One of the most uniquely Mormon aspects of Sunday services is the rise of speakers and teachers being assigned to talk about a talk that was originally given by a Church leader at General Conference, rather than being asked to speak on a topic. Since a lot of these talks are also quoting other talks given at General Conference by leaders, we are giving talks on talks that are talks on talks. It’s talks on talks all the way down.
What is really going on with this shift? My first impression (going back quite a while to when this started) is that it was being done because nobody was actually watching General Conference, or at least not paying attention to it, and this was a way to “get the word out.” In other words, I took it as a pass on General Conference. There was no need to watch it anymore because we were all going to get the recap for the next six months. Here are some other theories about why this was done, and the truth is probably a mix of some or all of these:
- Leader worship. Whose words are quoted more than anyone else’s in a Christian faith? The words of Jesus? Paul? Or is it the words of favored Church leaders? Right now, quoting Nelson is outpacing quoting Jesus, but I suppose Nelson seems to like it more. Jesus cares more that you do what he said, not that you quote him.
- Indoctrination. If you run a religion, the best way to get your ideas across is to replace former teachings that might contain outdated ideas that differ from current viewpoints, or ideas of former leaders (“And I’m a Mormon!” vs. “Saying Mormon is a victory for Satan!”) and this is easy to do by replacing the standard time-tested (but maybe not time-approved) content with your own talks and ideas.
- Topical focus. The argument could be made that a talk at General Conference is probably on a timely, important topic, one worth further discussion, rather than something randomly or routinely assigned from a decades-old manual. The more recent, the more relevant it should be, right?
- Riffs. One valuable aspect about these talks is that the speaker, someone local your community, gets to riff on the topic, so in theory, you are getting the perspective of a local member on something that headquarters said more generally. Their role is to make it more relevant, using more salient examples, to talk about exceptions, not just the rule, perhaps.
- Rebuttals. Even better than riffing, there’s certainly an opportunity for someone to rebut what was said at conference, if it was problematic. A clever speaker should have no difficulty making it clear that the speaker “obviously” didn’t mean [problematic thing] because they are led by God, etc., etc. So, in the right hands, some important work can be done correcting some of the flaws.
- Institutional Revelation. When talks are focused on current leaders’ teachings and interpretations of preceding teachings and even the scriptures, this is at least theoretically how ongoing revelation is supposed to work; a living dog is better than a dead lion and all that.
- Progressivism. Taking that previous point to its logical conclusion, when you focus on the teachings of living leaders, you loosen the ties to the past that often hold institutions back. I’m not quite ready to call church leaders progressive, but maybe Nelson is more progressive than Benson, at least because Benson died in 1994, before the series Friends had even debuted.
So, what’s your perspective on this now common practice of lessons and talks being a rehash of General Conference talks? Is it a good idea or does it indicate we are out of ideas?
- Do you like giving talks on talks? Do you like hearing & discussing lessons on talks? Why or why not?
- Why do you think this has become the trend? Is it one or more of the above reasons or something else?
- Do any of the above approaches reflect how you’ve seen people handle giving talks on talks? Can you think of examples?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
If the talks in conference actually said anything new or important, then repeating them over and over might have some purpose other than leader worship. As it is, it either shows a huge distrust in what members might say if just given a topic or scripture, or it is because the leaders think they are more important than scriptures or Jesus, or the leaders simply like being quoted and think that is all there is to spiritual meetings. We are no longer the church of Jesus Christ. We have become the church of GA worship.
As far as liking to give or hear talks on talks quoting talks, I really think it is the worst way imaginable to run a church.
One thing that I have noticed – that combines parts of a couple of areas you mentioned – is what I call “The New File”. It seems like at GC we hear the same topics over and over, with the same points, and even the same stories presented in the same way. It’s like conference speakers open an old computer file and regurgitate the same old same old. But, every once-in-a-while, a general authority goes to the top of “documents” and pulls down a yellow, empty “new folder”. For example, said GA notices that the “The Plan of Salvation” folder is way overstuffed, so he takes the new folder and titles it “The Plan of HAPPINESS”. Boom! He gives his talk, puts a slight twist to it, and members are to repeat the talk – and the new title – over and over in sacrament meetings, class lessons and discussions, family home evening, over the water fountain at work, to your fellow commuter in transit, and in your tossing and turning dreams at night. The current rage is, of course: The Covenant Path. I really have no idea what someone means exactly by the term Covenant Path any more than I do by replacing salvation with happiness. Possibly the new “Happiness” is just the same old “Salvation”, but with more ice cream. But that’s the cool thing about using a new yellow computer folder: there’s nothing in there before, so you can stuff it with anything you want. And if you’re lucky, your new phrase will catch on in every ward in Zion even though the ones repeating it will probably not be sure what it means either.
This is an interesting topic; thx for posting it. One negative aspect of asking a speaker to discuss a GC talk is the almost inevitable need which that places on the speaker to read portions of their talk, instead of just being able to look at the audience and talk about the subject. This is a surefire interest-killer, unfortunately.
I enjoyed a recent post by Kevin Barney on BCC (4 March) where he discussed his surprising increase in speaking results when he made the effort to completely memorize the scriptures and other references that he would use during the talk. And our local historian extraordinaire Ardis E Parshall added a complimentary comment to his post, which included this line:
” While this post is specifically about memorization, I zeroed in on the point about how maintaining eye contact is so effective. That’s true whether you’re quoting a scripture, or winding up a talk with your testimony, or any other part of public speaking. I realize people are terrified by public speaking, so having a printed page to grasp tightly and read from can feel like security … but a simple testimony, read from a page, loses all its effectiveness in my experience: If you don’t feel something strongly enough to just say it, is it really a believable testimony? “
I read the first sentence of your second paragraph as “What is really going on with this shit?” and thought, what indeed?
I am a big believer in the Riff talk. Very loosely taking the assigned talk, and looking for something related I can speak on instead.
I’m not a fan of Conference talks as assigned topics for sacrament meeting talks. But I doubt that any other method or combination of topics would substantially change the overall low quality of talks at the pulpit. The fact is that most people aren’t that good at composing an informative and uplifting talk on any topic.
The problem is that bishops use the “everybody gets a turn” approach, which means that most talks are given by people who aren’t too good at it and would rather not be speaking. I think we’d all be happier if the bishop identified the fifteen or so people in the ward who can clear the “informative and uplifting” hurdle, and rotate assignments among them. Often the best talk on a given Sunday is the youth speaker, as they at least cite and read a scripture or two rather than give a travelogue or family news report.
I issue my strongest possible condemnation to the modern practice of having “talks on talks.” It is the epitome of laziness, and it never would have been tolerated in my day.
For in the past, sacrament meeting speakers were expected to put forth actual thought and effort. They were expected to spend time preparing a message that would benefit the congregation.
Now, speaking assignments are made to pander to the lowest common denominator. A speaker need spend no more time preparing than it takes to pull up a talk on his or her cellular telephone.
This process leads to talks that benefit neither the speaker nor the congregation. For the congregation could just as easily pull up the same conference talk on their cellular telephones. But of course, they would have to switch from watching the latest Dua Lipa vídeo en YouTube.
I think one reason for the recent trend, at least as it relates to sacrament meeting, is the ease of planning for the bishopric.
I know my wife has spoke twice in the last year and each time she was asked to speak the bishopric member admitted to not having actually read the talk. I think it is an easy way for them to assign topics and not have to worry about members going too “rogue”.
I honestly wouldn’t mind the approach so much if members were better prepared on how to use the conference talk. As others have said too often we just get a regurgitation of the GC talk. But on occasion, I’ve seen members take the talk and introduce new and different thoughts to the topic using the GC Talk as just a spring board into their preparation.
I know one member who does this, and I enjoy their talks. They never emphasize that they were asked to speak on a certain talk and sometimes their talks only tangential reference the GC address. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the bishopric member who assigned the talk sit there the entire time wonder how the heck the two are even connected.
This individual is also a highly educated and enjoys public speaking so maybe once again we land on a training issue.
JCS and Nathan hit on the reason that I think is missing from the OP: It’s easy. Just pick any random talk from the most recent GC and assign the speakers to talk about that talk. As an added bonus, you can even assign all the speakers to speak on the same talk! Half the work for you (even if it comes with twice the boredom for the congregation).
I don’t mind using GC talk to provide a topic for a speaker. ‘Faith’ is a fine topic, and the fact that Sister So-and-So spoke on that in the most recent GC certainly doesn’t make it any worse of a topic. I’d much rather bishoprics ask people to speak saying, “we’d like you to talk about [topic]. you may find that reviewing several recent GC talks on the topic may help you prepare.” Using a GC talk to help prepare a talk on a gospel topic is great. Using a GC talk to prepare a talk on the GC talk is terrible.
But what I’d actually prefer is that they let people speak on whatever they want. I would rather listen to someone talk about something they are passionate about that I find boring, than to listen to someone speak about something that bores them but that I love.
I have served in 4 bishoprics, was recently released from the last one. I have never assigned nor have I ever seen the other bishopric members EVER assign a talk on a talk. We always just give topics. Now, it’s common for a speaker to reference a talk or two in their address, but I have never witnessed bro or sister so and so being assigned a sacrament talk on a talk; even from general conference. Now with that said, our priesthood does assign lessons based on general conference talks. In fact, that’s all they base their lessons on; 100% on conference talks.
I teach EQ which is great because teaching is my favorite calling. My lessons take each paragraph of the talk and provide a scriptural context for the various statements.
I got the idea from Hugh Nibley talking about Benjamin telling Mosiah how import the Brass Plates were with Hugh pointed out that they had prophets at the time and yet at the end of the day they were grateful for their scriptures.
It’s been received extremely well. It’s better than “who wants to read the next paragraph… what are your thoughts on that?” even though I know the answers because I’ve been a member for over 40 years. “Ok, who wants to read the next paragraph?”
I have taught gospel doctrine in my ward for the past 2 years. When I was called, I told the Bishop, who is a good friend, I will not strictly follow the correlated material. I told him up front so he could decide if he wanted to risk having a more progressive thinking, unorthodox, unlikely to endlessly quote our own people, teaching our ward. He decided to call me. Needless to say, in the two years, I have probably only quoted our own general authorities 5 times, in favor of pulling together enlivening information from every tradition possible.
I personally find the use of talks as our curriculum for Elders quorum and Relief Society to be desperate and narcissistic. But, with that being said, I think it’s possibly much worse than that. The Jewish tradition has a long history with using scripture as an inflection point, a shared story whereby we can begin a conversation or even, dare we be open to it, a debate. The Jewish people, to this day, have an open relationship with using scripture to discuss and debate how we have failed in the past and how we can better embody a living God in the future. Unfortunately, the use of talks about talks, or lessons about talks, feels a lot more like straining for authority, telling people what they should think about certain things, how they should believe, and using scripture as a way to bring the conversation to a close.
I see a couple other comments identifying the real reasons for this tendency to give talks on talks: easiness (for assigning bishopric member), inexperience/lack of confidence in preparing a good original talk.
For the “easiness” idea. If you put yourself in the seat of the Bishopric member who needs to plan his entire month of talks. He’ll need to get 9-15 talks assigned each month with varying degrees of experience and skill for the intended speaker. It is very tempting to try to coach speakers on what will help them succeed in creating and presenting a talk, hence the providing of a suggested topic with suggested references. Unfortunately, many speakers will take that advice even more literally than intended and just give a book report of the conference talk. I’ve appreciated the direction of our ward’s bishopric. They generally give broad instructions like “please share how your recent temple experience helped you draw closer to Christ” or “Share how what you heard in conference helped your testimony.”. This could be a great training topic for bishoprics in one of their periodic trainings: “How can you assign a talk/topic so that the speaker is most likely to be successful?”
Regarding inexperienced speakers, this will always be a challenge in the way we do meetings. We don’t have a paid pastor to give the homily each week. We all get a turn. I’d love to get a recurring Sunday School class with special invitations to upcoming speakers. Most of the people giving the book report version of a talk simply don’t know how to give a good talk. If we teach them, we’ll get better talks. If these inexperienced speakers hear book report talks every week, they will think that that is what they should be doing. If they hear good talks, they will be drawn to give talks like that. All the more reason for people to go give good talks when they get the chance. If you want to hear more good talks, give more good talks.
One thing I’ve started doing is realizing that I will likely be asked at least once per year to give another talk. Why wait to be assigned a talk. Instead, I think about what I want to give my next talk before I’ve been asked. I even start writing them while I have a minute during sacrament meeting so that when I do get asked, I already have my topic percolating in my brain, and potentially partially written already. It has helped the quality tremendously to do this legwork ahead of time. If they give me an unrelated topic, I will likely give my talk anyway. Generally the topic is to help the speaker. If people are thinking this way, quality will naturally improve.
Add me to the chorus of voices here who loathe talks about talks. I don’t remember precisely when it became the standard churchwide, but there has been a noticeable drop-off in the quality of local talks, lessons and discourse ever since. I personally resist this in my own way; whenever I’m given a church speaking assignment, I graciously accept the invitation, and smile and nod while being assigned a recent GC talk for source material. But I quietly reject the material, and instead prepare and deliver a talk on whatever gospel-related topic I want, usually something that is important to me, so I put a lot of effort into making it as good as I can. Sure, it may throw sand into the gears of the bishop’s planned theme or whatever, but I’ve done this for several years now and never had any complaints. Most of the congregation won’t notice because they aren’t listening anyway. I do get occasional compliments, though.
Ironically, the last GC featured a talk by Elder Haynie in which he pretty clearly stated that prophetic teachings (i.e. conference talks) have a very limited shelf life (and yes, this was the same asinine talk about crushing water bottles). But I’m inclined to agree with him on that point; the ephemeral nature of GC talks make them the worst possible source material for sincere gospel teaching.
To control content in local sacrament meetings. Give people an example of what is appropriate.
I call them book reports and I hate them. Worst is when speaker says he can’t say it better than GC speaker and he reads to us. Not that I am right, but I usually turn my ears off. I already heard the talk.
squidloverfat
I’m curious where you get 9-15 talks per month. With four Sundays a month but one of them is testimony meeting and another will be hijacked by the stake, my experience in the bishopric was four talks per month plus two youth talks per month at most (could be less when it’s the primary program or Ward or stake or general conf or a missionary homecoming/farewell). Curious if things are different in your corner of mormonland.
Yes it was work to plan a good sacrament meeting including music. But so what? Perhaps if one does not have capacity they should not accept the calling.
Nathan said it with a pretty good summation of Isaiah 28: 7….the priest and the prophet have erred …they are out of the way…they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
8 For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.
Just a bunch of narcissistic regurgitation without any understanding so everyone looks good to everyone else.
@Chadwick, I’m making my estimate based on what I see in my ward. A typical month will have 3-4 Sundays requiring speakers. Each week usually has 3 speakers (1 youth, 2 adults). So 9-12 should be more accurate. You could subtract 1 talk for the HC talk I suppose. I don’t like separating out “youth speaker” as a special category. It is still a talk and requires similar preparation.
You might get off easier with conference or Primary Program, but the task is still there.
I think another reason for assigning talks on GC talks is to attempt to ground sacrament meeting talks in correlated thinking in areas of the world where the Church is relatively new and immature. I served a mission in one of these areas (before giving talks on GC talks was so common), and it is true that some of these talks deviated pretty far from correlated Church positions (and even from the Christianity in general). By assigning a talk on a GC talk to a new member of the Church who grew up in some other, potentially non-Christian, religion and who is surrounded by a group of similar other new members, the Church potentially reigns in and controls the contents of the talk. I actually have lived for short stints and still frequently travel to this area, and I have to say that the talks on GC talks I observe there do generally have this effect. More than half of Church membership is now outside of the US, and the non-US portion seems likely to grow faster than the US portion for the foreseeable future. I personally loved some of the wild sacrament meeting talks I would hear in sacrament meeting as a missionary, and I don’t think that talks on GC talks is the best way to teach new members/congregations the gospel, but maybe the Church thinks this is the best and fastest way to correlate its new international members.
If we assume (I don’t agree with this, but if we just assume) that talks on GC talks are good for the international Church in parts of the world where the Church is not well established, should the US and other parts of the world where the Church is more mature also be giving talks on GC talks in sacrament meeting? As we know, Church correlation really wants to treat all Church members/congregations the same. If talks on GC talks are deemed to be necessary in some parts of the world, then correlation may demand that all congregations give talks on GC talks as well. I personally think that the Church needs to relax a lot on correlation and allow for more local adaptations, but the Church doesn’t yet seem to agree with this, so one reason congregations in Orem, Utah are forced to give talks on GC talks is because the Church thinks that is really what needs to be happening in Cebu, Philippines and Lagos, Nigeria.
I personally hate talks on GC talks as much as anyone here. However, I also do wonder if this way of assigning talks is providing some degree of protection from Trumpism (and on the other side, and probably much less frequently given Mormonism’s current political leanings, liberal political views) being spread from the pulpit in the Mormon Corridor where I live. As has been frequently noted, there are a number of Mormons whose political views seem to have morphed into their religion. Perhaps assigning talks on GC talks has prevented some members from giving political speeches from the pulpit in the Mormon Corridor?
My approach is similar to that of others who have already commented. When I am assigned a talk on a GC talk, I will prepare a talk on whatever I am feeling passionate at the moment and that I deem appropriate for sacrament meeting. I always take care to mention that my talk is on the assigned topic at the very beginning of my talk to make it appear as if I followed the direction I was given for the talk, but then I just do an abrupt transition, no matter how tenuous the connection may be, into my selected topic without explicitly stating that I’m actual speaking on something completely unrelated. As others have noted, most people don’t notice that I’ve actually spoken on something completely different than my stated topic, and no one that did notice has ever called me out for doing so.
In our stake, I have seldom heard of people being assigned to talk about talks. Rather, there are general topics or themes assigned, with plenty of latitude for speakers. The biggest emphasis that I hear is that the talks in Sacrament meeting be about the Savior. The General Handbook (29.2.1.4) says simply: “The bishopric extends invitations to speak well in advance of the meeting. Speakers bear testimony of Jesus Christ and teach His gospel using the scriptures (see Doctrine and Covenants 42:12; 52:9). Messages should build faith and be consistent with the sacred nature of the sacrament.” That’s it– there is nothing about “assigning GC talks” as the topics for sacrament meeting speakers. And as a fairly recently released stake president, I can tell you that I received no direction from upper leadership about what sacrament meeting talks should look like, other than they should be focused on Christ. I believe assigning “talks about talks” is a cultural/traditional phenomenon that will pass. Assigning someone to “talk about a talk” would lead to a boring rehash of talks people have already heard. Few things are less interesting than a speaker reading long passages of scripture or a GC talk, rather than just speaking from the heart and sharing their own stories and how they are trying to live the Gospel and learn to love like the Savior.
Another reason that the leadership assigns talks to individual speakers at sacrament meeting is to make it easier on the person giving the talk. It is common among the membership to struggle with public speaking and also in formulating ideas to build a talk out of. It can be difficult for members to extract meaning from the scriptures. The talks are much more digestible. That way, it gives every member an occasional opportunity to share their thoughts in front of the congregation.
Of course, by assigning talks of talks, it puts a restraint on those who are creative and like to opine so that they don’t stir up controversy in church. It helps keep politics out of sacrament meeting. It helps keep the older generation McConkie-ites from going on rants. And it helps keep the LGBTQ rights supporters from going on rants as well. The talks in sacrament, I find, are quite blase, but I think that that might be the point. Church is supposed to be orderly and regular, where people know what to expect. It likes to repeat, repeat, and repeat again.
Anna,
“As it is, it either shows a huge distrust in what members might say if just given a topic or scripture, or it is because the leaders think they are more important than scriptures or Jesus”
The leaders like to tell the members to search, ponder, and pray over the scriptures. However, they actually prefer that they search, ponder, and pray over their interpretations of the scriptures as featured in GC. Lots and lots of different interpretations can be derived from the scriptures. The sheer diversity of Christianity is a case in point. There are lots of different ways to approach a given topic as well. The talks allow for less variety of interpretation and usually the sacrament talks by the individual members end up being quite anodyne.
Bishops assign Conference talk book reports for the same reason English teachers assign the five-paragraph-essay: because it’s easy. As others have already alluded, it’s easy for both the English teacher and the Bishop to assign it; it is also easy for both students and lay members to write one. In both cases, the fact that these genres are as formulaic as they are boring is beside the point.
But just as there are creative students who will always find a way to be insightful within the restrictions of the five-paragraph-essay, there will also always be creative Sacrament speakers who will always find a way to be insightful within the restrictions of a Conference talk. For that matter, an ultra-conservative member who wants to go on an old-fashioned John Bircher rant, or a progressive member who wants hammer on LGBTQ issues, will still find a way to do so with a Conference talk, or just disregard the Conference talk entirely. I don’t know, maybe it’s different back in the Jello-Belt, but out here in the east coast, 9 times out of 10, most Bishops are just glad that someone agreed to speak at all.
I am definitely in the camp of those that dislike having talks based on talks, but occasionally, it can work. Just this past Sunday, we had two young men (brothers) give talks based on GC. They did a great job. They were able to keep their talks structured which prevented them from going off on all kinds of tangents. It also helped them keep to the time limit (which is a huge bonus for me). It no doubt helped that both brothers are fairly charismatic which came across from the pulpit. Definitely better talks than their father who followed them with a talk about the biblical injunction of women being submissive to their husbands. But that will be for a different post.
JB—you nailed my experience.
our ward had not only talks on talks but lessons on the same talks. What a boring and uninsightful way to teach or learn.
You people are very kind. I think its flat out MOOH LA. Some nice accountant (probably the same one that suggested the saints clean their own buildings) said: “Think of all the time and money we could save by not having to develop new curriculum and materials.”
Going waaaaaay back, I was a Relief Society teacher when the manuals changed to Teachings of the Prophets. There was a lot of hype about them, and how special it would be to focus on the teachings of one prophet for an entire year. I really tried. But bleh. The lessons were compilations of things a prophet had said on a particular topic, and it turns out that every single prophet says basically the same thing. Or at least, the curriculum writer could find enough paragraphs about tithing from a prophet’s lifetime teachings that each tithing lesson from the different prophets all sounded basically the same.
I taught the Gen Conf talks in Relief Society a few years later – the fourth Sunday teacher taught from Gen Conf instead of from the prophet manual. by then, I had learned to pull out a couple quotes, but otherwise use scriptures and other sources to try and make a lesson something more than, “who wants to read this paragraph? what do you think of what Sister Doe just read?”
Using Gen Conf talks in sacrament mtg just seems to be the next step. It’s all prophets, all the time. Jesus is mentioned when a prophet mentions him, but we don’t go looking for Jesus in the scriptures anymore.
My stake President instructed that the lessons from GC talks could only be from speakers who
hold the priesthood. My ward ignored him.
Sad that that’s going rogue in today’s church.
Correlation might have some good points. It probably does. But taken to an extreme, it serves to extinguish any light, any good, and anything positive that might arise somewhere in the church. It kills all upward and sideways ideas for improvement, and everything flows only one way, from top down. Any good idea originating anywhere other than 47 E South Temple Street or 50 E North Temple Street must be quashed, instead of floated or shared.
In sacrament meeting, I am more interested in Brother Brown telling us how he makes the gospel real in his life, or Sister Smith telling us how the gospel strengthens her as she goes about her day, than I am hearing someone read long sections of a GC talk I’ve already heard/read. Some will disagree, but I think that we should be teaching from the scriptures. The GC talks are not scripture.
it’s just another way of the church telling its followers that:
Amen and Baaaaa.
Lighten up my friends. The only difference between basing a talk on the scriptures and basing a talk on a general authority’s address is that the former is a midrash on the words of dead prophets while the latter is a midrash on the words of living prophets. There’s plenty of room for creativity and tailoring the message to fit the immediate circumstances of your listeners.
Jack, I do not share your lack of respect (or even animosity?) for our scriptures. But I agree that there is room for creativity and tailoring to meet local needs.
A couple of years ago I published an analysis of the frequency with which general conference speakers mentioned the president of the church. Link: https://qhspencer.github.io/lds-data-analysis/presidents/. Spoiler: it more than doubled when Nelson became president of the church. We can only speculate on what conversations were happening that led to that outcome, or even whether any conversations were necessary because the insiders all knew Nelson’s attitude toward prophetic authority and quoting the president of the church. In either case, the data suggest that in 2018, we entered a new era of leader worship, which roughly corresponds with when we finished the last “Teachings of Presidents” book and started using conference talks for nearly everything. It could very well be coincidence, but it doesn’t look like it to me. I don’t like it, but as other commenters have noted, good speakers can work with nearly any material and bad speakers wouldn’t have been better with a topic assigned in a more direct way. It has definitely diminished the quality of priesthood meetings for me, unfortunately.