Comments on: Purposes of the Aaronic Priesthood

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:00:52 +0000

good stuff ,bishop prasad ,,australia the church is true

By: ltbugaf

ltbugaf — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:45:36 +0000

Maybe there was no "theme" to state at the beginning of our meetings, but our Scout troop nearly always began by reciting the Scout Oath, the Scout Law, or both.

By: Mary Siever

Mary Siever — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:55:33 +0000

Kirk

No thread is dead as long as a comment comes up.

Sounds like you had great YM leaders, and what a blessing that was in your life and the other young men. I hope my sons have the same experiences too.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 14:37:03 +0000

this is probably a dead link since nobody has posted in over a month, but I feel the need to add my two cents. None of the comments I read on the topic started out with the simple words or idea “when I was a kid in the young men’s program we did…” So let me start. When I was growing up in the church and active in scouts, young men and any other activity I could find, somehow I always managed to gravitate to the young men’s program and the scouting part of it. There was no theme to state at the start of priesthood meeting, but looking back we seemed to center what we did around those ideas. We occasionally did activities that included rifle shooting (got the merit badge to prove it), hiking and a rough game of midnight commando, and a lot of other things to entertain us kids. And guess what, we reported on our activities all the time for one reason only…to try to get those who didn’t show up regularly to show up and to encourage those who showed up at church on sunday but not for scouts to come along. every activity we had, regardless of location or function, started and ended with a prayer, related to some aspect of the gospel in some way (fellowship, preparedness, faith, teamwork (ever try running an elders quorum without knowing how to use the quorum as a team with a specific goal). We didn’t always feel we had to be doing something fun to make it worth while, but occasionally it was a nice change of pace. My YM leader always taught us on the youth committee to plan with a purpose…and the purposes had to be gospel oriented. I would say it worked pretty well in our ward. In the end, we were not forced to follow the gospel, we were loved into the gospel by family with leaders who obviously loved us too. Of the 15 kids who were in my age group traveling through the YM program, 12 are Eagle scouts, all but me served a mission (joined the navy instead), all are sealed in the temple and still married with growing families and many now have kids who are Eagle scouts and/or have kids on missions ourselves. Probably more importantly for this discussion, when ever I manage to make it back home, the first person on my list of people I want to visit, after I get reaquainted with my own family, is my old YM president. In my mind, that’s the kind of YM president I would want to be. And sometimes, you can’t always have that kind of influence sitting in a classroom reading the gospel doctrine manual. Teach a kid a real life skill that will help him grow physically, mentally, and spiritually, and you will have accomplished a great thing.

By: tortdog

tortdog — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:35:15 +0000

Great topic. Thanks for the ideas. This issue has come up in our own stake, and we are pushing to have the recitation shelved to allow more time for quorum instruction (less time in opening exercises). We also are trying to instruct the leaders that there are better things for youth to memorize than these purposes.

By: rick (not the OT poster)

rick (not the OT poster) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 04:00:10 +0000

I'm certainly against paintball it's very violent. I'm a firm believer in jesus, and I think LAN parties help these people come together, and put more love into their souls.

How is a LAN party bad? well, it condones violence and thats just not good, BUT, the bond that people can share getting together for an activity is great for missionary work, keep up the good work and god bless.

By: YMLeader

YMLeader — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:18:22 +0000

From the Guide to Safe Scouting list of Prohibited activities:

Pointing any type of firearm (including paintball, dye or lasers) at any individual; however, law enforcement officials may use in training agenda with proper safety equipment in Law Enforcement Venturing program

By: YMLeader

YMLeader — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:20:29 +0000

I think that it is also important to point out the following:

1) Paint-balling is not an approved activity as per Church guidelines.

2) LAN parties involve the use of copyrighted software (specifically Video Games) and the playing of video games is not an appropriate activity, since the copyright of the game does not allow you to gather in a group and have everyone playing, unless each person in the room owns his/her own copy of the game. This is also true of showing movies, which when shown in an official group setting is a violation of the copyright agreement of commercially produced movies.

The Church council is to simply stay away from situations where you might be violating copyright. Even if you are not likely to be caught, you are still breaking the law.

By: Kim Siever

Kim Siever — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 22:33:29 +0000

Thanks for the quote and the link, dad25.

By: dad25

dad25 — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:00:40 +0000

Concerning the idea of reciting the AP purposes, here is a comment from Pres. Dahlquist:

"I have noticed as I have visited many Aaronic Priesthood quorums that it has become a pattern to recite the purposes of the Aaronic Priesthood, much the same as the young women recite their theme. While the reason for doing so is noble, these purposes were never meant to be recited but were compiled solely to help us, as leaders of youth, plan lessons and activities that would help to accomplish those purposes."

The entire article is well worth reading:

â€œLet No Man Despise Thy Youthâ€

Young Men Open House, Spring 2006, Charles W. Dahlquist, II

http://www.lds.org/pa/display/0,17884,6622-1,00.html