Elder Bednar Wishes We Would Get Rid of the Word “Meeting” And I Agree
The following is a really interesting excerpt from a 2010 Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting panel discussion. I really like Elder Bednar for his very clear approach to gospel doctrines and efforts to force out useless traditions from the Church while he reorients us to a higher standard.
The challenge is to take his words and figure out how to apply them in our individual situations.
“If I had the wish of my heart, I would remove from the vocabulary of the Latter-day Saints the word meeting.
“We have not been talking about a ward council meeting. We’ve been talking about a revelatory experience with the members of the ward council. And if members of councils, if members of families, as they come together, would think in terms of “I’m preparing to participate in a revelatory experience with my family” instead of going to a meeting—a revelatory experience with the members of the ward council—I think we would prepare and act much differently.
“In these latter days, given the forces of the adversary and the darkness, no one person in the family and no one person in a ward is going to be the conduit through which all of the answers come.” (Excerpt from a panel discussion, 2010 Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting, 2010, emphasis added)
What do you think?
- How can we make our “meetings” revelatory experiences?
- How can we make our Family Home Evenings revelatory experiences?
I’ve always loved these comments from Elder Bednar. These ideas first became apparent to me in reading Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling, as he laid out how the restored church is built on the back of councils. These were far more obvious and apparent in the earlier days of the restoration, but we still have these principles in play. Conferences and councils, in the era of Joseph Smith, were highly revelatory. Much of our Doctrine and Covenants resulted from these meetings. I think returning them to the prominence they once had could go a long way to changing the nature of our meetings.
With that in mind, I think the ultimate way to make these meetings into revelatory experiences is to take the admonitions and guidelines from the D&C a *lot* more seriously.
Great perspective. The good news is that we can bring it back if we follow the principles.