Stake Pres recently emailed a copy of his presentation on 'hastening the work' to stake/ward leadership (I'm still on the email list).

Essentially it boils down to the following:

* each ward to hold a ward council where the assigned high councillor will present the very same HTW slides.
* high councillor to also attend a few of the following ward councils to check that things are being implemented
* Bishops to use a 5th Sunday lesson to present the HTW stuff to all ward members
* ward mission leader has to ensure all members are going on splits with the missionaries (ideally one person each day)
* ward council to focus on a list of 5 less actives to target - sending in the missionaries to teach first of all
* as per the direction of the Area Presidency, hold a 'month of invitation' in June & December, whereby members are encouraged to invite their non-member friends/less actives to church
* hold another workshop for members on how to do missionary work and use pass along cards
* make a list of all YSAs in each ward and invite each of them to church

So basically it looks like the only thing that is actually hastening is the amount of busy work & meetings that members will be expected to do. It absolutely is a 'hastening of busy work'.

As a side note, our ward also has 6 full time elders/sisters plus a missionary couple and two areas of the ward have been opened up for particular attention - number of baptisms this year = 0

TSCC wants this surge to sound important so they call it "hastening the work".

I got roped into Stake conference this past weekend and I must have heard the term, "hastening the work", at least 20 times.

Our ward got an extra set of missionaries too, newbies right out of the MTC. The current set that we had didn't have much of a teaching pool at it was, who knows what this extra set will do.

It will be interesting to see what the convert numbers look like in April '14 and '15 to see if this "surge" really moved the needle at all. My guess is that it doesn't do much at all.

It would be interesting if all the extra sales push ended-up with more inactives leaving rather than being activated. That's all the push I'd need to "get out of Dodge". But, of course, negative results will NEVER be reported but rather buried or white washed.

Others have mentioned that most of these new missionaries are staying in the states. If that's the case, you can bet that "the hastening" isn't going to acheive much. I haven't seen a convert baptism in ~15 years. I witnessed 2-3 convert baptisms in the 15 years before that. I've NEVER seen a family (husband, wife & kids) be baptized...not even on my mission in Brazil.

I served in Brazil too, yep, never had a whole family convert either. That was back in the mid 90's though.

I live in the south so I would think, being from the Bible belt, baptisms are fewer to begin with. We've had 0 convert baptisms this year so far. I've been on splits with the mishies several times over the last few months, investigators rarely last 2 or more visits. I'm sure it has to be depressing for these youngsters.

"as per the direction of the Area Presidency, hold a 'month of invitation' in June & December, whereby members are encouraged to invite their non-member friends/less actives to church"

Here in Utah, you would be hard-pressed to find a TBM that HAS nonmo friends. When they spend a life ONLY amongst themselves...how are they now to invite nonmos to church???

It's rare for some TBMs to even TALK to nomos...let alone become friends with them..

Best months to pressure family members who are less or completely inactive are November and December.
Not that tithing settlement enters the picture too, but it does.

Hastening the Work?

Code for get them into tithing settlement.

Hastening the work?

The busiest holiday month now is even worse for those who are guilted into these challenges.

Is this a church wide challenge/directive?

If so, be prepared for pressure from TBM relatives and friends this Christmas season.

I guess they have to do something with all those new missionaries. An old idea given a new banner.

It even has the hint of 'last days' in it. Clever.

I live in Utah and I hardly know any nonmembers. There are two families on my street that are inactive that I'd like to get to know...I suspect they left because they learned the truth. The one family seems kind of guarded, and I'm not sure how to start up a conversation without making them think I'm trying to reactivate them or something. Any ideas? Should I take them a bottle of wine as a Christmas gift?

"Should I take them a bottle of wine as a Christmas gift?"

That's a good start....

A bottle of wine sounds lovely, as does a little coffee mug, some coffee cake, a dessert that's decidedly nonmormon... an invitation to coffee or tea, an invitation to go for a walk... any of it sounds wonderful. Maybe they don't drink alcohol or coffee either, but offering to spend time with them without selling them something will be refreshing and wonderful already.

If they turn you down or seem distrustful, please don't take it personally and try again later. A lot of us have been burned by invitations to a "friendship" that turns into a sales pitch so they may be wary of that...

I have seen plenty of these programs get introduced, and even tried to implement them but instead of everyone getting fired up about it, they got tired of hearing about it. You can almost hear the collective "ah, hell" when someone gets to talking about these new programs. The church needs to recognize that people don't generally like to do member missionary work, and even less to be hounded about it when they came to church hoping for a spiritual refreshment.

If they wanted to be reminded of duty, they could have worked on Sunday. Telling people to hasten their workload is wasting a perfectly good opportunity to spiritually feed them and keep their testimonies intact. Why do they think so many people go inactive anyway?

You know, if I wanted an aggressive in your face "member missionary" faith, there's a JW church down the road. Instead of just holding meetings to harp on the members to pressure their friends to come to more meetings, they spend a fair amount of time hitting the streets. Why become a Diet-JW when for a little more time you can upgrade to full diesel.

Spiritually fed? What a great concept! But neither Joseph Smith nor Brigham Young came up with it so I guess it will never get put into practice. Guess that's why the mega evangelical churches are raking in the members and the money. The poor Mormons are starving to death. If only some super Mormon could convert Joel Osteen there might be some hope for Mormonism.

P.S. If the top 15 would read a little religious history they'd learn that the Puritan faith died out because they were too dry and crusty. No one could stand them any more. Hopefully, the Mormon church will come to the same end. Amen.

"ward council to focus on a list of 5 less actives to target - sending in the missionaries to teach first of all"

Because less actives obviously didn't get the message and must be reindoctrinated.

A question for former missionaries: Did you have success reactivating the less active? What did you teach them...the introduction lessons all over again??

Well, this is going to pan out well, isn't it?

The outcome is highly predictable. Reason number one is that it is the exact program they have had several times in the past, only under a different moniker. Are they really so stupid as to believe that people will not see through that? Probably. And probably much of the sheeple will be too lulled into stupidity to not remember that they've already played several rounds of this game.

The thing that people will balk at the most? "Ward mission leader has to ensure all members are going on splits with the missionaries (ideally one person each day)." Yeah, people LOVE splits with the missionary. They really do. How much they like this is seen when they pass around the splits sign-up clipboard in priesthood. Yup, that's gonna be fun.

You're right, no one likes doing missionary work and no one likes going on splits.

A couple of wife's friends have said they hate talking to friends about the church because of the 'weird' beliefs. Mainly, garments and the temple.

If TSCC really wants to mainstream, they need to do away with the weird.

Undoubtedly it means that members are supposed to drive the missionaries around.
Who has the time/energy to do that after work?

If SPs and bishops want it done they can bloody well do it themselves.

For true splits, there has to be two volunteers on any one night, each volunteer going with a separate missionary, not just driving them around. I had to always assign this when I was a high priests' group leader. It was awful, and meant that I had to go on splits multiple nights in a week in order to be a "true leader."

Here's the true barometer of member-missionary work: Wish in your right hand that people will be enthusiastic and sign up for splits. Sh*t in your left hand. See which hand fills up first.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2013 10:38AM by imaworkinonit.

I think my parents moved to Utah specifically to get out of any member-missionary obligation. I'm pretty sure there are no Gentiles in their neighborhood. They get a free pass, though I am sure any inactives have a big target on their back.

Hastening the Work = Every Member a Missionary.

Just new lipstick on the same old pig.

So Corporate. So predictable.

Exactly. Nothing in that list is anything new. Its all stuff the Morgbots have already been told to do before, and have supposed to have been doing, all along. They're just coming down harder on it now, I guess, but with a new name.

An organization focused on growth is a corporation. An organization focused on the spiritual welfare of its constituents is a church. Hmmm, lets see now, which category does the mormon organization fall into?

The other things that bug me with the whole HTW mantra (apart from the incessant over-use of the term by uber TBMs) are:

1) It seems to have some sort of connotation that the 2nd coming is at hand and this is the Lord's (and this TBM's) final window of opportunity to gather his elect. This is misleading when TSCC appears to be shying away from talking about the end of the world and is itself making long term business investments.

2) TBMs now say that 'The Lord is actively HTW' but I see no evidence of this at all. Conversion rates are the same as previous years, if not even a bit lower. Retention rates are appalling as they've always been and we can only speculate about the increasing numbers of people leaving TSCC. Tithing should be down and temple ordinances are unlikely to have risen much.

So really the only evidence that can be pointed to is the increase of full time missionaries (temporary increase for men / longer term increase for women). But how is a mere policy change that hasn't yet directly led to any sustained growth considered evidence of The Lord HTW?

Again, it's just numbers of missionaries and continued drive of member missionary programmes with new branding. What a waste of time and effort.

The only work I see hastening is the number of hits that sites like RfM and Mormonthink are getting nowadays.


And maybe the number of folks who are resigning voluntarily from the church -- but who would know that number, the way TSCC keeps numbers like that secret?

The real question is not how many new converts the church gets or how many reactivations, but how many full tithe payers go inactive or send in their resignations?

Real corporations look at their product. Can we make it better, can we bring out something new. Mormonism is a scam. How long can we string people along before they realize our product is a piece of crap?

or participate in any of this Mormon nonsense ever again. Officially departing the rigorous realm of the righteous is such a relief! How silly a charade.

Here, here !! I hear you cricket. I love going to the church of "Stay Home With Your Family And Rest"

membership promotional meetings anymore. That's really all this is.

And that's not going to work, because nobody wants their product: It's outdated [example: Hastening the Work], it's not user-friendly [sucks up all your time and micromanages you PLUS plays mind-manipulating games], and it's WAY overpriced [10% of your income and all your time and talents are required].



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2013 10:47AM by imaworkinonit.

sherlock Wrote:
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> sending in the missionaries to teach first of all

They always assume that less-active members need to be taught - like they've forgotten everything. It's so annoying. I was always like, "Yeah, I know more than you do, young person."

"Hastening the Work" AKA "Annoy the Inactives Into Resigning"

When I was a missionary, we hated going on splits with the members. Not only would you have to put on a fake, happy good example all evening for the member, but the member would almost invariably say something not "on script." We had a very strict set of rules as to what principles should be taught when - i.e. no teaching tithing until after someone has committed to baptism. The member almost always stuck their foot in their mouths and didn't get that they were creating the wrong impression. We lost plenty of investigators going on splits with the members.

I hated going with the members, too. I always felt like they would ruin a good appointment by going off script. The Spirit couldn't bless what we were doing if the member said something that was not 100% doctrine.

I wish I had just enjoyed being around someone with more life experience than myself (all of our splits were with really down to earth latinos who were more interested in showing love than indoctrinating).

Many members of this RFM board have reported having those horrid dreams (nightmares) of being called on a mission again. The second I read the statement below, I felt like I was having one of those dreams:


"... ward mission leader has to ensure ALL MEMBERS are going on splits with the missionaries (ideally one person each day)."

(emphasis added)

Remember that "Oh God! How do I get OUT of this!" feeling?

I happen to know that even good TBM's have that same dream -- my very devoted brother told me that even HE does! I wonder how many members will silently cringe inside when they hear this announcement!

The church may be about to discover what many good members are truly feeling inside. It's bad enough already that members are being taken away from home to scrub toilets - now this.

All I can say is: "HASTEN AWAY!"

+


Door-to-door vacuum salesman to Boss:

"Sir, no one in this neighborhood wants to by our vacuum cleaner. I've gone to every door TWICE now."


Boss:

"The answer is clear -- we must TRIPLE THE NUMBER OF SALESMEN WORKING THIS NEIGHBORHOOD!"


Salesman:

"Right ... why didn't I think of that ..."


+

I think the new catch-phrase should be:

"Rearranging the deck chairs!"

Wow,all that time and effort for nothing!!

What could be going so wrong?

Well then! Time for me to hasten up.

Today i'm going to hasten over to my printer and print out some pass along cards. Simple little jewels. All they say is Mormonthink.com


I then need to go to the office supply store and buy some double stick tape. It can come in handy if you want to attach those little cards to something.

Time to get out my ghost costume. All white, with a veil that goes over my head and face. It's a left over outfit I have from when I belonged to a cult. There's so many layers I don't have to worry about getting cold. It even has long johns to match.7

I may need to hasten down to the trunk or treat. I wonder what would happen if I get out of my car swing a lantern and mummbling pay lay ale over and over. It just realized, my car is also white. This could get creepy.

These are some thoughts for how I could hasten the work in this part of the world.

Don't see anything there that hasn't been tried over the past several years. Also, don't see anything that's going to improve the numbers.

"Don't see anything there that hasn't been tried over the past several years. Also, don't see anything that's going to improve the numbers."

Here's the thing...As a TBM, if your "so busy" with all items related to the church, do you think you would notice that the numbers aren't going up??

Does the church really think it's members need "something" to do........ all the time???

Why haven't people figured this out with their:
Required weekly church attendance.
callings.
having at least 4, if not more kids
Church meetings during the week and after church on sundays.
Weekly church activities for the kids because the church doesn't trust parents to raise their own kids.
Temple trips...to get more holy and spiritually inspired..

Now this?? Hasten the work..for what other than just to keep you busy

nonmo_1 Wrote:
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> Now this?? Hasten the work..for what other than
> just to keep you busy

Mormonism is an identity. A complete way-of-life.

Of course we know it's just a corporation that puts its shareholders to work. They expect them to be salesmen as well.

But to a Mormon, their entire life revolves around Mormonism. It's who they are 24/7. That's actually one reason we need recovery, because it's difficult to walk away from that.

If you talk to a Mormon, they can't even have a conversation without bringing up something to do with the Church, even if they know that you're an atheist. Happens to me all the time.

But yep. The Corporation finds ways of making sure that its members walk the Mormon walk 24/7.

essentially the same thing in Switzerland 54 years ago.

Didn't-work-then-either-ly yrs,

S

I think this cult likes to stoke the fires of fear in it's members when they get scared.

Scared = reduced tithing receipts = increase in resignations = low baptisms, etc).

They don't want to come out and say that "Jesus' return is right around the corner...the end is nigh...better stock up on food storage.." because they know it sounds cultish. Instead the camoflauge it with HTW.

Just a spoon full of fear keeps the sheepie in line, the sheepie in line (sung to the tune of Mary Poppin's).

Just seeing the phrase gives me chills. "Hastening the Work" always evoked my second coming fears when I was a TBM. Of course, the Stake President in the OP is probably banking on that fear as he bullies people into going on splits with the mishies.