If you were an elders quorum president—or a high priest group leader for that matter—what would you do to increase the amount of home teaching in your quorum or group? Why do you think those measures would increase home teaching?
How would you increase home teaching?
I’m facing the same problem in our quorum that I suspect yours, as well as most others, are having.
In our last Stake Priesthood leadership meeting the Stake President said HT in the stake was at 35% when he was called. After kicking and screaming they were able to get it up to 35.4%.
The new plan is to take away temple recommends from those brethren who do not make an honest effort to their HT.
Not sure if that’s the way to go.
Long-suffering and persuasion. That’s the way to go about it.
I suggest you take some time to pray and fast about how to go about getting the brethren to realize the importance of home teaching. Get the Lord’s help.
The Home Teacher calling is probably the most important calling in the church besides probably that of the bishop. Members need reminders all the time. It is easy to fall into the trap of relaxing on this calling. It is easy to try and make our church be a static church like most other Christian churches, where paid clergy do all the work, and you simply have to show up on Sundays and pay your tithing.
But this is no ordinary church. This is the Kingdom of God. We’re not laying the foundation for just a church, but for an entire kingdom, for Zion. Zion doesn’t magically appear. It is built from the ground up, and the workers on the front lines are home teachers.
I don’t think it is either, Tim. That’s the last thing we need: taking away recommends from people with already low motivation levels. The same people who don’t go home teaching already don’t go to the temple.
Ugh, that sounds terrible (taking away recommends). That mentality of the recommend being something that can be dangled in front of the members faces like a carrot is dispicable.
Kim,
I don’t know but I think Dan’s idea of fasting and praying is a good one. One thing that I think helps in our ward is they end EQ five minutes early and ask everyone to get with their ht families and set up appointments. Not sure if that increases numbers but it at least gets them talking to each other. You also might think about asking the elders to help remind them/ask if they need help doing it.
I know I’d find home teaching much easier if I didn’t have to deal with a companion. I could go by myself, or with my wife.
I’ve heard some wards have tried this set up. It’s probably not “approved,” but then neither is taking away temple recommends.
[Just to be clear, I’m not asking for advice. I just want to see what ideas people have or what they have done.]
I was recently released as EQ president in my branch. I tried to give individual Home teachers an opportunity to air their grievances. We had many who had to drive to far for their families- we gave them closer families, some had challenging companions- we changed them. Some, believe it or not, never were really taught how to home tach since they joined the church- we had lessons. We did see marginal increases.
The real issue I believe is conversion of church members. Too few truly realize that they Home Teach as a representative of Christ and that they can truly bless lives as a home teacher. Some don’t even care.
So, How do we convert ourselves and others in church?
John’s right.
The reason people don’t do hometeaching or visiting teaching is because they don’t want to. They find plenty of time to do the things they want to do. We all do.
The percentage of Home Teaching a Ward or Stake does is a reflection of the Spirituality of that Ward or Stake.
If you want to increase the %, then work on increasing the spirit.
I used to belong to a Ward that averaged 98% for Home Teaching in both Quorums.
A way to increase things quickly is to give the Missionary Lessons to every family in your Ward or Branch. You should see a rise in not only in Home Teaching, but also Missionary Referrals.
Just my 2 cents.
More refreshments
Jack
Still wouldn’t work.
My Dad was somewhat of a revolutionary as Bishop as he always tried new things. He’s always had a problem with the organization and execution of Home Teaching.
He decided to do-away with home teaching completely. Like I said revolutionary. He then called Stewards and assigned them 5 to 6 families within their geographic area. This was their ONLY calling.
Their job was to visit each family once a month to see about their temporal and spiritual welfare. They could take with them their wife or a member of the Aaronic Priesthood who lived within their assigned area.
They also reported directly to my dad, the Bishop. This way there is far more accountability than reporting to a Quorum Pres. or Group Leader.
This program had the full approval and blessing of the SP, who, as I alluded to above, was getting desperate. Unfortunately my father passed away before getting this program fully operational. I’m not sure if it has been continued, but I must say, it sounds like a better way of doing things.
If you want to change people you have to increase their testimony of the thing that needs to change.
I would suggest a public bulletin board with a chart where once your HT assignment had been confirmed by the bishopric, a small Angel Moroni gold star was applied.
Once opened up to public ridicule, er I mean, once the problem HT’rs were identified, I’m sure the members would find ways of increasing their own HTing as well as striving to help other less successful HTrs.
I mean if it works in grade school to get kids to finish their assigned reading, it’s bound to work on the ward level, no?
*** Warning!!! Long Posting Ahead. Proceed with caution! ***
As long as the focus is on “Home Teaching” you will always get lousy numbers.
“Home Teaching” is a program. Programs come and go. Programs are temporary.
People who preach programs will always have a hard time having success. This is why our approach to home teaching is fundamentally flawed. We focus too much on the program. We need to focus on the doctrine and the principles and let the program take care of itself.
Personally, I have never met a local church leader (Bishop or SP) who has the nerve and iron will to buck the system and completely ignore “Home Teaching”. But in my experience, it is the only way to fix this broken mess we cling to so dearly.
“Home Teaching” is not doctrinal. There is no scripture that mentions “Home Teaching”. It is a program based on a doctrinal principle. People who are not converted to the principle will never “Perform” well while implementing the program. This is what so many local leaders fail to recognize.
I had mixed success with home teaching as an EQP. I realized that my definition of success was wrong and needed to change. I realized that my success was not dependant on the monthly percentage figures. That was out of my hands. I realized my goal needed to focus on the root problem, which was two-fold. The first problem was home teachers who were not converted to the principles behind home teaching. The second problem was families who were not converted to the principles either. There were some elders who wanted to home teach and made every effort, but had an impossible time getting their families to commit to having them over.
The answer to both these problems was to preach the doctrine. In order to successfully do this, I needed to focus our quorum lessons on teaching doctrines related to priesthood duty, watch over, be with, and strengthen, return and report, etc… But this wasn’t enough in itself as most of the quorum did not attend due to either other callings, hanging out in the hallway during quorum meetings, or plain old inactivity and not coming to church. Thus, to reach them, I needed additional help from the auxiliaries and the ward leadership. I also needed to make the Sunday quorum meeting time a spiritually rewarding experience. The former, I had no help with. The latter was something I could control, so we set out to make our quorum meetings as good as possible. We fasted, prayed and felt inspired to call certain individuals to be instructors in our quorum. These names were always, without exception, denied by the bishop. Any appeal to the Stake President was fruitless. Therefore, I released our current instructors and as a presidency, we took it upon ourselves to teach the lessons.
Since most of the lesson material was pre-determined, it was difficult to get out our message. This made the first Sunday lesson the most important lesson we could teach since we had control over the subject matter. We would spend a fair amount of our time in presidency meetings discussing and planning the first Sunday lesson to focus on spiritual doctrines that related to what our quorum needed. This was always my favorite lesson to be a part of. For the other Sundays, we would discuss the lesson material and try to pick out parts that we felt would help us accomplish our goal. We would then focus on these small parts of the lesson and build discussions around them where the quorum brethren could talk freely and share ideas and feelings about the doctrine. We NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, rushed a lesson along in order to “Get through the material”. We wanted the brethren talking and discussing. We wanted them to share spiritual experiences. We wanted them to feel the spirit. Sometimes we needed to bring a discussion back on topic, but we never sacrificed discussion for lecturing.
We also emphasized that the father was the patriarch in his home. As patriarch, it is his responsibility to ensure that his family’s spiritual needs are being taken care of. This means that it is his responsibility to ensure his home teachers are regularly invited over to teach his family. He should discuss with them what he expects and ask for their help as needed.
Our quorum meeting began to be successful. The hall-walkers started attending and our attendance steadily increased. And, the brethren were talking about and learning the doctrine weekly. As a result, we slowly started to see conversion to basic priesthood doctrines and their hearts started to be softened towards one another.
I think we would have had more success and had it quicker if we would have had proper help from the stake and the ward.
There were other things that we did. We had both PPI’s and Home Teaching interviews. These are two separate interviews with two separate purposes. Eventually, I had my counselors doing all of the HTI’s and I focused on the PPI’s.
A HTI was strictly about the families that the brethren had stewardship over. Usually a home teacher would show up and say something like “I didn’t get around to visiting my families” or “I visited all my families last month”. I would respond (and I had my counselors respond in the same way) that this interview wasn’t about them. I wanted to know how the families were doing. I wanted to know if the kids were having any problems in school. Did the husband and wife seem to have a happy marriage? Did the family have family scriptures, prayers, and home evening? Everything in that interview was to be about the family. Maybe a little bit of focus on the HT companionship, but 95% on the families. If they had nothing to offer, I would fill them in on what I might know. We would make goals for their next home teaching visit, etc…
The PPI was different in that it was all about the priesthood holder. His personal prayers, scriptures, church attendance, etc… Each of these was unique and mostly went by the spirit. I had a few set things I wanted to tell everyone, but mostly I let them guide the discussion. We would make goals. I would always follow up in the next visit. In the PPI I always tried to bring up the doctrine of “Return and report”. I would commit them to come to us as a presidency and report their home teaching.
Sunday lessons and proper interviewing were key to helping solve the root problem of ignorance and apathy towards the doctrines behind home teaching. We focused almost all of our efforts and time on these as a presidency. This seemed to make the greatest change.
I never focused on a percentage. Anytime ANYBODY would ask me for a percentage, my response was always “I don’t know, perhaps the ward clerk can tell you.” This really frustrated the Bishop and Stake President, but to them, I would always add “But if you would like to know anything about a specific family, I can tell you that”, and I could, because we were getting real information from the companionships.
Another thing we NEVER did as a presidency was call to get a report from the companionship.
This was probably the hardest thing for the bishop and stake presidency to deal with. But honestly, I could care less. There were months when the computer would report 2%, 9% 6% for home teaching. All that told me was that I needed to do a better job teaching the doctrine of return and report, but no matter what, I let the brethren govern themselves. If the bishop and stake president really wanted to help me get better numbers, then they should have given me proper help in teaching the doctrine so the brethren would become converted.
We frequently taught and emphasized the doctrine of “Return and report” and that it was the priesthood holders responsibility to report their home teaching. We made reporting very easy. There were many methods we had in place to receive a report, but one thing we would not accept as a report was “I did my home teaching”. That just didn’t cut it. I needed to know about the family. If a report didn’t contain any information about the families, it wasn’t a report as far as I was concerned. I needed to enforce this because it supported the idea that “Home teaching is about the families, not the home teacher”. All of our reporting methods were simple and easy to follow and worked perfectly. If anyone is interested in how they worked, let me know and I’ll fill you in.
And finally, we never nagged or gave a guilt trip. We never stood up and said “Brethren, you only have x number of days to get your home teaching done” or anything like that. We didn’t baby-sit them. These are grown men. We treated them like grown men and they started acting like grown men.
Even with all of this effort and planning, we still had limited success. We couldn’t reach the whole quorum. Many would not show up for quorum meetings. Many would not keep interview appointments. But, for the roughly 60 brethren we were able to reach (Our quorum had 136 elders, down to about 80 in the summer when all the students went home), we were able to do remarkable things, and the quality of home teaching and stewardship increased dramatically.
In summary, the following is what I did to try to make it work:
JM
Actually, scrap everything I just said… I like Rick’s idea better!!!
LOL, Just Kidding! :-)
The best tool I had as an EQ pres was th PPI. When I would have regular (monthly) PPIs with quorum members and ask them specific questions about the needs and progress of their HT families, the number of HT visits being completed increased dramatically (neighborhood of 70%). When I relaxed on the PPIs (i.e., skipped a few months), the visits slipped back down to around 35%.
In the PPIs, I would discuss the current status of each family on the Elder’s list and together we would set specific goals for each family based on their spiritual and temporal needs. These PPIs let the quorum members know that a) I cared about the families, not the numbers, b) there was something specific they could be doing for the family, and c) Since I would ask them these same questions in the next PPI they knew there was accountability for their stewardship before a representative of the Lord.
After briefly reading the end of JM’s post, it sounds like he covered these same ideas in great detail. I really like his #11, “Never nag or guilt trip quorum members about Home Teaching.” I always found it much more effective to simply ask them (in a private conversation) how a specific family was doing.
The unfortunate part of the story is that shortly after I figured this all out, I got released.
All of which raises another question, Cap’n. How do you get them to keep their PPI appointments?
“The unfortunate part of the story is that shortly after I figured this all out, I got released.”
Uh oh.
If they aren’t keeping their PPI’s or HTI’s, its because they aren’t converted to the doctrine of “Return and Report”.
Teach them the correct principle and let them govern themselves.
I’ve found that those who “return and report” are the same HTers who actually do their home teaching.
If I have to track you down, leave multiple messages and corner you at church, I already know what your HT performance was last month.
PPI’s are a good tool. Overused they can net false results, or so cautioned my SP.
If you scrap HT you’ll have even less ward unity and less fellowshipping and looking for people’s problems. I’m in no place to critique, I’ve not done mine the last eight months consistently primarily because my companion has a job in the evenings and I’ve so busy with my job and with my wife’s difficult pregnancy. It’s easy to miss when other things keep coming up.
But maintaining the friendship is important. I suspect that most people who leave the church primarily do so due to social reasons. (i.e. they don’t feel a part of the ward)
Scrapping the “Program” and scrapping the principle are two different things.
That’s one of the problems with most local church leadership these days. They can’t see the forest for the trees. They think the home teaching program is the doctrine. Thus, we have this over-emphasis on numbers and stats to the point of people fabricating stats to look good.
We need less program and more understanding of doctrine and principles. If every priesthood holder understood the doctrine and was converted to the principles, you wouldn’t need home teaching. We would all just “Watch over, be with, and strengthen” each other in the ward.
I think JM that the evidence is overwhelming that without some level of structure most people (myself included) flail around miserably in trying to act. Structure is enormously helpful.
Yes we can all be good neighbors and loving, but most of us need a little structure to do things we wouldn’t normally do.
The current structure we have is failing miserably.
The church scrapped the stake mission for a less structured “Let the bishop deal with it” ward mission program.
Not that it has really made any difference in this neck of the woods, but at least they are willing to try new things when the current program isn’t working.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we see something similar happen to the home teaching program. Perhaps they will let bishops decide how to best watch over their flock.
Perhaps something more like what was suggested in #12. This has more of a Ward Mission feel to it than the current system.
Kim,
I guess I was fortunate in that I never had a problem with getting them to keep their appointments for PPIs. Also, a phone call to remind them on the day of the PPI seemed to be quite effective.
As far as my release, there was nothing “unfortunate” about the release except that it took me the whole 3 years that I was the EQ pres to finally feel like I had it somewhat figured out. I was released as the EQ pres so I could be given a different calling (YM presidency & Scout Master).
Clark
You prove my point exactly. If you wanted to go hometeaching you would go. Excuses are easy to find for anything. If it was important enough to you, if your home teaching families were important to you, in spite of all you have to do, you would go.
Realise, I am not condemning you, just pointing out an important factor. Home teaching, visiting teaching, they aren’t easy, but they do require commitment. Not a lot. But enough to care about the families and sisters you are visiting, to make the effort to see them for a brief period, at least once a month.
Mary,
What does it take for someone to be committed to going?
When I was just starting out on the priesthood path, it appeared to me that everybody did their home teaching. But somewhere in the last 20 years it has become more and more common for it not to get done. (I was a kid back then, so I didn’t really pay attention or care much, so I could be mistaken) Now I think we have a generation where the young Aaronic priesthood holders arent seeing that. We have a whole new generation where the perception is that home teaching is not getting done. What changed in the last 20 years to make it like this?
What does it take to begin to care about complete strangers? I’m pretty sure it can take time to develop new, caring friendships. We have been in our new ward here in Calgary for just over a year now and we are just starting to develop some frienships. We still don’t have regular home teaching visits. Dispite our efforts to integrate ourselves into the ward, most phone calls we get from members are to try to get my wife to go to the latest candle or tupperware party. They seem really friendly and caring when they want my money. I wonder how much I’ll need to spend until they are willing to be our friends?
“without some level of structure most people (myself included) flail around miserably in trying to act.”
That’s just it. In the last two wards I’ve been in, the priesthood holders (at least the elders) flail around miserably despite having a programme.
“What does it take for someone to be committed to going?”
Christlike love, or at least an attempt in this area.
Kim always does his home teaching. When I was in labour he went home teaching (with number one). It’s a priority for him. He’s not better than anyone else, he just is dedicated to his duty, to the families he visits, and he knows he has a responsibility towards them. Because of this he has developed relationships of trust with the people he visits.
It doesn’t happen overnight, but it takes personal commitment to Jesus Christ. We make serious covenants and when we realise the importance of KEEPING these covenants we understand that possibly home and visiting teaching are the most important of these at all. They are the opportunity, more than any other calling, to develop Christlike love for our neighbours.
Being a home or visiting teacher isn’t something we do for ourselves. We all have people on our lists (or have had) who take. But part of developing Christlike love is not judging their reasons. Not worrying about it. Your responsibility isn’t WHY they call you, your responsibility is to be their home teacher. No, that doesn’t mean being taken advantage of and buying all their tupperware, etc (people still have tupperware parties???) but it means being their home teacher. Helping them with their real needs, visiting them regulaly, if possible sharing a message for them. When they really need you (in a crisis) they will know they can call on you. If they need a blessing, they will know who to call. This is what the Saviour asks of us.
I would submit that more needs to happen than just Christ like love.
There are many people of other faiths that have Christlike love for their fellow man. None of them are involved in the Home Teaching Program, but still show love for their neighbors and community without the need for a formalized church program.
Christlike love alone isn’t enough.
JM
But I am willing to bet that if they did, they would do their home teaching.
You don’t think it is enough? So are you saying Christ wouldn’t do His home teaching? I beg to differ. When we have TRUE Christlike love we want to be like Him, we love like Him. Very few people in this world have Christlike love. Very few. I am talking about the real thing, not just loving your neighbour as far as ability allows.
I have a hard time making it through church every sunday. I rarely go to sunday school or priesthood opening exercises and often show up late for sacrament meeting or find excuses to duck out early. I have an aversion to the temple. I can’t stand it when anyone from the ward calls me for any reason. In short, I’m not naturally a very loving person. I prefere not to be bothered by other people and I especially prefere not to be bothered by church activities.
That said, I get my home teaching done.
“So are you saying Christ wouldn’t do His home teaching?”
Actually, he didn’t, did he? Home Teaching didn’t even exist during his mortal life.
“Very few people in this world have Christlike love. Very few. I am talking about the real thing, not just loving your neighbour as far as ability allows. ”
While it is true that very few people have Christlike love, that wasn’t the requirement you gave. You said at least an attempt in this area.
I think you are confusing Home Teaching (a program) with the doctrine to “Watch over, be with, and strengthen.”
They are two different things.
Programs come and go. It’s the gospel doctrines and principles that are everlasting.
I believe it was Monson who said in the church we have undergirding principles that serve as the foundation of everything we do and overarching objectives of things we want to accomplish. We accomplish those objectives through the wise implementation of programs.
Home teaching is a program that helps accomplish the over arching objective of taking care of the spiritual and temporal welfare of the members of the church. This objective is supported by the undergirding doctrine of the priesthood holders duty to watch over, be with, and strengthen.
If the program is no longer accomplishing the objective, then either the program is fundamentally flawed or, it is not being wisely implemented.
Personally, I think it’s the latter. I believe priesthood leaders in general have lost site of the principle and purpose, and their implementation stinks. But to solve the problem we may need to throw out the program and start from scratch.
Why do you do it Jack?
“Actually, he didn’t, did he? Home Teaching didn’t even exist during his mortal life.”
I didn’t say He did or that it did exist. But if it did, He would have.
Right now, we are required to do home teaching and visiting teaching. As flawed as this is, it is required of us. Personally, I don’t see the big deal about it. It’s not a hardship to visit someone once a month at the very least. Whether the programme is working or not, doesn’t mean that this isn’t required of us. If we can’t follow the counsel of our leaders in something as simple as this, then what hope is there for the bigger things?
“But if it did, He would have.”
I tend to disagree here as well. We have ample evidence of Christ not adhearing to the rules and regulations set forth by the presiding authority of his day. He frequently spoke out about programs and practices that had lost all meaning because the original principle had been lost, and the program became the law for the sake of the law alone.
Christ frequently was re-directing the people around him to re-examine what they were doing and why they were doing it. He was always teaching the basic gospel principles and trying to help people be converted to that rather than a silly tradition, law, custom, or program that was broken and lost all meaning.
I’m no authority to speak on his behalf, but I just can’t imagine Christ restricting himself to the limits of the home teaching program. I doubt he would just read from the first presidency message. I doubt he would ony ask “Is there anything we can do for you this month?” I doubt he would only show up once a month, just so he could report good numbers.
I can envision him constantly being concerned about the spiritual and temporal welfare of everyone around him. I can imagine him spending days and days visiting as many people as he could, teaching them doctrines they need to hear. I can see him not waiting to be asked for help, but searching out oppotruinities to heal and comfort. I see what he would do as much, much more than the Home Teaching program.
Then why does He ask us to do it? Yes, I know, you are going to say “He didn’t ask us”, but I “tend to disagree with you on this point”. He asks us to follow the counsel of the leaders of the church, and this, right now is the counsel of of leaders. This IS His church. He set it up and right now we are asked to go home teaching and visiting teaching. What He rebelled against wasn’t set up by His Church.
Actually Mary, I completely agree with you on this point. I am all for doing His program the way He intended it to be done.
My issue is that it’s not being run the way he intended by many of our local leaders. Rarely have I seen the home teaching program implemented correctly on a local level. For it to work, the program needs to be implemented 100% correctly by the priesthood leaders. If it isn’t, it just won’t work as intended.
My frustration comes in working with priesthood leaders who do not care about running the program as the Lord intended. Almost all of the time, it becomes a system that focuses on statistics, not families.
We spend so many hours debating what “Counts” as a visit that we don’t concern ourselves with the people being visited.
We have bishops who do not want a report on the spiritual and temporal welfare of the families getting visited. All they want is a high percentage number.
On a macro level, our LDS culture has lost the purpose and meaning of the Home Teaching visit. All that matters is the quarterly report. I have heard many times “Bretheren, this is our reporting month, so make an extra effort to get your home teaching done” followed by offers from the presidencies to help us get it done if we are having any problems. All so the report will look good.
On the micro level, I have no doubt that there are several select cases where Home Teachers do a lot of good and understand the principle. They are converted to the doctrine and Home Teach because they love the Lord and want to serve.
But I seriously think we need to look at why it is failing so badly. Why our leaders are so concerned with statistics and not people.
D.H.Oaks said that when about the Lords business and accomplishing His purposes, it is not enough to get a good result. It must be done the right way.
With that in mind, we need to take a real long, hard look at how we are implementing the Home Teaching program.
JM,
Because I said I would.
That’s admirable Jack. I wish I had you as my home teacher!
“I’m no authority to speak on his behalf, but I just can’t imagine Christ restricting himself to the limits of the home teaching program. I doubt he would just read from the first presidency message. I doubt he would ony ask “Is there anything we can do for you this month?†I doubt he would only show up once a month, just so he could report good numbers.”
Ahhh…but those are not limitations of the programme.
Nowhere does it say we must only share a message from the first Presidency Message; nowhere does it say we cannot visit more often than once a month; nowhere does it say we can only ask if there’s anything we can do for them this month?
Those are basic requirements (o perhaps cultural practices), and as such end up often begin the only thing that gets done.
“When I was in labour he went home teaching (with number one).”
Technically, I was on splits with the missionaries.
JM,
You might be disappointed. ;)
“My issue is that it’s not being run the way he intended by many of our local leaders.”
Yes, I agree with that. But I suppose it’s the effects of letting us govern ourselves.
I agree with your other points too.
“Ahhh…but those are not limitations of the programme.”
Kim, they are the limitations of the program that is preached and practiced in the wards I have been in. Even when I was EQP, I was constantly being asked to “Get with the program” by the Bishop and SP. As far as I’m concerned, if this is what we teach, then this is what the program is / has become.
As you alluded to, we are generally a people who strive to do the minimum.
Then there is more than one programme. IMO, there is only one programme, though I have seen it implemented differently.
JM
Re:#33
Keep in mind that it wasn’t necessary for Him to ‘home teaching’.
The program is in place to make sure that people don’t fall through the cracks and lose their faith. I like so much of what you talk about the principles and the doctrine. I am of the opinion that many are like my friend Jack who find it difficult to go to Church, or to participate in Church activities.
This dilemma, in my mind, is because of the culture that has developed over the years that tends to isolate members and make them feel unworthy. This because programs and management have become more important than the individual member or his family.
All of which is contrary to doctrine.
When people have been made to feel unworthy because they didn’t fulfill some management task, we have lost the vision. We can’t bear one another’s burdens if the concern is only one sided, and that only because of a program.
When we come to realize, as Joseph F. Smith stated, that the majority of Latter-Day Saints are going to the Celestial Kingdom, then we can appreciate each other for our differences – and get on with loving each other and genuinely caring.
The more positive the message, the more positive the response.
Back to the Saviour – He didn’t need to do home teaching (I’m not sure it wasn’t a program back then too) because He had a fulness and knew all, so He didn’t need to check.
This is mortality. We are here for a very short period of time (speaking in eternal terms), but with the wrong message it can seem like eternity.
Larry,
I agree with the reasons you put forth regarding the Savior not needing to home teach.
But in Mary’s hypothetical, I believe she was trying to determine what type of Home Teacher he would have been had it been necessary for him to be one.
I agree with you that your description of the LDS culture is a major factor to many of the problems we experience, including Home Teaching.
Kim,
I don’t know about you, but when I read the handbook regarding home teaching, there is only one way to implement the program. It doesn’t leave any room for interpretation as far as I can remember.
Thus, if it’s not being done correctly, it’s a different, man made program.
Right, and that same handbook does not say you cannot visit more than once per month or that you cannot share a message other than from the First Presidency message.