Tennessee.

 

Belle Isle branch on the other hand as I mentioned almost all of its active members are recent transplants from Utah, Idaho, California, Arizona or such. There are exceptions, such as the EQP (at least before conference) who is a native of New Hampshire and whose Utah-born wife graduated high school in Michigan (almost in metro-Detroit, in a place about as metro-Detroit as Heber City is metro-Salt Lake City). 

 

More often is like my fiancee's other counselor in the Young women general presidency, a sister from Utah who is in Michigan while her husband is in dental school. Belle Isle branch has lots of short term medical related members. It is the some of the further suburban wards, around the temple, that see career medical people, such as our stake president. 

 

Two wards in my stake take in large swaths of Detroit. They actually currently have more African-Americans in the ward counsil than does Belle Isle Branch. In Roseville Ward the Young Men's President is African-American, and before he was YMP, his wife was Relief Society President. Roseville Ward, although next to Belle Isle Branch, has a lot less clear dividing lines. While the YMP lives in Detroit, many of the active African-American members, including one who was in the stake relief society presidency, live in the suburbs. Southfiled Ward has a suburb living African-American man in the bishopric. In the case of Southfield Ward, it does take in a large swath of Detroit, but also Southfield, Lathrup Village, Royal Oak Township and Oak Park, majority African-American suburbs. On the other hand most of the active membership is either white or of some Hispanic origin (including Brother Allred whose mother, born in El Salvador, was in the General Relief Society Presidency). Most of the active membership lives in Royal Oak, Berkeley, Huntington Woods, Beverly Hills, Franklin and Bingham Farms, overwhelmingly white suburban areas. On the other hand there are active white members living in one of the most economically depressed areas of Detroit. Yet one of the key families in the ward is a couple where the wife is of Mexican descent (although adopted when young and raised by a couple where the mother was a native of Estonia), whose children are probably among the few non-black students at Southfield Lathrup High School. Southfield School District has a higher percentage of black students than does Detroit Public Schools, mainly because it has much fewer Hispanic students. You have to bear in mind DPS is so black than I teach at a DPS where 355 of the 360 students are black, the other 5 being Hispanics. I am not exagerating at all.

[e-eye]

On 4/2/2018 at 10:01 AM, Sunday21 said:

Dear @Vort, You are a lucky man. As a former RS presidency member. I recall meetings that were called ‘just to have a meeting’. In fact, as we are on the subject...a stake leader drove over 2.5 hours to address us. We stayed after the 3 hour block to hear her. I specifically remember this instance because I had loudly resisted attending on the grounds that the stake RS people NEVER had anything to say. I loudly predicted to the rest of the presidency that this would be yet another waste of time and...it was! Once again the stake RS person had prepared absolutely nothing. She had zero content. She had clearly spent a lot of time getting dressed and doing her makeup and zero minutes on preparing content. She smiled and and told us how much she enjoyed her calling and at one point gestured to her ‘Teaching No Greater Call’ manual and said how much she enjoyed it. 

I teach RS now. For some reason, this means that I attend Teacher Training with the Sunday School teachers. The brother who teaches Teacher Training is proud that he never prepares. Instead we read through the lesson and if someone wishes to make a comment, then this becomes the lesson. Now I admit that this approach does lead to interesting content, most of the time but not always. 

I calm myself down by telling myself that a lot of the process is training leaders for the world to come. At some point, they will realize that you need to prepare for a meeting. But in the meantime...the meetings for the sake of meetings drives me nuts!

Just an FYI and not to nit pick but I am, it's a teachers "counsel" not training.  The person leading the counsel is not supposed to teach anything and are to just lead a discussion.  The leader should at least know the material enough to help facilitate and help the discussion flow but a successful teachers counsel is where the leader says almost nothing at all and ideas and the counsel teaches each other.  He should be better prepared and should be asking questions to entice remarks - the lesson should flow based upon comments, questions, needs, experiences.  

I am with you though- it drives me nuts when someone doesn't prepare for two reasons.  The person doesn't give a lesson/counsel as well as they could have and for those who can wing a lesson - they are missing out on the growth opportunity they could have had by preparing.