Posted by:
amos
(
)
Date: October 24, 2010 11:02AM
I was elder's quorum president for several years.
The priesthood office (position/rank) of elder is distinct from the title elder. Only missionaries and general authorities are called elder as a title.
The rank of elder is usually held by men aged 18-40. It's the first rank in the "higher" Melchezidek priesthood (the "lower" being the Aaronic priesthood held by boys aged 12-17).
Elder's quorum meeting is included in priesthood meeting. Priesthood meeting refers to the one hour block in which most of the boys and men meet for a 10-15 min combined opening announcements, song, and prayer, then split up into their separate quorums or classes for the rest of the hour for lessons and business. Elder's quorum is just one of the classes (boys are deacons, teachers, or priests, men are elders or high priests), but usually the largest and most functional by virtue of it's most able-bodied age group.
The biggest item of business in elder's quorum is home teaching. The elders are paired up and assigned a list of families in the ward to visit monthly and otherwise keep track of needs/problems, then report back to the quorum presidency.
The quorum meeting is frequently a long chain of announcements and calling for volunteers to do batches of tasks, like moving jobs, pair-up with missionaries once a week, temple trips, babysit for Relief Society meetings during the week, etc.
The lesson is usually squeezed into the barely 30 min leftover, taught by an assigned instructor who is usually not in the presidency. They're notoriously either boring or tangential.
The elder's quorum presidency actually reports directly to the stake presidency, not just the bishopric.
Anecdotally, I've got to give credit where it's due. As EQP I did and saw some very able humanitarian interventions. I was on scene with police and fire dept more than once. I went to jails, cheap hotels, shelters, hospitals, halfway houses, psychiatric residences, etc., to deliver real-time aid. We did back-wringing service projects to bail people out of problems. I came home with blisters and cuts several times. Even as a home teacher, I mowed grass every week, drove to medical appointments, went shopping, etc. It was by far my busiest and most productive time in the church, even more important to me then my mission.
But I was lucky. We had a liberal-minded bishop who loved helping people and loved giving away church money. He was reprimanded by the stake many times for going over budget, but it didn't stop him.