So how is the new Elders Quorum going? In my ward, we had about 20 active HPs, and 15 active Elders. Even 20 was a bit big in HP, but with people gone, and in callings, we had between 10-15 people attending each week. With this number we were able have intimate conversations, tell inside jokes with each other, and overall have a fun time, even if the GC talk we were supposed to be using as a lesson plan had long gone out the window for a discussion of whatever we wanted.
(as a side note, I went to the LDS.org media library to find a photo of an “Elders Quorum” and found the above photo. This is a new one that I’ve not seen in the past, so is probably put up post combination, as it shows older and younger guys in the circle. But notice the small intimate size, not practical in my ward)
Now we have over 30 people, we barely fit in the room, the new EQP is a former Bishop and was just released from the High Council so he could be what is evidently the “assistant Bishop for adults” in the ward. The lessons seldom deviate from the GC talk that was boring the first time we heard it, and now is just painful.
I’m lucky that I have a daughter and her family in the area, so I’m visiting them more and more each Sunday, which gives me a great excuse to miss Elders, and to spend time with my lovely granddaughters.
Last week the former HPGL, who is now 1st Counselor in the Elders Quorum asked me what I thought about the new quorum. I told him I didn’t like it. I told him I missed the small group discussions, and the intimacy that is now gone.
How has your experience been? Do you think that violating D&C 107:89 [1] is an inspired move, or one done out of necessity due to worldwide conditions, and shrinking numbers? Or is it both; inspired because of the changing demographics of the membership?
[1] D&C explicit says that the EQP is to preside over Elders, it says nothing of him being able to preside over High Priests.
Wheat & Tares 
Ours hasn’t even been reorganized yet! I was extended the call but that was in April. I was told that they are working on it, but was told that 3 times. I told them who I wanted as counselours and I don’t know what is happening. The High Council in this stake is next to useless so I learned to do everything on my own or with counselours or just email the Stake directly. Our current EQ Presidency was it from before the change so they are still doing the job but they don’t have any meetings other then sunday lessons. I live in Canada and we had a broadcast from Alberta and one of the speakers talked about now that the Elders have been re organized and new ministering assignments have been made we are now in the interview phase and I was sitting at the chapel thinking………………yep……………..try living in this stake…………………
My experience is similar to that of the OP. What was previously a forum for friends to have frank discussion now we rarely deviate from the GC talk. Discussions are shallow and boring. I too find myself skipping more often.
This has been my experience too. Thirty men in class, most of them older. Men under 40 very rarely make comments. Much too big of a group. Very boring lessons, at least so far. They haven’t had a quality teacher yet.
I went to the ward list and counted how many Elders we currently have. It’s well over 96, which means that according to D&C it needs to be split. But I really don’t see that happening.
I wanted elders and high priests to combine for a long time; the separation created a de facto status symbol, marking men from 40+ years old as ones who haven’t made it into a “real” leadership position. I’m not sure if people were really bothered by it, but I imagine as men approached 50 or more and they are still going to elders quorum they would sometimes have liked an invite to the grown up room. Eventually they w oils probably get the invite, but the separation seems kind of arbitrary to me.
It’s reasonable that people that were happy in their quorums before the change will be less comfortable now, especially in the short term, but perhaps for the long term as well, if the classes are an unmanageable size. In one ward, the HPs were meeting in the soft recliners in the high council room, now they sit on hard chairs in the gym. And they are with the larger group where they don’t know as many people. I imagine it is not as enjoyable.
For my part, priesthood has been just too shallow and boring for a long time. Although for a long time I did want this change to happen, now I see it as only a small improvement, if that. But I still think the former separation by who-has-had-a-real-leadership-calling-or-gotten-old-enough was a poor organizational structure.
Side note, I have always thought the limitation of an elders quorum to 96 elders only applied to active, attending elders. I have seen wards that had two elders quorum for this reason.
I was not thrilled with the new plan for a sit-in-a-circle-and-hold-hands discussion once a month, plus a same-lesson-every-month plan for the fourth Sunday. So I engineered a calling to Primary. Problem solved.
Regarding what Rockwell said…
I too have been bothered by the status the High Priests have, and other positions, ever since I understood how things work in the church. I believe it is based on favoritism / who you know, how popular one is in the ward and stake.
In my experiences too many church members put emphasis on “status” in the church…..on both worldly and church position status.
A few years ago I saw a ward member in the store. She was not very friendly but I made the effort. I suggested to her that her husband would be perfect for a position that needed to be filled….. working with Scouts. Her response — ” Oh no, he couldn’t accept. Plus he would never be asked because he is a High Priest, and High Priests are too important to be called to regular church positions “.
True story.
Due to a high amount of travel, I haven’t attended much since the change. One lesson was surprisingly good. Two lessons were boring as ever. Mixed bag for me.
I’m about with the OP. In my ward, the combined meeting means all the camaraderie of the old EQ is down the drain. Only the high priests talk during the excruciatingly boring lessons now and there is no sense of community. I asked the new quorum president if I could invite just the elders (not the high priests) for a barbecue and was patently discouraged for doing so. We say we want unity, but boring lesson after boring lesson isn’t going to create it. Nor will high priests who dominate the lesson. This is a step backwards, IMHO. It’s understandable on some level as several units in my stake don’t even have enough active elders to have had a complete quorum leadership group (president, counselors and secretary), but it’s really going to negatively impact each unit’s social dynamic, I think.
In my ward, attendance was high for two weeks. After that, the new EQ is now smaller than the original EQ. Attendance is declining due in part to generational issues. The EQ President is grossly immature and inexperienced. I suppose the can reorganize the Presidency after a year or two of pain.
My personal and business travels along with my stake calling has pulled me out of most of the 3rd hour this year. The last 3 I have attended are all just “see how much we can talk about ministering” over and over. We had lots of people out of town traveling so we were down to about 5 people with 1 person leading the discussion. And since there were so few people the sacrament was performed very quickly, so sacrament meeting ended early, which meant SS ended early, and we had to “make it up” in 3rd hour. It was torture. My son who is visiting this week from Utah asked, “do you have a problem with people leaving right after sacrament as this is a big deal in Utah?” He also mentioned that when he was at the Y a few years ago many people figured out that attendance was taken during the 3rd hour, so they would only show up then. Being that he is a business major, he quickly rattled off, “You get the behavior that you measure”. Made this pappa proud 🙂
D&C explicit says that the EQP is to preside over Elders, it says nothing of him being able to preside over High Priests.
It’s right by where it talks about the role of high priest group leader.
Our elders quorum was much larger than hp. Lessons are typically dominated by younger guys in my ward.
It has been a mixed bag in my ward.
On the plus side, the attendance has not changed any that I can see yet. The discussions have been good for the most part with neither HP or Elders dominating the discussions, in fact, depending on the topic, the younger guys have sometimes dominated the discussions or at least the comments. The new teaching style has really helped improve the overall teaching or discussion, (whatever you want to call it). The old HP group teaching was really poor for the most part but the Old EQ was normally much better, they were already teaching more discussion like lessons before the change so the teaching style was not a big transition for them.
On the negative side, there is a whole lot of us in one room, really the overflow of the gym, 40-50 of us. ( why is it that the RS and young Women get a room but the men get shoehorned into the last available spot in the building, been that way in every ward building I have been in?) Makes it hard to get to know everyone. The one downside that has really affected the quorum has been the chose of the President, the poor guy has never held a leadership calling in his life and has struggled to do anything. The overall unity of the quorum has suffered because of it. He has taken way to long to do anything, for example it took almost two months to call the instructors, before the instructors from the HP and EQ worked out among themselves who would teach each week, the President one week called all the instructors in class out into the hall, there just happen to be three that week, and said “well I need three instructors and there are three of you so I guess it will be the three of you”, and that is how we got our instructors. Don’t think he talked to the instructors who were not there to this day, just released by ignoring you, have not see two of them since. It will be an interesting time until he figures it out or gets released in a year or two.
On the question does the changes violate D&C 107:89? I don’t see how? No were in D&C 107 does it talk about HPGL and their responsibility and membership in a High Priest Group or Quorum, with the exception of the stake president and the 12 members of a high council. The scriptures are unclear or don’t talk about what happens to men who were made high priests for a calling say bishop or his councilors, after they are released as bishop or a councilor. There is not standing quorum for nonfunctioning high priests.
Reading these comments made me realize the real issue isn’t one quorum or two; the problem is the lessons. No “inspired” quorum structure can compensate for crap lessons.
Our EQ president has been sending out emails with the lesson topics beforehand so we have time to read before the discussion. He has been making it easy for us by providing hyperlinks. Our ward is fairly small so organizing our chairs into a circle is not too hard. I have enjoyed the change. Some have expressed vulnerabilities in the meeting and this increases my desire to attend. We spoke about concepts related to forgiveness two Sundays ago and one brother shared something very difficult. He got feedback from another brother that has faced similar challenges. The increased flexibility has led to better discussions that are more honest. I think such discussions will help people get input on things they struggle with. Not everyone participates and High priests sometimes take more time than necessary but I think overall it is an improvement. With time I hope more in the group will participate.
We have a predominantly geriatric ward as not a lot of families with young children move in, so there are empty nesters and retirees moving in. Our High Priest group average age was around 67. The comments made by some of these men remind me of Dana Carvey’s ‘grumpy old man’, if you watched Saturday Night Live during the Dana Carvey era. And the comments are made with the authority of experience AND in some cases, tinges of mild cognitive impairment. There tends to be comments, for example, judging how younger members dress. When the groups were segregated, at least only a few of the lower than average aged High Priests had to endures some of this. Now with the united quorums, all of the ward’s MP holders get to revel in such comments. I am still, thank goodness, in the Young Men’s organization.
“Oh no, he couldn’t accept. Plus he would never be asked because he is a High Priest, and High Priests are too important to be called to regular church positions.”
LMAO. This reminds me of the time I heard about someone focusing on their “church career.” I guess they figured if they were a kick-ass EQ president or bishopric counselor eventually they would reap financial rewards, if only by eventually rising to the level of a paid full-time GA.
I looked forward to meeting with the Elders after the conference announcement. Even in my mid-fifties, I was only the second oldest of our large HP group. Unfortunately the Elder’s don’t participate much in the combined quorum. I think this is because we have a number of former stake presidents and bishops that can dominate. I still want to continue together and hopefully bring everyone comfortably into the discussions.
In my calling with the Sunday School, I led the last teacher development discussion. I asked members of the Relief Society how they handled the age disparities since they have experience working this issue for some time. One sister did acknowledge they have the same problem with older sisters dominating discussions. I think we’ll need to work on getting instructors and discussion leaders to work on actively drawing younger members into discussions. We do have a mix of ages for instructors which I think is a good start.
I mean “second youngest”
I don’t like the new way. When we had a separate EQ, it was a close-knit group of men in a similar stage of life (mostly young fathers, early-to-mid-career) and we had some positive discussions and bonding experiences, with rarely more than 10 in the room. It wasn’t always perfect or well-run, but it was ours. The new combined EQ is very large and unwieldy, and the generation gap is evident in every discussion. The older men tend to dominate. The really old men take up time with rambling comments that aren’t always relevant, and sometimes incoherent. It feels like the program (and the Church in general) is catering to the desires of the aging baby boomers rather than building up the next generation of leaders. I would love to see younger men step up and take ownership, but the older men won’t give them permission. So, the younger men are shutting down, or just don’t come anymore.
Jack Hughes, I am one of the aging baby boomers who wish some of the younger men would step up and take ownership and that some of my contemporaries (and older) would shut up. Before the change (sounds kind of like menopause, doesn’t it), I sometimes escaped boredom and irritation by sitting in on the EQ. It was refreshing. Now no more. However, I don’t think the program is catering to the desires of aging baby boomers. Those in my ward who were irritated with it were aging baby boomers. I suspect it is unwise to extrapolate from one ward’s experience to the Church in general. I’m not sure why you need permission to speak up in EQ discussion meetings/councils, or how it is that you’ve ceded authority to give or withhold permission to “the older men.” Why not just tell them you’re tired of their dominating the discussion and that such behaviors are no way build brotherhood in a single quorum?
JR, I can only speak from my own experience and observations, but that is my perception of things. If the new combined EQ format is working well elsewhere, I would love to hear about it.
I’m part of a rotation of EQ teachers in my ward, and I end up teaching about once a month. Before the change, we had a real positive group dynamic, with intimate discussions and some healthy debate, all the while feeling like we understood each other and supported each other. When the change was announced, I was initially hopeful that it would become a sort of mentoring program, wherein the experienced, seasoned men would take younger men under their wing and give them guidance for spiritual growth and future church leadership, all while embracing them as part of the same community of priesthood holders. Instead, we get lessons where young men who try to speak up are shouted down or contradicted. When I teach, it’s a constant struggle to keep the lesson from being hijacked by one of many grumpy old men with strong opinions about “the way things are supposed to be”. It doesn’t help that old men outnumber young men significantly, and the divide grows as more of my peers are finding reasons not to be there. What I meant by not having “permission” is that men of my generation don’t feel like we fully belong, because the perception is that the old guys took everything over and won’t step aside and let the young guys have a chance to do anything important. Under the old way, we used to have an EQ president (a peer) represent us in ward council. We lost that representation now that the new EQ presidency is entirely made of former HPs. For a long time I have felt as though younger men in the church were being marginalized in favor of the older men, and this change makes it significantly worse, I think. But again, this is only my perception of things, YMMV.
Jack, Sorry your ward and EQ presidency is populated with so many old know-it-all jerks. The EQ leadership and behaviors you describe are the sort of thing I would take up with a stake president if he were one you could take such things up with and were also forceful enough to do anything about it — say replace that EQ presidency. Some of us have long since had to have a foyer-class during Sunday school. Maybe you should consider having one of those during priesthood meeting when you’re not teaching. Good luck.
I have asked three men from three different quorums about their recent experiences:
1) A younger Elder from a large group: High Priests dominate discussion. Pedantic lessons.
2) An older High Priest from a moderate sized ward: Elders don’t contribute much; Elder taught lessons are shallow.
3) A middle-aged HP from a small branch where HP’s and Elder’s always have met together: Same people preach to same people who don’t listen.
All of us agreed that not many prepare much…teacher or student. Maybe we don’t yet deserve much.
All ages in the RS have always met together. It’s sometimes been viewed as a barrier for newly graduated YW having to attend RS with their mothers and other older women. I disliked it, and it may be foundational to my ambiguous feelings about RS. I’ve lived in wards where they call a couple of women they feel may relate well to youth, and have a special young RS, just for them. As a feminist Mormon, I welcomed the parity. Perhaps we could have gained parity instead by creating a two-tier RS.
There is no violation of D&C 107:89. The EQP presides over the “new” EQ and he has the keys to do it. He directs the functioning of the Priesthood activity in coordination with the Bishop, who is both presiding HP in the ward as well as president of the Aaronic Priesthood and the Priest Quorum. Those who are HP in the EQ are under the direction of the Stake President who has keys that originate from the First Presidency. These HP would perform special assignments at the discretion of the SP, as well as coordinate with the necessities of the Bishop, who is the presiding HP in the ward, as well as performing EQ responsibilities.