One Month Down. 59 To Go.
Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2021 12:29 pm
tl;dr - Being a bishop is weird.
Scheduling Holy crap Sundays are busy! I thought they were bad as a counselor, but man. It is go-go-go from 7:30am to 6:30pm and I sometimes have more phone calls after that.
Counselors. One of them wants to be bishop. He lives to climb the church hierarchy, and I think he was a little sad to be called as a counselor rather than bishop himself. He's great at reminding me of upcoming events that need planning or some amount of forethought. For that alone I'm glad to have him. It also helps out that he's almost eager to take on nearly anything I don't absolutely have to do myself since it is giving him a better taste of being bishop. Ambitions aside, he is an honest friend and he and his family are very well liked by most of the ward.
My other counselor is completely new to the church leadership thing. He is much more humble, and I suspect he's still trying to really feel like he belongs. He's been happy to help with whatever is asked, but is also happy to sit in the backseat and doesn't really care who is driving so long as it isn't him.
All in all, I'm glad I picked them. I don't have to find speakers, have only conducted sac. meeting once, and they've been pretty supportive of my proposed sacrament topics being core values rather than scriptural references or GC talks.
Stake Leadership Our stake decided to resume in person meetings with no restriction ins May. Our ward council decided to take advantage of being the last ward in the building on Sunday and have a "linger-longer" type activity. To be COVID safe it was going to be outdoors and each family was responsible for bringing their own food. But the stake killed that idea after we announced it to everyone. Apparently eating together isn't safe enough, and extra meetings on Sunday put too much strain on families. Meanwhile, the stake is serving indoor refreshments at most of their youth activities and planning stake conference meetings that take up not one full weekend, but two.
But whatever. I told the ward council that the stake said we had to cancel our plans. Much murmuring ensued.
Supporting Members We have several single mothers in our ward who are at least temporarily dependent on fast offering support. Previous bishop was very generous supporting single mothers and I will continue that trend. I am just surprised at how badly church teachings have set up women to deal with future divorce/separation or death of a spouse. When education is cut short in the name of early marriage and large families it is a recipe for disaster for those statistically significant numbers of families who don't have their imagined (and promised) happily-ever-after.
As the church has played a large hand in creating a lot of struggles for people I have also been more than happy to pay for therapy sessions for people/couples who are struggling. In my view, it is the least the church can do for creating so many of these toxic circumstances in the first place.
Youth / Young Men I really enjoy working with the youth. We had a chess tournament last week that turned out to be way more popular than I originally thought it would be. The highlight of the night was when one of the 16 year old boys lost his queen to the other players bishop and responded by yelling out "Gah! That STUPID bishop!" One of the quieter young men sitting nearby loudly whispered back "Dude, quiet. He's standing right there!" and gestured toward me. Much laughter ensued.
Heads up for anyone with youth in the church. June 13th is a lesson on avoiding pornography. I will be teaching the YM and have asked the YW president to also teach the YW from this plan...
https://www.danielaburgess.com/blog/202 ... ornography
which was created by Dr. Daniel Burgess, an actual real therapist with actual real work experience not breaking people by telling them they've already committed adultery thousands of times in their hearts.
Teaching I had to teach the 5th Sunday lesson this past weekend. It took a great deal of prep work on my end, but I think it worked out. The topic was on unity. I read a few scriptures from the New Testament, and then shared a bunch of content from actual real therapists on dealing with differences of opinion or conflict, and developing empathy. We even briefly talked about cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. It was great. The only "testimony" I shared was how great it was to see ward members accept, support, and serve each other.
Eye Opening Conversations This was actually Mrs. Græy's experience, but I'll share anyway. She has two good friends, both members of the church. The three of them first developed their friendships when Mrs. Græy was primary president and they were her counselors. One has since moved to another ward, but the three of them still try to get together for birthdays, or girl's nights out.
A few days ago the three of them went out to dinner and the subject of my being made bishop came up. They both asked DW about the story and DW, for whatever reason, felt this was the time she wanted to completely honest about our entire situation. She has to this point in time not spoken to anyone about my lack of belief in the church.
She told them how I'd delved into church history years ago, and had a good deal of struggle while being a bishop's counselor and EQP. She told them that we were not expecting the call to be a bishop, but actually thought I was going to be chastised and/or released. When the stake president's response was simply "Church history is something I haven't had to reconcile." we were both completely shocked. DW told them how I went back and forth for days about if I felt okay accepting this call, or if doing so would just made me a hypocrite. She even went so far as to tell them to listen to what I say when I speak at the pulpit. She pointed out that I never speak about Joseph Smith and I rarely ever say anything about modern leaders or Q12, unless I need to say their name to announce an upcoming broadcast.
Apparently, at this point, one of the two friends broke down into full-on sobbing tears in the middle of the restaurant, but was refusing to explain why. Mrs. Græy was really starting to think she'd screwed up by sharing everything. But then the 2nd friend then started talking about how her own husband (who appears fully active from the outside) is also either extremely nuanced, or outright denies the church restoration. In her particular case, he still attends and goes through all the motions to support his wife and family, but they NEVER actually talk about it. It just isn't something they can bring up without arguing. Friend 2 then suggested that their family would start looking for houses within our ward.
Once friend 2 finished her story, friend 1 finally calmed down enough to say that she herself has struggled with church history, mostly polygamy, for her entire adult life. Her own husband refuses to engage in any discussion about church history with her and so she has simply kept it all to herself for nearly a decade. Later on in the car with just the two of them, friend 1 told DW that over the years while she has been in multiple presidencies and on the ward council herself, she has felt trapped and scared to ask about or discuss her concerns with anyone. But when she learned about my stance, she finally felt like someone might be at least willing to listen without condemning her.
Mrs. Græy sent both of her friends a link to David Ostler's book Bridges, and a link to the Marriage on a Tightrope podcast. As for what impact that conversation had on Mrs. Græy, I'm still trying to unravel that.
So, good times. Mostly. Some frustrating moments for sure.
Scheduling Holy crap Sundays are busy! I thought they were bad as a counselor, but man. It is go-go-go from 7:30am to 6:30pm and I sometimes have more phone calls after that.
Counselors. One of them wants to be bishop. He lives to climb the church hierarchy, and I think he was a little sad to be called as a counselor rather than bishop himself. He's great at reminding me of upcoming events that need planning or some amount of forethought. For that alone I'm glad to have him. It also helps out that he's almost eager to take on nearly anything I don't absolutely have to do myself since it is giving him a better taste of being bishop. Ambitions aside, he is an honest friend and he and his family are very well liked by most of the ward.
My other counselor is completely new to the church leadership thing. He is much more humble, and I suspect he's still trying to really feel like he belongs. He's been happy to help with whatever is asked, but is also happy to sit in the backseat and doesn't really care who is driving so long as it isn't him.
All in all, I'm glad I picked them. I don't have to find speakers, have only conducted sac. meeting once, and they've been pretty supportive of my proposed sacrament topics being core values rather than scriptural references or GC talks.
Stake Leadership Our stake decided to resume in person meetings with no restriction ins May. Our ward council decided to take advantage of being the last ward in the building on Sunday and have a "linger-longer" type activity. To be COVID safe it was going to be outdoors and each family was responsible for bringing their own food. But the stake killed that idea after we announced it to everyone. Apparently eating together isn't safe enough, and extra meetings on Sunday put too much strain on families. Meanwhile, the stake is serving indoor refreshments at most of their youth activities and planning stake conference meetings that take up not one full weekend, but two.
But whatever. I told the ward council that the stake said we had to cancel our plans. Much murmuring ensued.
Supporting Members We have several single mothers in our ward who are at least temporarily dependent on fast offering support. Previous bishop was very generous supporting single mothers and I will continue that trend. I am just surprised at how badly church teachings have set up women to deal with future divorce/separation or death of a spouse. When education is cut short in the name of early marriage and large families it is a recipe for disaster for those statistically significant numbers of families who don't have their imagined (and promised) happily-ever-after.
As the church has played a large hand in creating a lot of struggles for people I have also been more than happy to pay for therapy sessions for people/couples who are struggling. In my view, it is the least the church can do for creating so many of these toxic circumstances in the first place.
Youth / Young Men I really enjoy working with the youth. We had a chess tournament last week that turned out to be way more popular than I originally thought it would be. The highlight of the night was when one of the 16 year old boys lost his queen to the other players bishop and responded by yelling out "Gah! That STUPID bishop!" One of the quieter young men sitting nearby loudly whispered back "Dude, quiet. He's standing right there!" and gestured toward me. Much laughter ensued.
Heads up for anyone with youth in the church. June 13th is a lesson on avoiding pornography. I will be teaching the YM and have asked the YW president to also teach the YW from this plan...
https://www.danielaburgess.com/blog/202 ... ornography
which was created by Dr. Daniel Burgess, an actual real therapist with actual real work experience not breaking people by telling them they've already committed adultery thousands of times in their hearts.
Teaching I had to teach the 5th Sunday lesson this past weekend. It took a great deal of prep work on my end, but I think it worked out. The topic was on unity. I read a few scriptures from the New Testament, and then shared a bunch of content from actual real therapists on dealing with differences of opinion or conflict, and developing empathy. We even briefly talked about cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. It was great. The only "testimony" I shared was how great it was to see ward members accept, support, and serve each other.
Eye Opening Conversations This was actually Mrs. Græy's experience, but I'll share anyway. She has two good friends, both members of the church. The three of them first developed their friendships when Mrs. Græy was primary president and they were her counselors. One has since moved to another ward, but the three of them still try to get together for birthdays, or girl's nights out.
A few days ago the three of them went out to dinner and the subject of my being made bishop came up. They both asked DW about the story and DW, for whatever reason, felt this was the time she wanted to completely honest about our entire situation. She has to this point in time not spoken to anyone about my lack of belief in the church.
She told them how I'd delved into church history years ago, and had a good deal of struggle while being a bishop's counselor and EQP. She told them that we were not expecting the call to be a bishop, but actually thought I was going to be chastised and/or released. When the stake president's response was simply "Church history is something I haven't had to reconcile." we were both completely shocked. DW told them how I went back and forth for days about if I felt okay accepting this call, or if doing so would just made me a hypocrite. She even went so far as to tell them to listen to what I say when I speak at the pulpit. She pointed out that I never speak about Joseph Smith and I rarely ever say anything about modern leaders or Q12, unless I need to say their name to announce an upcoming broadcast.
Apparently, at this point, one of the two friends broke down into full-on sobbing tears in the middle of the restaurant, but was refusing to explain why. Mrs. Græy was really starting to think she'd screwed up by sharing everything. But then the 2nd friend then started talking about how her own husband (who appears fully active from the outside) is also either extremely nuanced, or outright denies the church restoration. In her particular case, he still attends and goes through all the motions to support his wife and family, but they NEVER actually talk about it. It just isn't something they can bring up without arguing. Friend 2 then suggested that their family would start looking for houses within our ward.
Once friend 2 finished her story, friend 1 finally calmed down enough to say that she herself has struggled with church history, mostly polygamy, for her entire adult life. Her own husband refuses to engage in any discussion about church history with her and so she has simply kept it all to herself for nearly a decade. Later on in the car with just the two of them, friend 1 told DW that over the years while she has been in multiple presidencies and on the ward council herself, she has felt trapped and scared to ask about or discuss her concerns with anyone. But when she learned about my stance, she finally felt like someone might be at least willing to listen without condemning her.
Mrs. Græy sent both of her friends a link to David Ostler's book Bridges, and a link to the Marriage on a Tightrope podcast. As for what impact that conversation had on Mrs. Græy, I'm still trying to unravel that.
So, good times. Mostly. Some frustrating moments for sure.
)
pin.