I attended my nephew’s missionary farewell this weekend, and it got me thinking about missionary farewells in general. It used to be that a missionary family would invite his family to speak, there would be special musical numbers, often advice from an older brother, and bishop’s remarks about the missionary. While some meetings went long because the family asked too many people to speak, had too many musical numbers (or both), these meetings were generally a treat to attend. They were interesting. But in 2002, President Hinckley announced in General Conference,
Yes, some families do go overboard with invitations, but do we need to kill the traditional missionary farewell?
The departing missionary will be given opportunity to speak in a sacrament meeting for 15 or 20 minutes. But parents and siblings will not be invited to do so. There might be two or more departing missionaries who speak in the same service. The meeting will be entirely in the hands of the bishop and will not be arranged by the family. There will not be special music or anything of that kind.
We know this will be a great disappointment to many families. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, and friends have participated in the past. We ask that you accept this decision. Where a farewell has already been arranged, it may go forward. But none in the traditional sense should be planned for the future. We are convinced that when all aspects of the situation are considered, this is a wise decision. Please accept it, my dear brethren. I extend this plea also to the sisters, particularly the mothers.
We hope also that holding elaborate open houses after the sacrament meeting at which the missionary speaks will not prevail. Members of the family may wish to get together. We have no objection to this. However, we ask that there be no public reception to which large numbers are invited.
Now missionary farewells are just as boring as other church meetings. (I miss the old format.) Sometimes the missionaries are asked to speak about generic topics. I’ve long complained (the following posts were clear back in 2008) about boring church meetings, causing some to ask me Why I go to Church. The Church has boring Easter services, and Christmas services are often less than desired. While I know some families did have excessive celebrations, I just don’t understand the desire of church leaders that services be as uninspired and unmotivational as possible. Why can’t we have interesting missionary farewells, Christmas services, and Easter services? (I know some wards have good services, but in my experience, more wards are boring than are good.)
If young people are going to give up two years of their lives for the church, I really don’t understand begrudging them a celebratory send off.
I’ll just say amen and amen.
Well, Hinkley always was a bit of a curmudgeon. Not that one can’t be both a prophet and a curmudgeon but many people in the church assume everything that came from Hinkley was prophetic when some of it was simply curmudgeonic.
I was unfamiliar with missionary farewells until I was in my own at BYU! The ward basically turned the meeting over to me, more or less. I was asked who would speak (my friends and roommates) and what hymns would be sung and if I had someone who would do a musical number (a former roommate who was studying voice fit the bill). I assigned all those things, and of course also spoke myself. It was an unfamiliar tradition, but a nice send off.
I have seen some families over the years go a bit overboard, highjacking the meeting or using gimmicks and props, but I also confess that the mission farewells were a welcome break from the normal tedium of the same ten to twenty rusty topics that get brought out again and again. It made it feel like going on a mission is something special and fun and important. We have lost something I believe.
This is a great example that can be used when people ask what words from God the prophet has received. This was pure revelation.
I know that prior to this, the last true farewell in my ward was like a giant funeral service, where the kid was eulogized by family as if he been the president of the united states. It was so over the top with family and music, etc., that it was embarrassing. And the party after sacrament meeting took out the rest of the block (thank goodness, however!) and was incredible. Food, party tents in the backyard, pictures, eagle project stuff, school accomplishments on display. etc.
On not so snarky a note, I think that it needed to be done in way, to help tone down the deification of 19 year old/21 year old kids and a lot of sweat for moms.
Also, when I went on my mission, there was my farewell, and, oh, by the way, there is another 18 year old that is going into the military overseas, and he might actually not be coming back, ever, but let’s not recognize him or give him credit for an actual, real sacrifice. I have always felt guilty about that. (this was in the vietnam era)
I find it amusing that now, “farewells” aren’t really “farewells”, but there are still cards mailed out, parties held and such. It just wasn’t a “farewell”. The last kid that went out was the seminary president from the largest high school on the wasatch front, and I ended up sitting at the very back of the full chapel/gym. It was like stake conference. But it wasn’t a farewell! No, it was just him speaking. But there was a very nice musical number by a very talented kid. Might have been a little too nice for GBH’s direction, but enjoyed, nonetheless.
I share the previous commenters’ sense of loss, and think that a big deal should be made in these circumstances. However, my understanding of the reason for ending the practice of “Farewells” is that in too many wards such events dominated sacrament meetings for much of the year.
I once visited a chapel in Mesa, AZ. There were pictures of 28 currently-serving missionaries on the wall–from just one ward.
It was a poorly-explained, but practical decision to end the practice.
I can see both sides on this. As with many things, the families sometimes get carried away. They should celebrate a missionary farewell, but maybe not in a huge Sacrament meeting production. I see nothing wrong with a parent speaking, a family musical number. But the eulogizing got a bit carried away.
My most memorable one was where the younger brother got up and said,
“I’m glad Richard is going on his mission. ‘Cause now he won’t beat me up anymore.” Sad, but it sounded funny at the time.
My understanding mirrors that of fbisti – ie it was specifically geared towards Mormon corridor wards that had huge numbers of missionaries. Unfortunately, for most of the rest of the church outside of Utah/Arizona/California/… it’s a big loss (unless local leaders just ignore the instructions and hold them anyway).
Baptismal services have very much undergone the same treatment over the years. In the name of avoiding ‘excesses’, we’ve turned them into cookie-cutter productions that don’t allow much in the way of celebration or personalization.
I think we are missing the point of sacrament meeting. Sacrament meeting is not a place we go for entertainment, or to criticize people who are trying to do their best in bringing light (such as they understand it) to others, and it is not where we go to say goodbye to young people leaving for missions (there are many other places and times to do that).
The purpose of sacrament meeting is to worship Jesus Christ, just for that one hour in a week, and to ponder his Atonement. Traditional “missionary farewells” take the focus off of the Savior and direct it onto one person. In other words, it should be less about “me” and more about “Thee.” The music, prayers and talks in sacrament meeting should help us worship the Savior, and Him alone. If that is not happening in your wards, then leaders need to rethink what they are doing with that meeting.
I don’t think this change was made because President Hinckley was a curmudgeon, or for anything like that. In fact, in several recent conference talks, the speakers have encouraged wards to focus sacrament meeting on the Savior and the Atonement. The Handbook of Instructions suggests that announcements at the beginning of that meeting should be kept to a minimum (in our stake they have done away with announcements in sacrament meeting, and limit them to other meetings or to the ward bulletin) so as to not distract from our worship of the Savior.
The disciples could not tarry with the Lord for one hour during in the Garden of Gethsemane without falling asleep and forgetting what He was doing. I think it is interesting that we are asked to give our full thoughts to Him for about an hour each week, yet we continually try to infringe on that hour with things like traditional missionary farewells, “testimonies” that fail to deal with core principals central to His Atonement such as faith in Him, repentance, and His love.
I see the hand of the Lord in this change, then and now.
This is a great talk, given at BYU by Thomas B. Griffith, that addresses this subject with great feeling and clarity:
“I think we are missing the point of sacrament meeting. Sacrament meeting is not a place we go for entertainment, or to criticize people” Speak for yourself!
With Sam on this one. Sacrament meeting is not the place, but to my recollection, never was in any ward or stake I’ve been in anyway. A farewell was always a separate ward activity, more casual party atmosphere, with musical numbers sometimes.
It’d be nice if the lived experience of Sacrament meetings was an hour of Christian worship but that’s rarely the case in most wards. The issue isn’t so much content but structure. You’d be hard pressed to design a religious meeting less conducive to worship than the LDS Sacrament service as outlined in the church handbooks — but that’s its own topic entirely.
Personally I prefer the new way of doing things. I don’t like lauding anyone other than Jesus, the Father or the Holy Ghost in sacrament meetings. Sacrament meetings on the topic of Joseph Smith or other prophets bother me enough as it is. Sacrament meetings lauding 18 or 19 year olds bother me as well. I’d rather hear them talk about God than hear others tell stories about their childhood and adolescence or how much they will miss them. I’m glad my children had that newer kind of last sacrament meeting in their home ward, giving them a chance to preach what they understood about the gospel, rather than the family send offs that were de rigeur when I was a teen.
There are still way too many sacrament meetings that barely mention the Savior at all beyond the sacrament prayers, and yes, we have a long way to go, but I see this switch as a step in the right direction.
Have a farewell gathering at your house or apartment. Offer to host one if you wish, even if it’s not your kid, and share all the stories you other want to and invite anyone you want to come. I know a family that did that, testimonies and talks and all in their back yard. They and everyone else who came all had a lovely time. And no, you don’t have to have refreshments if you don’t want to.
I think send offs and telling memorable stories about people you love and putting together musical numbers about missionaries are all fine and fun. I just prefer that you don’t do them during my community worship time.
Thanks for the link, Sam. My daughter lived in a ward one year where the bishop took a similar approach to Sacrament meetings. She said it was an excellent and amazing year of meetings.
I wonder why we vacillate between two extremes. I argue that we’re still missing the mark.
Where is a good place to celebrate as a community, the ‘good news’ of Jesus Christ and our communal work to that end? Mmmm Seems like Sunday service would be a good idea and avoid the need for us to plan yet-another-$@#!-meeting. It takes a village to raise a child and to support a missionary; work that takes buy-in and sacrifice from the entire ward. (Perhaps with our wealth and individualistic society today, we don’t recognize the value of community in this process anymore?)
Taking away music and celebrations really pulls the carpet out from a ward’s enthusiasm for this work. Granted, we shouldn’t have been eulogizing the missionary. However, focusing just on Jesus Christ and not our participation and interactions with Him, others, and the gospel, totally misses the mark. This reduces our learning to a rather low level of Bloom’s Taxonomy . . . read and recite, study the textbook (scriptures). However, applying this work to our lives, our community, and our ward and reflecting on that engagement is important for our learning, for our experiential walk in mortality. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have needed to come to this miserable telestial world, we could have just stayed at “home” and read the book. This world isn’t about Jesus Christ, it’s about US. He came to help us out. We are the ones learning to love each other, serve each other, and grow. Sometimes that means learning to go on missions, or serve our country, and then supporting each other in the process. It’s not about how well we workshop Jesus, but how well we learn to love. I think it is totally appropriate to stop and reflect on persons who are learning that lesson, and talk about what that means to each of us.
Doesn’t it bother anyone that we’re taking all the personalization, joy, music, celebration, and other emotion out of our worship for assembly-line templates?
A similar edict came from Elder Packer in the famous “Unwritten Order of Things” talk, where he maintained that funerals shouldn’t be about celebrating the individual, but celebrating Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation. But again, what is the point of the plan of salvation if we can’t reflect on examples of the plan as seen through the lives of friends and family-the people progressing through it? The plan becomes pointless without the people. It’s a plan FOR people. So, case studies, experiences, and reflection are essential. Again, if it wasn’t about us, we could have stayed at “home” and read the book and taken a multiple-choice test on the Sunday-School answers, avoiding this hellish life.
We’re still missing the mark.
I pulled out the old trusty missionary farewell song, “In the Hollow of thy Hand” a month ago and debated singing it for one of our outstanding young men during Priesthood opening exercises, as we don’t sing any of that genre in Sac Mtg anymore. I didn’t do it…thinking that others would just not get that connection if they had never sung it before–or if they came of age after the discontinuation of traditional farewells. Too bad though…while those songs may be a bit on the corny side, there are also some nice thoughts expressed.
Sam, I’ll add my thanks for that link. That was a fantastic talk and good for me to read right now.
Rigel, I remember singing that at one of our missionary farewell firesides back when I was in YW.
annon, I don’t regard a funeral as a worship service, so I can’t really agree that a comparison can be made between a funeral and a sacrament meeting. On your learning points, we have getting on for two hours of that after our sacrament meetings. I really want worship in sacrament meeting (http://www.wheatandtares.org/12150/worship-v-instruction/).
I agree entirely that our sacrament meetings need to be a whole lot better, but I can’t see their use as a missionary farewell helping.
I left on a mission in 1985, and there had been some direction that year or the year before to no longer have missionary farewell programs in sacrament meeting. That instruction was observed in wards I lived in to some degree or other, but apparently didn’t take everywhere before Gordon Hinckley’s 2002 conference address.
From Packer’s “Unwritten Order” talk–“Funerals could and should be the most spiritually impressive. They are becoming informal family reunions in front of ward members. Often the Spirit is repulsed by humorous experiences or jokes when the time could be devoted to teaching the things of the Spirit, even the sacred things.
When the family insists that several family members speak in a funeral, we hear about the deceased instead of about the Atonement, the Resurrection, and the comforting promises revealed in the scriptures. Now it’s all right to have a family member speak at a funeral, but if they do, their remarks should be in keeping with the spirit of the meeting.
I have told my Brethren in that day when my funeral is held, if any of them who speak talk about me, I will raise up and correct them. The gospel is to be preached. I know of no meeting where the congregation is in a better state of readiness to receive revelation and inspiration from a speaker than they are at a funeral. This privilege is being taken away from us because we don’t understand the order of things—the unwritten order of things—that relates to the administration of the Church and the reception of the Spirit.”
When I read this talk, years after it had been given, I wondered if Packer even liked people.
I now live in one of those Mormon Corridor wards that apparently was chalk-full of over-the-top missionary farewells. A friend who was very involved in planning those meetings has repeatedly expressed how much she appreciated that direction from Pres. Hinckley.
I tend to agree that Sacrament Meeting isn’t an appropriate venue to eulogize a teenager. I enjoy seeing the enthusiasm of the prospective missionary, but I’m rarely inspired by their spiritual message (returned missionaries tend to do better). An inspirational meeting is made up of uplifting talks and musical numbers. That can be accomplished under the current rules.
I will admit, after moving so much in the last decade, a brief bio in the program would be nice for new wardmembers who don’t know anything about the prospective missionary.
Hedgehog,
Thanks for the link and thoughts. I think we’re on the same page. I lament the removal of music from the new format. I also think that dance is a beautiful form of worship we have not yet tapped into for worship services (except arguably in the temple).
I think that our entire human existence is a learning activity, and worship service is part of that fabric. Worship is made for man, not man for worship.
I suppose what you’ve helped me articulate is the fact that for me, worship is more meaningful when more of the dots are connected- when it is enriched by including both the divine as well as the impact or fruit of their work in and on our lives. I’d rather worship acknowledging the whole sha-bang, not just parts and pieces. To me, that means acknowledging the ways our lives are impacted by the divine. This is potentially the evidence, the essence of the divine and worth worshiping. Perhaps the difference between instruction and worship is this:
Worship, “wow- God wrought all of this (AB and C) in me/us”.
Instruction, “God does A B and C”.
If a worship service includes “wow- God wrought all of this (AB and C) in me/us” and someone takes away, “God does A B and C, isn’t God great!” both goals are accomplished. Tomato toh-mah-toe.
Brian: I blogged about that Packer talk years ago. My favorite part is when he says he will rise up if they eulogize him rather than talking about the gospel. Which obviously, we would all love to see happen.
Argh. Now I am feeling all grouchy about Mormon Funerals.
Interesting comment annon. I think I see where you’re coming from, except:
“I also think that dance is a beautiful form of worship we have not yet tapped into for worship services (except arguably in the temple).”
Don’t leave me hanging with this one. Where’s the dance? Seating is pretty cramped in the endowment rooms I’ve been in.
John: “I left on a mission in 1985, and there had been some direction that year or the year before to no longer have missionary farewell programs in sacrament meeting.”
I think I remember that instruction filtering down to us in my stake in Britain sometime in the late 1980s. Except, since we weren’t doing farewells in sacrament meeting the intent would appear to have been mangled in transmission. And I recall quite a few people were pretty miffed that we were now apparently not allowed to hold a missionary farewell (which got interpreted as the ward activity or fireside we’d previously held – there weren’t that many because those going to serve a mission from the ward left at around the same time in the summer having finished school, so they’d be back in time for the university year to start, so it was a joint affair anyway – the guys were allowed to leave at 18 in Britain back then to fit the education system). Why on earth were these activities not permitted, we wondered.
Hedgehog,
Not actually part of the religious ordinances or formal worship services, but enjoyed afterwards as a respite, in the temple in Nauvoo, presumably in the large open assembly hall on the top floor, in 1845.
See the quote below from History of the Church, volume 7, page 564
“Monday, 5.—My health being better I was ready for duty at an early hour. Spent the morning in hearing letters and newspapers [read], and giving directions as to the business of the day.
“8:45 a.m., commenced washing and anointing [i. e. in the Temple].
“Seventeen bottles of oil were consecrated.
“One hundred four persons received their endowments.
“The high council, two companies of high priests, and the seventies met in their respective rooms for prayer.
“9 p.m., the labors of the day being over, Brothers Hanson and E. Averett played on the violin and flute and enlivened the spirits of the saints present: some embraced the opportunity and danced to the lively strains of music.
“Elder Heber C. Kimball and I returned home about midnight.”
No, wrong. The large hall was on the 2nd floor. The upper levels of the Nauvoo temple were used for endowment and initiatory ordinances. My mistake.
You want boring? Try an endless stream of missionary farewells at which the departing missionary’s family members get up and blubber over him, the missionary’s favorite seminary teacher (always the same one*) delivers the exact same talk for the umpteenth time, and the missionary himself has nothing of substance to say. This was how it was in 1976 when I left. When the bishop tried to turn the meeting over to me, I flat out refused to do any more than what President Hinckley mandated 26 years later. It is not the first occasion on which I was ahead of my time, and hopefully not the last.
*Interestingly, it was not Randy Bott, although he did teach at our seminary at the time.
Hedgehog and MB,
Hugh Nibley was the one who made the parallel to Mormon temple worship and dance and talked about the temple as being the culmination of the highest forms of all the arts. You don’t just sit during temple ordinances, they are active experiences, attendants are moving from room to room, making covenants, praying, sitting, standing, etc. You move! You’ve been dancing a slow, but extremely routine dance. Baptism might also be considered a coordinated “dance” with a dip! No, there isn’t a ballet or fancy footwork, but there is a great deal of slow and coordinated (choreographed actually) physical movement. Early masonic rites (which closely resemble temple rituals) are much more choreographed, so much so that in an episode of the podcast Mormon Stories (Masonry and Mormonism), a guest and expert on the topic was able to identify wear patterns in the original wood floor of the assembly hall where masonic rituals took place, even recognizing which rites were practiced. There’s also an interesting post (I think on Times and Seasons) about the physical ritual of movement as paralleled between the Mormon Temple and a Catholic Mass where movement toward the Celestial Room and/or Monstrance and Eucharist are symbolic of our mortal path toward God. This is a carefully planned re-enactment made by our physical bodies with order and structure, and if you are a Catholic, music.
MB, annon, thanks for that information.
The dancing on the second floor sounds a far cry from the enforced silence and whispering required in our temples today.
Nowadays those of us who wish to dance after sessions are over in the temple do so in the cultural hall of the meeting house adjacent to the mini-temple near where I live, or quietly in the parking lot enroute to our vehicles. 🙂
Dancing in the meeting house (or parking lot) instead is probably good now. I think that our temple presidencies, most of whom serve faithfully in spite of advancing years and the aches and pains that go with them, appreciate being able to head home after 9 or 10 pm having spent a long day on their feet, rather than needing to stay on for music and dance in a large assembly room late into the night like the Saints did that night in 1845. So I think it is a kindness on our part to head out the doors too at that hour.
That said, I understand the worship of dance. Like many others I have happily choreographed dances in my head in the celestial room as an expression of what I am feeling and thinking.
I understand “reforming” the farewells. But what REALLY gets me is the homecomings. That’s when the missionary actually has something to say, and he/she is assigned to be just another talk on family history (or whatever) that Sunday.
Wheat & Tares 
If young people are going to give up two years of their lives for the church, I really don’t understand begrudging them a celebratory send off.
I’ll just say amen and amen.
Well, Hinkley always was a bit of a curmudgeon. Not that one can’t be both a prophet and a curmudgeon but many people in the church assume everything that came from Hinkley was prophetic when some of it was simply curmudgeonic.
I was unfamiliar with missionary farewells until I was in my own at BYU! The ward basically turned the meeting over to me, more or less. I was asked who would speak (my friends and roommates) and what hymns would be sung and if I had someone who would do a musical number (a former roommate who was studying voice fit the bill). I assigned all those things, and of course also spoke myself. It was an unfamiliar tradition, but a nice send off.
I have seen some families over the years go a bit overboard, highjacking the meeting or using gimmicks and props, but I also confess that the mission farewells were a welcome break from the normal tedium of the same ten to twenty rusty topics that get brought out again and again. It made it feel like going on a mission is something special and fun and important. We have lost something I believe.
This is a great example that can be used when people ask what words from God the prophet has received. This was pure revelation.
I know that prior to this, the last true farewell in my ward was like a giant funeral service, where the kid was eulogized by family as if he been the president of the united states. It was so over the top with family and music, etc., that it was embarrassing. And the party after sacrament meeting took out the rest of the block (thank goodness, however!) and was incredible. Food, party tents in the backyard, pictures, eagle project stuff, school accomplishments on display. etc.
On not so snarky a note, I think that it needed to be done in way, to help tone down the deification of 19 year old/21 year old kids and a lot of sweat for moms.
Also, when I went on my mission, there was my farewell, and, oh, by the way, there is another 18 year old that is going into the military overseas, and he might actually not be coming back, ever, but let’s not recognize him or give him credit for an actual, real sacrifice. I have always felt guilty about that. (this was in the vietnam era)
I find it amusing that now, “farewells” aren’t really “farewells”, but there are still cards mailed out, parties held and such. It just wasn’t a “farewell”. The last kid that went out was the seminary president from the largest high school on the wasatch front, and I ended up sitting at the very back of the full chapel/gym. It was like stake conference. But it wasn’t a farewell! No, it was just him speaking. But there was a very nice musical number by a very talented kid. Might have been a little too nice for GBH’s direction, but enjoyed, nonetheless.
I share the previous commenters’ sense of loss, and think that a big deal should be made in these circumstances. However, my understanding of the reason for ending the practice of “Farewells” is that in too many wards such events dominated sacrament meetings for much of the year.
I once visited a chapel in Mesa, AZ. There were pictures of 28 currently-serving missionaries on the wall–from just one ward.
It was a poorly-explained, but practical decision to end the practice.
I can see both sides on this. As with many things, the families sometimes get carried away. They should celebrate a missionary farewell, but maybe not in a huge Sacrament meeting production. I see nothing wrong with a parent speaking, a family musical number. But the eulogizing got a bit carried away.
My most memorable one was where the younger brother got up and said,
“I’m glad Richard is going on his mission. ‘Cause now he won’t beat me up anymore.” Sad, but it sounded funny at the time.
My understanding mirrors that of fbisti – ie it was specifically geared towards Mormon corridor wards that had huge numbers of missionaries. Unfortunately, for most of the rest of the church outside of Utah/Arizona/California/… it’s a big loss (unless local leaders just ignore the instructions and hold them anyway).
Baptismal services have very much undergone the same treatment over the years. In the name of avoiding ‘excesses’, we’ve turned them into cookie-cutter productions that don’t allow much in the way of celebration or personalization.
I think we are missing the point of sacrament meeting. Sacrament meeting is not a place we go for entertainment, or to criticize people who are trying to do their best in bringing light (such as they understand it) to others, and it is not where we go to say goodbye to young people leaving for missions (there are many other places and times to do that).
The purpose of sacrament meeting is to worship Jesus Christ, just for that one hour in a week, and to ponder his Atonement. Traditional “missionary farewells” take the focus off of the Savior and direct it onto one person. In other words, it should be less about “me” and more about “Thee.” The music, prayers and talks in sacrament meeting should help us worship the Savior, and Him alone. If that is not happening in your wards, then leaders need to rethink what they are doing with that meeting.
I don’t think this change was made because President Hinckley was a curmudgeon, or for anything like that. In fact, in several recent conference talks, the speakers have encouraged wards to focus sacrament meeting on the Savior and the Atonement. The Handbook of Instructions suggests that announcements at the beginning of that meeting should be kept to a minimum (in our stake they have done away with announcements in sacrament meeting, and limit them to other meetings or to the ward bulletin) so as to not distract from our worship of the Savior.
The disciples could not tarry with the Lord for one hour during in the Garden of Gethsemane without falling asleep and forgetting what He was doing. I think it is interesting that we are asked to give our full thoughts to Him for about an hour each week, yet we continually try to infringe on that hour with things like traditional missionary farewells, “testimonies” that fail to deal with core principals central to His Atonement such as faith in Him, repentance, and His love.
I see the hand of the Lord in this change, then and now.
This is a great talk, given at BYU by Thomas B. Griffith, that addresses this subject with great feeling and clarity:
http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1533
“I think we are missing the point of sacrament meeting. Sacrament meeting is not a place we go for entertainment, or to criticize people” Speak for yourself!
With Sam on this one. Sacrament meeting is not the place, but to my recollection, never was in any ward or stake I’ve been in anyway. A farewell was always a separate ward activity, more casual party atmosphere, with musical numbers sometimes.
Christ centered Sacrament meetings and missionary farewells hardly seem mutually exclusive.
It’d be nice if the lived experience of Sacrament meetings was an hour of Christian worship but that’s rarely the case in most wards. The issue isn’t so much content but structure. You’d be hard pressed to design a religious meeting less conducive to worship than the LDS Sacrament service as outlined in the church handbooks — but that’s its own topic entirely.
Personally I prefer the new way of doing things. I don’t like lauding anyone other than Jesus, the Father or the Holy Ghost in sacrament meetings. Sacrament meetings on the topic of Joseph Smith or other prophets bother me enough as it is. Sacrament meetings lauding 18 or 19 year olds bother me as well. I’d rather hear them talk about God than hear others tell stories about their childhood and adolescence or how much they will miss them. I’m glad my children had that newer kind of last sacrament meeting in their home ward, giving them a chance to preach what they understood about the gospel, rather than the family send offs that were de rigeur when I was a teen.
There are still way too many sacrament meetings that barely mention the Savior at all beyond the sacrament prayers, and yes, we have a long way to go, but I see this switch as a step in the right direction.
Have a farewell gathering at your house or apartment. Offer to host one if you wish, even if it’s not your kid, and share all the stories you other want to and invite anyone you want to come. I know a family that did that, testimonies and talks and all in their back yard. They and everyone else who came all had a lovely time. And no, you don’t have to have refreshments if you don’t want to.
I think send offs and telling memorable stories about people you love and putting together musical numbers about missionaries are all fine and fun. I just prefer that you don’t do them during my community worship time.
Thanks for the link, Sam. My daughter lived in a ward one year where the bishop took a similar approach to Sacrament meetings. She said it was an excellent and amazing year of meetings.
I wonder why we vacillate between two extremes. I argue that we’re still missing the mark.
Where is a good place to celebrate as a community, the ‘good news’ of Jesus Christ and our communal work to that end? Mmmm Seems like Sunday service would be a good idea and avoid the need for us to plan yet-another-$@#!-meeting. It takes a village to raise a child and to support a missionary; work that takes buy-in and sacrifice from the entire ward. (Perhaps with our wealth and individualistic society today, we don’t recognize the value of community in this process anymore?)
Taking away music and celebrations really pulls the carpet out from a ward’s enthusiasm for this work. Granted, we shouldn’t have been eulogizing the missionary. However, focusing just on Jesus Christ and not our participation and interactions with Him, others, and the gospel, totally misses the mark. This reduces our learning to a rather low level of Bloom’s Taxonomy . . . read and recite, study the textbook (scriptures). However, applying this work to our lives, our community, and our ward and reflecting on that engagement is important for our learning, for our experiential walk in mortality. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have needed to come to this miserable telestial world, we could have just stayed at “home” and read the book. This world isn’t about Jesus Christ, it’s about US. He came to help us out. We are the ones learning to love each other, serve each other, and grow. Sometimes that means learning to go on missions, or serve our country, and then supporting each other in the process. It’s not about how well we workshop Jesus, but how well we learn to love. I think it is totally appropriate to stop and reflect on persons who are learning that lesson, and talk about what that means to each of us.
Doesn’t it bother anyone that we’re taking all the personalization, joy, music, celebration, and other emotion out of our worship for assembly-line templates?
A similar edict came from Elder Packer in the famous “Unwritten Order of Things” talk, where he maintained that funerals shouldn’t be about celebrating the individual, but celebrating Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation. But again, what is the point of the plan of salvation if we can’t reflect on examples of the plan as seen through the lives of friends and family-the people progressing through it? The plan becomes pointless without the people. It’s a plan FOR people. So, case studies, experiences, and reflection are essential. Again, if it wasn’t about us, we could have stayed at “home” and read the book and taken a multiple-choice test on the Sunday-School answers, avoiding this hellish life.
We’re still missing the mark.
I pulled out the old trusty missionary farewell song, “In the Hollow of thy Hand” a month ago and debated singing it for one of our outstanding young men during Priesthood opening exercises, as we don’t sing any of that genre in Sac Mtg anymore. I didn’t do it…thinking that others would just not get that connection if they had never sung it before–or if they came of age after the discontinuation of traditional farewells. Too bad though…while those songs may be a bit on the corny side, there are also some nice thoughts expressed.
Sam, I’ll add my thanks for that link. That was a fantastic talk and good for me to read right now.
Rigel, I remember singing that at one of our missionary farewell firesides back when I was in YW.
annon, I don’t regard a funeral as a worship service, so I can’t really agree that a comparison can be made between a funeral and a sacrament meeting. On your learning points, we have getting on for two hours of that after our sacrament meetings. I really want worship in sacrament meeting (http://www.wheatandtares.org/12150/worship-v-instruction/).
I agree entirely that our sacrament meetings need to be a whole lot better, but I can’t see their use as a missionary farewell helping.
I left on a mission in 1985, and there had been some direction that year or the year before to no longer have missionary farewell programs in sacrament meeting. That instruction was observed in wards I lived in to some degree or other, but apparently didn’t take everywhere before Gordon Hinckley’s 2002 conference address.
From Packer’s “Unwritten Order” talk–“Funerals could and should be the most spiritually impressive. They are becoming informal family reunions in front of ward members. Often the Spirit is repulsed by humorous experiences or jokes when the time could be devoted to teaching the things of the Spirit, even the sacred things.
When the family insists that several family members speak in a funeral, we hear about the deceased instead of about the Atonement, the Resurrection, and the comforting promises revealed in the scriptures. Now it’s all right to have a family member speak at a funeral, but if they do, their remarks should be in keeping with the spirit of the meeting.
I have told my Brethren in that day when my funeral is held, if any of them who speak talk about me, I will raise up and correct them. The gospel is to be preached. I know of no meeting where the congregation is in a better state of readiness to receive revelation and inspiration from a speaker than they are at a funeral. This privilege is being taken away from us because we don’t understand the order of things—the unwritten order of things—that relates to the administration of the Church and the reception of the Spirit.”
When I read this talk, years after it had been given, I wondered if Packer even liked people.
I now live in one of those Mormon Corridor wards that apparently was chalk-full of over-the-top missionary farewells. A friend who was very involved in planning those meetings has repeatedly expressed how much she appreciated that direction from Pres. Hinckley.
I tend to agree that Sacrament Meeting isn’t an appropriate venue to eulogize a teenager. I enjoy seeing the enthusiasm of the prospective missionary, but I’m rarely inspired by their spiritual message (returned missionaries tend to do better). An inspirational meeting is made up of uplifting talks and musical numbers. That can be accomplished under the current rules.
I will admit, after moving so much in the last decade, a brief bio in the program would be nice for new wardmembers who don’t know anything about the prospective missionary.
Hedgehog,
Thanks for the link and thoughts. I think we’re on the same page. I lament the removal of music from the new format. I also think that dance is a beautiful form of worship we have not yet tapped into for worship services (except arguably in the temple).
I think that our entire human existence is a learning activity, and worship service is part of that fabric. Worship is made for man, not man for worship.
I suppose what you’ve helped me articulate is the fact that for me, worship is more meaningful when more of the dots are connected- when it is enriched by including both the divine as well as the impact or fruit of their work in and on our lives. I’d rather worship acknowledging the whole sha-bang, not just parts and pieces. To me, that means acknowledging the ways our lives are impacted by the divine. This is potentially the evidence, the essence of the divine and worth worshiping. Perhaps the difference between instruction and worship is this:
Worship, “wow- God wrought all of this (AB and C) in me/us”.
Instruction, “God does A B and C”.
If a worship service includes “wow- God wrought all of this (AB and C) in me/us” and someone takes away, “God does A B and C, isn’t God great!” both goals are accomplished. Tomato toh-mah-toe.
Brian: I blogged about that Packer talk years ago. My favorite part is when he says he will rise up if they eulogize him rather than talking about the gospel. Which obviously, we would all love to see happen.
Link: http://mormonmatters.org/2009/06/02/taking-the-fun-out-of-funerals/
Argh. Now I am feeling all grouchy about Mormon Funerals.
Interesting comment annon. I think I see where you’re coming from, except:
“I also think that dance is a beautiful form of worship we have not yet tapped into for worship services (except arguably in the temple).”
Don’t leave me hanging with this one. Where’s the dance? Seating is pretty cramped in the endowment rooms I’ve been in.
John: “I left on a mission in 1985, and there had been some direction that year or the year before to no longer have missionary farewell programs in sacrament meeting.”
I think I remember that instruction filtering down to us in my stake in Britain sometime in the late 1980s. Except, since we weren’t doing farewells in sacrament meeting the intent would appear to have been mangled in transmission. And I recall quite a few people were pretty miffed that we were now apparently not allowed to hold a missionary farewell (which got interpreted as the ward activity or fireside we’d previously held – there weren’t that many because those going to serve a mission from the ward left at around the same time in the summer having finished school, so they’d be back in time for the university year to start, so it was a joint affair anyway – the guys were allowed to leave at 18 in Britain back then to fit the education system). Why on earth were these activities not permitted, we wondered.
Hedgehog,
Not actually part of the religious ordinances or formal worship services, but enjoyed afterwards as a respite, in the temple in Nauvoo, presumably in the large open assembly hall on the top floor, in 1845.
See the quote below from History of the Church, volume 7, page 564
“Monday, 5.—My health being better I was ready for duty at an early hour. Spent the morning in hearing letters and newspapers [read], and giving directions as to the business of the day.
“8:45 a.m., commenced washing and anointing [i. e. in the Temple].
“Seventeen bottles of oil were consecrated.
“One hundred four persons received their endowments.
“The high council, two companies of high priests, and the seventies met in their respective rooms for prayer.
“9 p.m., the labors of the day being over, Brothers Hanson and E. Averett played on the violin and flute and enlivened the spirits of the saints present: some embraced the opportunity and danced to the lively strains of music.
“Elder Heber C. Kimball and I returned home about midnight.”
No, wrong. The large hall was on the 2nd floor. The upper levels of the Nauvoo temple were used for endowment and initiatory ordinances. My mistake.
You want boring? Try an endless stream of missionary farewells at which the departing missionary’s family members get up and blubber over him, the missionary’s favorite seminary teacher (always the same one*) delivers the exact same talk for the umpteenth time, and the missionary himself has nothing of substance to say. This was how it was in 1976 when I left. When the bishop tried to turn the meeting over to me, I flat out refused to do any more than what President Hinckley mandated 26 years later. It is not the first occasion on which I was ahead of my time, and hopefully not the last.
*Interestingly, it was not Randy Bott, although he did teach at our seminary at the time.
Hedgehog and MB,
Hugh Nibley was the one who made the parallel to Mormon temple worship and dance and talked about the temple as being the culmination of the highest forms of all the arts. You don’t just sit during temple ordinances, they are active experiences, attendants are moving from room to room, making covenants, praying, sitting, standing, etc. You move! You’ve been dancing a slow, but extremely routine dance. Baptism might also be considered a coordinated “dance” with a dip! No, there isn’t a ballet or fancy footwork, but there is a great deal of slow and coordinated (choreographed actually) physical movement. Early masonic rites (which closely resemble temple rituals) are much more choreographed, so much so that in an episode of the podcast Mormon Stories (Masonry and Mormonism), a guest and expert on the topic was able to identify wear patterns in the original wood floor of the assembly hall where masonic rituals took place, even recognizing which rites were practiced. There’s also an interesting post (I think on Times and Seasons) about the physical ritual of movement as paralleled between the Mormon Temple and a Catholic Mass where movement toward the Celestial Room and/or Monstrance and Eucharist are symbolic of our mortal path toward God. This is a carefully planned re-enactment made by our physical bodies with order and structure, and if you are a Catholic, music.
MB, annon, thanks for that information.
The dancing on the second floor sounds a far cry from the enforced silence and whispering required in our temples today.
Nowadays those of us who wish to dance after sessions are over in the temple do so in the cultural hall of the meeting house adjacent to the mini-temple near where I live, or quietly in the parking lot enroute to our vehicles. 🙂
Dancing in the meeting house (or parking lot) instead is probably good now. I think that our temple presidencies, most of whom serve faithfully in spite of advancing years and the aches and pains that go with them, appreciate being able to head home after 9 or 10 pm having spent a long day on their feet, rather than needing to stay on for music and dance in a large assembly room late into the night like the Saints did that night in 1845. So I think it is a kindness on our part to head out the doors too at that hour.
That said, I understand the worship of dance. Like many others I have happily choreographed dances in my head in the celestial room as an expression of what I am feeling and thinking.
I understand “reforming” the farewells. But what REALLY gets me is the homecomings. That’s when the missionary actually has something to say, and he/she is assigned to be just another talk on family history (or whatever) that Sunday.