In all my hundreds and hundreds of sacrament meetings I never saw anyone raise their hand to not sustain a member and vote against for a calling. Has anyone else seen a raised no vote?
...It was at the El Cajon spanish ward and it was when the new bishop was called. The former 1st counselor and his entire family (some of which showed up from other towns) stood up and raised their hands in opposition. It was a pretty big scandal.
The person being sustained as bishop was the former 2nd counselor and the 1st counselor thought he was entitled to the position.
My companion and I couldn't believe it was really happening. I went back to that ward at the end of the sales trip and there was still drama going on.
I seen it once. They were voting on a member being put into the bishoprick when a man stood up and opposed him. The man being voted on was a son of the stake leadership members. Anyway,,the man who voted against him was taken into the bishops office and over ruled. All good buddy system.
Can't remember if it was Sacrament or Priesthood meeting but when the Bish asked everyone to sustain my friend who was 12 and was being sustained as Deacons President his older 14yr old brother rose his hand to oppose. Everyone started laughing.
I did ... it was overseas and someone raised a hand against a district president. It was funny, nobody knew what to do, but eventually they just took the person aside, talked to him, but no change was made.
I saw it once, as a teen in our well-to do So. California stake.
The new stake president picked his best friend as his first counselor, and all the people this guy had screwed over in business voted against him.
Of course, they were overruled.
Sure enough, the problems in that stake were never ending over several years. The mess culminated in some court cases, whereupon one of the 12 finally came down and picked a new stake presidency.
Yep,new bishop gets called.Everyone thinks it will be current HPGL. It isn't. HPGLs wife puts up her hand to not sustain the new bishop. HPGLs wife thinks being bishop is like a promotion in a big corporation with status attached and gets huffy because her husband didn't make the grade. Footnote:The new bishop loses his paid job in a very short time and moves out of the ward. HPGL gets the bishop gig because nobody else in their right mind would want the job.
It never means anything. They go on with the meeting, sometimes say they will meet with those people after the meeting and I'm sure all they do is chastise them for not having faith in the Lard's annointed or something. I've never seen it mean anything. That's why I never raised my hand to oppose anyone, but a number of times I would purposely not raise my hand to sustain someone and I know one time someone called me out on it. I just told them that I wasn't going to lie and say I sustain someone who I do not.
So this new Baptist Church we're attending also does the "sustaining" thing. My husband and I almost fell off our chairs the first time they did it!!
"So all who sustain XXX to be a member of the Personnel Committee signal by lifting up your right hand", and the ENTIRE congregation lifted up their right arm and said........
A very loud AMEN!!!!
Since we'd never heard an entire congregation say that before, it was quite stunning.....
They were sustaining a councillor for the bish, and a young single woman in the congregation raised her hand and voted against it.
Turned out he was having an affair with her, which is why she objected - and the bish already knew about it and was trying to push it through anyway. :O
Do they not include the wife in those meetings where they extend a calling? Seems like that would be a good time to resolve issues instead of doing it really publicly. If my husband accepted a calling as bishop without telling me - there would be "heck" to pay.
I did once see a single mom get called as a YW something-or-other, and when they asked to sustain her, her 10-year-old son raised his hand so high he almost dislocated his arm. Then he nudged his friend who was playing video games and was like "Hey, it's my mom!" and his friends raised their hands. That cuteness kept me coming to church for another two weeks.