two recent elder quorums
We all know that I am a harsh critic. Get off on the wrong foot with me and I am loath to see anything right in what you do. So, the past two lessons in my elders quorum have been bad news for me. To be fair, this elders quorum is a lot better than it was two years ago and it seems to actually be a functioning unit of the church in some meaningful way unlike the atrocity I just lived through in Edmonton. But, there are still problems.
Two weeks ago: The guy teaching the lesson gets up and has us read a short section from the Kimball manual. The subject is Satan and evil and so on. He then starts his lesson with this thought-provoking question: "Is Satan real? Is there actually a battle between good and evil in this world?" Such an approach might work in, say, an undergraduate philosophy class, but in a church setting it was ridiculous. Not even heterodox I could imagine a way to turn that into controversy. Since we're attending a ward regularly, we've bought into the whole Lucifer bit, I feel.
Two days ago: It's Teachings for Our Times Sunday and the guy gets up and says, "The Stake may have chosen some talk for us to cover, but it didn't trickle down to me, so I just chose one." Now, he did chose a good one. However, "trickle down" is a rather grandiose way of saying it, since the chain of command is from the person who chose the talk to the EQ president to this instructor. Yep, our ward can't even manage a three-person connection. We're just that awesome.
Oh, and two days ago there was an invitation for "ten members of the quorum and their wives" to some temple thing. There are about five unmarried guys in the quorum (total size roughly 15). I just love how very much out of mind we are at all times for this presidency. I'm thinking about moving over to the singles ward in my area, but they have sacrament meeting last, a structure I cannot even think about supporting.
3 comments:
I wonder what that guy would have done if someone had decided to engage in a philosophical argument about the history and existence of Satan. I'm not saying anyone should have (Mormon teaching callings are thankless enough as it is), just that it probably would have been amusing to watch.
If I were in your quorum, I would complain about the egregious marriageist bias. You know the unmarried sisters do.
Also, if you haven't read this post yet, along with every single one of the comments, I strongly recommend you do in order to give yourself a touch of perspective. "Well, my ward may suck, but at least the women in here keep their boobs in their shirts while they're up on the stand!"
wow...I had no idea things could get that bad. Thanks for sharing. I feel like I should move to one of those wards before bearing my testimony of graham crackers (something I fully intend to do at some point).
I hate the sacrament mtg last schedule. My first ward in LA had that deal. Plus sunday school was first at 2:15pm. Yeah. it was awful.
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