Bishops From Your Youth

[SilentOne]

I'm trying to get a feel for how strange or normal my experience with the teen/bishop relationship was.

[Just_A_Guy]

My bishops as a teen were very caring individuals who made a point of being open and available with the youth and were consistently present during youth activities.  I, personally, never really opened up to any of them; but that was a function of my own withdrawn personality and not due to any lack of effort or warmth on my bishops’ parts.  I knew they loved me.  

[Anddenex]

My bishop was my basketball coach, so I knew him very well.

[zil]

All I really remember is that we really liked our bishops - they had fun with the youth, joining in a lot of our activities.  (And one of them had a counselor we called "No Fun Jones".)

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

My Bishop at that ag was amazing.  I think we all felt very supported by him.  I remember going to his house once, pretending we had had car trouble and when he came out we ambushed him in a snowball fight.  He laughed and joined right in.  I mention this just to show how comfortable we were with him.  

[Sunday21]

You guys are blessed. My bishops were uncaring, sometimes openly hostile, sometimes rude or cruel. At the very least they were dismissive of the issues experienced by large groups of members. Why were these people appointed? They were the best administrators available. But in the world, the most efficient administrator is often controlling, dismissive of other’s issues, and elitist. 

I have a real bee in my bonnet about this. I had two bishops when I was a teenager: one was openly hostile to teenage converts and fairly upfront that teenage converts were a nuisance and...dangerous to the morales of ‘born in the convenan’ teens. The other was similar but in addition felt women were inferior and unintelligent and that teenagers should be seen not heard and were more trouble than they were worth. The ward in general was hostile to convert teens. Of about 25 teens baptized over a 2 year span, I was the only survivor. No flaming wonder.

There were things going on in the background of course. Years latter I went to an lds counselor, he told me that he was counselling quite a few women who had been sexually abused by male leaders in my area when they were teenagers. One of those ‘rings’ you sometimes here about. My guess is that young women and teens were making allegations which decades later turned out to be true but at the time were considered to be lies. 

Anyhoo, members at the time were actively hostile to teen converts. Policies at the time with respect to callings were not helpful to retention of young converts. For example, young converts were paired as helpers to older members in callings. Sounds great doesn’t But what happens when you pair a young person with an immature and spiteful older member? Not a good result. Also if you have very few members spread over large distances, young people need to travel long distances to meet up. Having a calling supervised by a hostile superior becomes an obstacle. And guess what? We are pursuing a policy of exploiting teenage labour to fill callings yet again.  I pointed out some of the issues for teenagers in low density areas at a Sunday School conference but was ridiculed.

Edited September 14, 2018 by Sunday21

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

@Sunday21 I'm so sorry, how awful. You have a right to be annoyed about this.  I'm certain God is not pleased either....better that a milestone....

[Sunday21]

My experiences with rude, uncaring, hostile and sometimes just weird older members as a youth has caused me to feel that members,  all members have a responsibility not to be: rude, spiteful, hostile, or cold to others and especially children and youth. We send out flotillas of missionaries and some individuals undo that good work. 

If you want to be nasty to someone buy a punching bag. We have taken on the Name of Christ. At the very least, this requires us to be civil to everyone but especially chilldren and youth. No wonder we lose so many young people! Look at the way we treat them! If your first impulse when you see someone younger than yourself is to be nasty, put in a paper Bag! We need the young people! Who will be bishop in 20 years if we drive them away? 

[JohnsonJones]

My bishop wasn't particularly close, but Bishops in the Catholic church are not exactly as cozy with members as those in the LDS church.

I didn't vote in the poll as I didn't have as much personal experience as a child or youth with an LDS Bishop. When I got older I believe the Bishops normally knew me, but that is as an adult that was in the LDS church as opposed to my childhood.

[zil]

14 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

all members have a responsibility not to be: rude, spiteful, hostile, or cold to others

Yes, this is called the baptismal covenant!

[LadyGunnar]

He was my neighbor.  I watched his kids for friday date nights.  He was good friends with my sisters. 

[anatess2]

I'm an adult convert so I didn't have this experience.  But I know my husband's experience and my kids' experiences so my answer is about them.

My husband was very close to his bishop.  I won't count the one in several parts of San Diego because he was a military kid then and had to move every 6 or so months.  His dad retired from the military when he was 14.  So, he had one bishop between 14 and 17 and he was so close to that bishop that he was the one who my husband asked to seal us at the temple.  I became close to him too.  His son was my first bishop (I wasn't a member then - just attending church with my husband) and I loved his son too.  They are very awesome examples of bishops.

My kids are very close to their bishops.  They've been through 3 since they were baptized.  They are very close to all 3.  So much so that they still send and receive cards/letters/texts/phone calls from the first bishop whose work requires him to travel overseas.  The 2nd bishop has sons who are their best friends (they play a lot of D&D) so they're treated like one of his sons.  The current bishop was our home teacher for so long so we've been close before he became our bishop.  Even if he's a Noles fan.  Then he moved a few houses down from us.  And his daughter is in the D&D group.  So all the more he became close to my kids. 

 

Edited September 14, 2018 by anatess2