Ministering vs Home Teaching/Visiting Teaching

[Christianlee]

Has the change to Ministering been successful? Our home teacher used to visit faithfully every month. He is now our minister. We never see him anymore. Any other experiences?

[Rumpelstiltskin]

I'm ignored now just as much as I was before the "revelation" to change home teaching to ministering. The LDS are the world's biggest hypocrites.

[byugraduate]

It is a complete failure. My minister only said Hi to me at church. Nothing else. He was just called as the Bishop.
I haven't visited anyone on my ministering list. We are definitely a Sunday only religion now.

[Christianlee]

I always felt as if home teaching was a form of training for the Aaronic Priesthood. That seems to be missing now as well.

[Telavian]

I did my Home Teaching faithfully every month for a long time. I did always feel though that it was strange to essentially be "assigned a friend". When the church switched to ministering then it was a major switch. I didn't really know what to do. I tried to arrange something with my families but none of them really wanted to do anything at all.

From my experience it was a failure and they really should cancel the whole program altogether. I understand they are meaning well. However assignments like this are a terrible way to do it.

[BuriedTartaria]

It is a complete failure.

This is the same thing I've heard from family in leadership in Utah but we should all be realistic here, PART of this comes from the overall decline of community the United States has experienced.

[Atrasado]

Yeah. It doesn't happen. I was in a ward with nearly 100% home teaching and when we left it I hadn't ever seen our ministers. I don't think anyone goes.

Funny how cynically repackaging something backfires sometimes. Or maybe that's exactly what they intended since it seems like leadership secretly plays for the other team. I hope not.

[Wolfwoman]

Has the change to Ministering been successful? Our home teacher used to visit faithfully every month. He is now our minister. We never see him anymore. Any other experiences?

This is exactly what has happened in my ward, from what I can tell. Seems people didn’t know what to do, so they just don’t do it.

[silverado]

Has the change to Ministering been successful? Our home teacher used to visit faithfully every month. He is now our minister. We never see him anymore. Any other experiences?

This is exactly what has happened in my ward, from what I can tell. Seems people didn’t know what to do, so they just don’t do it.

If they don't know what to do, they can always visit like they did as home teachers. That's what mine does, whoever he is. I didn't hear from him as a home teacher and don't hear from him as a minister.

[Wolfwoman]

Has the change to Ministering been successful? Our home teacher used to visit faithfully every month. He is now our minister. We never see him anymore. Any other experiences?

This is exactly what has happened in my ward, from what I can tell. Seems people didn’t know what to do, so they just don’t do it.

If they don't know what to do, they can always visit like they did as home teachers. That's what mine does, whoever he is. I didn't hear from him as a home teacher and don't hear from him as a minister.

lol that’s basically what I thought too. I thought it was weird when everyone in the ward was like, oh my gosh, I don’t know what to do to minister to people! There’s no lesson or message provided, but it shouldn’t be that hard.

[Ebenezer]

The first thing the change to "ministering" did was destroy the concept of ACTUAL ministering. (Have you noticed that since RMN ascended, the church uses "ministry" a lot more? Example: "Our Dear and Beloved President, even Russel M. Nelson, recently completed his European ministry tour, where he was showered with praise from lowly peasant-members and leaders of central banks alike. He has returned home just in time to throw himself an extravagant birthday party that tithe payers financed, but will not be invited to attend.")

The "Ministering" program is an abject disaster. The church's enthusiastic participation in the Covid hoax made sure members were afraid of each other. In many ways, the church has not recovered from that. But also the old HT program was - at least in Utah County - fatigued and rote. I think most of us were happy to ignore the new "just send the head of the household a meme and that counts" style of home teaching.

If we started participating in real Christ-centered ministering (I know many people who do,) as a people, we might see a glimpse of what we could and should be.

Alas... memes it is.

[thaabit]

I'm in a midsingles ward, so that changes things. We often have 7 households per assignment. In theory, it would be easier to just setup group dinners or game nights, and I've done that and seen it done. But, for the most part nothing is happening. There should be a different program for singles wards. On multiple occasions as EQP I had sisters approach me and ask for different ministers bc their ministers creeped them out. There aren't enough good dudes to go around, sorry.

We had a lesson on ministering last week for ward conference, and it was the main thing I was asked about in a recent temple recommend interview (wasn't prepared for that). Not sure how it is in a family ward, but it's a broken concept for a midsingles ward. Ministering does happen, mostly outside of the formal program. I had some sliver of hope they might revisit the singles program after changes to other programs, but it seems doubling down on midsingles wards is the program for now, and that is also broken.

[BigFootCain]

The first thing the change to "ministering" did was destroy the concept of ACTUAL ministering. (Have you noticed that since RMN ascended, the church uses "ministry" a lot more? Example: "Our Dear and Beloved President, even Russel M. Nelson, recently completed his European ministry tour, where he was showered with praise from lowly peasant-members and leaders of central banks alike. He has returned home just in time to throw himself an extravagant birthday party that tithe payers financed, but will not be invited to attend.")

The "Ministering" program is an abject disaster. The church's enthusiastic participation in the Covid hoax made sure members were afraid of each other. In many ways, the church has not recovered from that. But also the old HT program was - at least in Utah County - fatigued and rote. I think most of us were happy to ignore the new "just send the head of the household a meme and that counts" style of home teaching.

If we started participating in real Christ-centered ministering (I know many people who do,) as a people, we might see a glimpse of what we could and should be.

Alas... memes it is.

I was talking to my wife about this exact thing a few days ago...that we are trying to sound more like mainstream Christianity and have been making the term "ministry" common in the church, when it was rarely used before.

Also, I completely agree that the ministering program has been a complete failure. I never felt pigeon-holed when we did home teaching thinking that I should only reach out to my assigned families. My wife and I followed the promptings of the Spirit and tried to connect with or serve anyone, regardless if they were on our assigned list or not. I recognize that the ministering program was to try to convey the idea that acting in such a way was what was needed, but it was always allowed in the home teaching program. I also just think that there were so many negative feelings about home teaching, and always being lectured about it, that the church was trying to rebrand and get past some of that negativism. Well, I have heard the same BS lectures about ministering so many times that the program has failed on that front as well.

[Niemand]

The one good thing about it is that it wasn't easy to contact people. As for home visits they rarely happen, and didn't before the change.

[Christianlee]

I spent five years as an Elders Quorum President when when I was still a part of the club. Home Teaching was a big deal. It was a big enough deal that I obtained a weekly report about how it was progressing and if someone couldn’t get it done it fell to the Elders Quorum Presidency to make the visit. 100% home teaching was expected by the stake presidency. This was back in the 80s and in my Midwestern ward we sometimes had to travel 30+ miles to make the visit. If a family had a need like a plumbing leak or a car problem it couldn’t afford to fix we found someone qualified to get it done. I could go on. Ministering doesn’t get it done.

[BigT]

We look after our neighbors, regardless of not being “assigned” to. The COVID scam killed home teaching.