Do over sacrament prayers..

[20/20hind]

The bishop made a kid in the ward who has down syndrome, say it 3 times today because of not getting it perfect. I felt so bad for that kid. This church is just ridiculous.

[Reuben]

Yes. Yes, it is.

I've heard this policy was supposed to have changed recently. Anyone have details or rebuttal?

[Give It Time]

I don't know, but my extremely learning disabled son had to do it five times.

[moksha]

We had a guy finally get it right (or close enough) on his sixth try. It was painful to behold, but I suspect there have been even more tries and misses in the quest for the exact Sacrament Prayer wording. Remember, it is not the intent of the prayer that counts, but rather the undeviating word order combined with a white shirt and tie.

[Give It Time]

We had a guy finally get it right (or close enough) on his sixth try. It was painful to behold, but I suspect there have been even more tries and misses in the quest for the exact Sacrament Prayer wording. Remember, it is not the intent of the prayer that counts, but rather the undeviating word order combined with a white shirt and tie.

Yes. Hair doesn't seem to matter. If his hair falls in his face while he's breaking the bread and he pauses for a moment to sweep his hair back with his hands and then goes right back to breaking bread, then that is fine.

Advocate of the man-bun, the man half-up-do and the man barettes during any and all food prep. Don't care how recommend worthy you are. There are health codes, people.

[RubinHighlander]

I've sat through so many uncomfortable sac prayers! This public humiliation of youth seems to fall in line with the church's theme of "Stay on the path, be obedient to your leaders or you too will be shamed." I believe that the local leaders and their pretend priesthood power and misogynistic authority cause more emotional and mental damage that anything else in the church.

[Dravin]

What gets me the more I think about it is the idea of a god who will sit there tapping his foot refusing to grant his acceptance of an action because a nervous youth transposed a word or used a synonym. The idea that ordinances have to be performed exactly word for word is just such magical thinking, 'It's LeviOsa, not LevioSA. The spell won't work unless you say the incantation correctly!'

[Palerider]

Hate to keep harping on this but this is the expected fruit that grows out of a legalistic and works based doctrine.....if you're looking for a little Grace in the LDS organization that's exactly what you're going to find....very little.

"The beatings will continue until moral improves."

[MoPag]

The bishop made a kid in the ward who has down syndrome, say it 3 times today because of not getting it perfect. I felt so bad for that kid. This church is just ridiculous.

That is f@#%ed up!

[Anon70]

When I was a kid I asked about how come we mocked Catholics for their rote prayers but ours were ok? My dad did some fancy apologetics around "ordinances" being different but this post validates my view. Agree with Palerider and Dravin.

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

When I was a kid I asked about how come we mocked Catholics for their rote prayers but ours were ok? My dad did some fancy apologetics around "ordinances" being different but this post validates my view. Agree with Palerider and Dravin.

We also mock Catholics for ordinance changes while at the same time making all sorts of changes to temple ordinances.

[Anon70]

When I was a kid I asked about how come we mocked Catholics for their rote prayers but ours were ok? My dad did some fancy apologetics around "ordinances" being different but this post validates my view. Agree with Palerider and Dravin.

We also mock Catholics for ordinance changes while at the same time making all sorts of changes to temple ordinances.

AND the temple is just one huge rote activity! Our most "revered" practice!

[Red Ryder]

I've thought about pulling a prank on the priests by substituting the card they read from with another card where two words are switched around.

Unfortunately I've stopped cleaning the church so I haven't had an opportunity to pull the switcheroo!

[Corsair]

The bishop made a kid in the ward who has down syndrome, say it 3 times today because of not getting it perfect. I felt so bad for that kid. This church is just ridiculous.

This policy is leadership roulette. I was in a priesthood leadership meeting with a visiting Seventy where we were told to never have the priests redo the sacrament prayer more than twice. A few words off will not make the emblems of the sacrament become infernal. More importantly, by the third attempted recitation of the prayer, the congregation is no longer pondering the atonement of Jesus. No, they are instead praying any gods listening that the poor priest stops this colossally awkward situation and says the prayer correctly so the meeting can proceed. it was also emphasized that priests can and should be allowed to practice the prayer out loud in quorum meeting to help mitigate this situation.

[Mormorrisey]

I remember the best leadership meeting I ever attended some years ago, on this very topic. I was bishop, and the SP at the time was a good dude, I still respect him, but he was a stickler for the rules, a real control freak who was livid if you didn't insist on making sure the "ordinances were performed PERFECTLY." For some reason, I really didn't want to go to this meeting, I was just bummed about the whole thing, but I'm glad I went. The GA who came, was HILARIOUS. He told a story about a less active priest he knew finally came to church, and he got him to bless the sacrament. Unbeknownst to the GA, the dude was dyslexic. So he completely miffed the first try, and the second was even worse, so in the GA's mind, between the two versions somehow it came out alright, and they just moved on. I never laughed so hard in a meeting, much to the SP's chagrin. This GA told a couple of other stories about "getting a bunch of tightwad SP's to loosen their britches a little bit" and the poor SP looked like someone stole his lollipop. That meeting kept me going a couple of years, that at least some higher ups in the church weren't authoritarian douchecanoes.

So yes, this is entirely leadership roulette, and the heck with that insensitive bishop. I just pretended I didn't hear anything, especially if the priest was on the spectrum, and we had a couple. What am I going to do, MAKE them do it right? Bag that noise.

[Brent]

Magic misspoke is magic no more.

[Corsair]

Several years ago when I was a full believer I was attending the temple doing proxy sealings. The temple president was actually acting as sealer and we all had a lovely hour of performing ordinances. At the end, he asked if anyone had any questions. As a full believer at the time, I was looking for an insightful question and not something on the road to apostasy.

I asked the temple president, "What is the biggest challenge you face as temple president?" His answer fits the central challenge of this discussion thread. The temple president said that the biggest challenge was getting ordinance workers to use the exact, correct wording for each ordinace every single time. This president wanted exact precision in the words of each ordinance every time. He probably felt similarly when he was a bishop supervising a bunch of teenage priests going over the sacrament prayers.

One advantage of the temple is that it contains rooms for practicing the ordinances. They don't just call a new worker to the veil or initiatory and have them fumble through their first dozen proxy ordinances with that laminated card in hand. Memorization is supported well. I have not seen good training for brand new priests. We wrongly assume that anyone can read that card easily enough. But it has been my experience that this is unrealistic with a new, nervous priest facing a public microphone and an expectant ward.

[Jeffret]

When I was a priest, the bishop directed us in taking one priest quorum meeting and going around and having everyone practice the sacrament prayers a few times. Practice is good, but I'm not sure how helpful this really was.