New Program Fatigue in the Church

Stephen C

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I had a friend who worked in the COB (usually this sentence leads to some bologna rumor or another, but in this case I trust it, but to you readers it’s a standard friend-of-a-friend rumor which may or may not be true) that mentioned how a new program would roll out and get hyped up by middle and upper management, and then it would eventually peter out only to get replaced by another one. 

The Church’s growth is slowing down significantly in the developed world to the point to where at best you can say we’re treading water (but Stephen, what about the increasing number of stakes? For the umpteenth time, population momentum). When the numbers aren’t going in the right direction for fairly fundamental, demographic reasons, there’s a temptation to lash around trying to find a magical pill in some new program or another, but the factors feeding into these trends are deeper undercurrents that are often untouched by surface-level new programming. 

We see this all the time in missions, where they can double baptisms if they do this One Weird Trick being promoted. And then missionaries misattribute success levels or lack thereof to the five steps of missionary success (or the lack of following through with it) more than, say, the mix of secularized versus secularizing populations, which probably explains 90% of the variation in missionary success around the world. 

Maybe it’s the republican in me speaking, but I suspect policy particulars have less of an impact on the top line than we sometimes think. (With a few exceptions, the “all young men should serve a mission” being an obvious case, and I would be surprised if changing the missionary age didn’t meaningfully change 18-20 year old retention rates). 

While policy changes may incur higher viewership and attention than a talk about the atonement, the details of the former are typically ephemeral and passing. For example, I suspect all of President Holland’s policy influences won’t be as meaningful in the end as his once-a-century talks he somehow managed to give every year or so. 

That’s not to say that programs don’t work or shouldn’t be hyped up in rare cases, but for a program to work you need to settle on it for a while. It’s not enough to simply roll it out with an early bang. It requires follow-up, and discipline to sit on it for a while without having it be quickly replaced by the next flashy thing. On some level, most people want a legacy from their work, and I would be surprised if this wasn’t a temptation that affected people at all levels of the Church (or any) hierarchy. (I’ve talked about similar concerns in relation to overbuilding temples here). It’s human nature, and we’re all human. An easy way to have a legacy is to be the guy that comes up with program X, but there’s less renown that comes with the discipline of being the person who followed through with decisions that were made and connected to other people instead of scrapping it and redoing everything every time there’s a leadership shift. 

This may seem like vague posting and readers may be trying to suss out a criticism I have of a particular policy or person or another, but I really don’t have strong opinion on ministering vs home teaching versus this or that particular. I really am speaking to a general principle here.

Comments

4 responses to “New Program Fatigue in the Church”

  1. REC911

    The church leadership is all about new programs and catch phrases as the members eat it up. Pres Nelson was a “build a legacy” leader. Nelson was also a “go do this” leader and not a “do you think we should” leader. All human nature and fine and I am sure he (Nelson) felt good about his changes.

    It was my mission, 100 years ago, that I found out that the church was into “programs” to get baptisms. We had what we called “The 14 day Miracle Program.” Meet to baptism in 14 days. The investigator had to attend church once and get all 7 (?) lessons to be baptized in those 14 days. I believed they used the word “miracle” as it was one if they stayed active.

    I have seen countless mission gimmicks oops programs since then and there will be lots more. There is a mission (foreign) right now that requires investigators to attend church 9 times before they can be baptized. No idea if this is HQ policy or local well-meaning leaders. I chuckle at 9. Why not 8 or 10? I hear they do it to help these converts stay active. It must be going well as they had the police visit last sunday to break up a fight between members. (I am not making this up)

    I remember the general conference where a well meaning (I think) apostle who was introducing a new program called “Preach My Gospel” was throwing the “memorized lessons” way of doing things under the bus. At that change, the church went from knowing exactly what the investigator was being taught to not knowing what they were being taught. The new way was awful at first as the youth didn’t know how to teach in their own words! Raise the bar was the new program which included having youth teach classes before they left. I think it works pretty good now after all these years.

    One last comment….anyone else remember that Pres Nelson was teasing a new program that was going to involve “all” the members in the “next GC” only to have covid happen and nothing came from it?? Or am I making this up….?

  2. Adam F

    I hope that we as a church are finally cresting with respect to trying to incorporate corporate strategies into a religious effort – just to further riff on the mission anecdotes, beyond setting numerical goals regarding contacting as a shorthand way to help missionaries get out of their shell, I am glad that by and large no mission seems to be pushing baptism numerical goals on the companionship level anymore. Or perhaps I’m crazy and that is still common – but to my knowledge, it seems to be blanket policy to not set goals over things that are well within others’ agency, and choosing to get baptized is certainly that!

    I served my mission in Europe, and a very secularized country at that, so the changes overall come as no surprise to me. I didn’t baptize a single person, yet I still prize my mission as such a wonderful, focused experience. To me the closest to that is the temple, where people are all generally there for similar reasons so the unity of focus feels similar. We never taught the lessons verbatim even with the pre-Preach my Gospel days (it rolled out halfway or later in my mission). We were encouraged to memorize the lessons, but that was so that we would at least have that level of language to draw on!

    I really do feel like the best “program” is to try to help each member the best we can, and let the consequences follow. But I am also very much personality-wise the kind of person who would (1) hate to push a book of mormon on someone in a cab, and (2) would hate to be the recipient of that kind of push – I wouldn’t trust it! I very much need to know that the person trying to proselyte me (aka trying to sell me something) is a trusted person I know already, and especially know or can glean their ultimate intentions.

  3. Chad Nielsen

    In a previous ward, the bishipbric was sincerely trying to implement and follow through with new programs and initiatives, but it felt like they were becoming consumed by that preoccupation at the expense of basic spiritual needs. They told speakers to focus on whatever the latest and greatest program was each week, and sacrament meetings in the ward started feeling like a never-ending series of sales pitches and testimonials for programs. I stopped feeling like I was getting anything out of the meetings, since they were worshipping the programs of the Church instead of anything deeper.

  4. Stephen Fleming

    This reminds me of a short conversation I had while bishop with a man who’d been my first counselor, but because he’d served in so many bishoprics (I didn’t know that because I’d only been in the ward 5 months when they called me as bishop) the SP made me promise I’d release him after 1.5 years. I released him after 9 months so I felt ahead of schedule.

    This conversation was probably just a little before the pandemic so at a time when there were lots of big changes at the beginning of President Nelson’s presidency. These were presented as continuing revelation and accompanied by the phrase “the Restoration is ongoing.”

    Anyway, in the hall, the former 1c pulled me aside and said a little under his breath as though this was a point he’d been musing on. “Do you think that if the leaders claim revelation for so many thing, then the members might …” I then filled in what I thought he was getting at, “We’ll get ‘revelation fatigue’?” “Yeah,” he said.

    He dropped out during the pandemic. Maybe I called him into one too many bishoprics. :(

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