In a recent comment on the Ten Commandments of Speaking of Church, Jim told us about an experiment he once performed with Sacrament Meeting Talks:
For about 1 year, I kept a record of the talks in Sacrament Meeting. I organized each talk into one of three categories – A ) talks that explicitly mentioned the Savior, B ) talks that included some indirect reference to the Savior, and C ) talks that did not mention the Savior at all (except for the obligatory “in the name of…” at the end).
I don’t remember the final numbers, but proportionally, the talks for each category (A:B:C) fell out something like 1:5:4 – and that included monthly testimonies by Bishopric members, ward conference, high councilors, etc.
I never shared my survey with anyone at the time – it was only for my own amusement, since I wasn’t getting much else out of the talks at the time).
Still, I think the results show at least one reason why I wasn’t getting much out of the talks.
Jim’s post gave me an idea. I’d like to repeat and extend Jim’s experiment, but this time, harness the power of the bloggernacle to do it.
Here is what I propose:
I would like as many bloggernacle participants as possible to voluntarily keep track of how often the savior is spoken about in their sacrament meeting talks this Sunday the Sunday of March 12 and then report back here on Monday [March 13th]. In this way we should be able to get a broad snapshot of sacrament meeting talks from many different locations.
I need your help in defining the parameters of the experiment:
1. Should we use Jim’s grouping of talks that mention the savior directly, obliquely, and not at all, or should we use a different system?
2. Should we limit ourselves to just identifying how often the savior is discussed in sacrament meeting, or should we add a couple of other topics like how many talks read from the Book of Mormon vs. the Bible? Or how often Joseph Smith is mentioned or talked about explicitly? Or maybe we should save those topics for future experiments?
3. I’m sure that there are those of you out there who have experience that you can use to help us refine our experiment. What else?
We should define parameters for how to report so that we don’t end up with duplicate data from people in the same ward.
We can use the time between now and Saturday March 11th to get organized. This could be a groundbreaking development in the bloggernacle.
Um, this Sunday is Fast Sunday.
Of course, it could also be very interesting to see how well testimonies are focused on the Savior, but if you’re looking for a representative sample of sacrament meeting talks, this Sunday won’t provide that.
The following week, perhaps?
Thanks for pointing that out Anna. I forgot that the month had rolled. I guess that means we do it the week after. I’ll update the post.
Unless of course everyone wants to try a similar experiment this sunday with testimonies as a way to work out the bugs in the process…
I am actually more interested in the content of testimonies, myself. I say let’s do it.
There are two aspects of this quota concept that bother me. The first is that Honest John’s Used Cars doesn’t become more honest the more times Honest John uses the word honest. Using Jesus’ name as many times as we can seems irreverent.
Second, when in the Church we are discussing the gospel of salvation, it is implicit whose gospel that is. This isn’t a personality cult where we have to ingratiate ourselves with the Leader and prove to everyone else how loyal we are at every turn. It is legitimate to expound upon the principles and commandments Christ has given us without explicitly attributing them to him every time. For an example, look at just about any post on this web site.
That said, Sacrament Meeting is a worship service, so some explicit adoration seems in order.
I heartily endorse the concept, and I think Fast Sunday is the perfect time to put it in action. When I originally concocted the idea, it was for Fast Sunday testimonies in particular. Besides, what better way to take a snapshot of the general feelings of church members than with extemporaneous testimonies, rather than prepared talks?
The system I used before worked well. After a year or so of using it, I never really needed to modify it. Nevertheless, I am certain many fellow bloggernackers who are much more intelligent and experienced could come up with an improved system. As a starting point, I would suggest as explicit guidelines the following:
1) Primary-age children are exempt. Youth (12+) are included.
2) To qualify as an oblique reference, a talk/testimony merely needs to reference the Savior once.
3) To qualify as a direct reference, a talk/testimony needs to speak directly about the Savior, His teachings, or the speaker must bear testimony of Him.
For example:
“I love to teach Primary. The little children have such sweet spirits. As I teach the Sunbeams class, I think about how Jesus invited all the little children to come to Him…”
“I am thankful for the Word of Wisdom. It has been such a blessing in my life. I know that the Lord was thinking of the dangers we will face in the latter days when he warned of evil and conspiring men…”
“This is the best ward I have ever lived in. My home and visiting teachers do such a good job, and I know I can rely on them if I ever need help. The Bishop is such a great man. For a time, figure skating was the most important thing in my life. It was even more important than the Savior, but the Bishop helped me repent and come back into full activity…”
Assuming these speakers do not include a direct testimony of the Savior later, these would constitute “B” talks – oblique references to the Savior.
“Pres. Hinckley has said that ‘no othe work comes closer to the vicarious work of the Savior than Temple work and the Family History work that supports it’ (paraphrasing). I have a deep testimony of the Spirit of Elijah, and I am humbled at the prospect of performing small part of the Atonement – working side-by-side with my Redeemer – to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of mankind. When I performed the baptisms for my great-uncle, I could feel the Spirit of the Lord, and I know that this work is continuing the great work of the Savior.”
“I have a sense of deep gratitude for Jesus Christ, for what He has done for me. AT times like this, the words of the hymn ‘I Stand All Amazed’ come to mind. When I partake of the Sacrament, I remember His sacrifice, and I am sorry for my part in the burden that He bore.”
Testimonies that talk about themes such as these would fall into the direct reference category.
Elder Ballard’s talk about pure testimony from last conference might also provide some good guidelines.
Well, if you’re going to do it, let’s try for more demographic data if possible.
Such as:
-Location
-Gender breakdown of testimony (ages, maybe? probably asking too much).
-A consistent definition of terms.
(Any more?)
Thus, it might be most helpful if we can say:
I live in an urban area in the Northeast. Last Sunday there were twelve testimonies, seven from women and five from men. Of these, they break down as follows:
Mentions the Savior: 2 women, 2 men
Indirectly discusses the Savior: 3 women, 0 men
No mention: 2 women, 3 men.
Etc.
The major definitional problem is the “indirect” versus “direct” mention. Can you give some examples?
Looks like Jim got the direct/indirect definition in place and our messages crossed in transit.
I think John’s point is well made. I wonder if we’d all agree what is about the savior or not. Further I think we ought distinguish between content and mere rhetoric. A person can talk about the savior extensively without using the common terminology. Likewise someone can use all the cliched terminology while say relatively little about the savior or his gospel that isn’t superficial.
I also think there will be various problems by picking only one Sunday. For instance a few months back the topic on Sunday was food storage and preparedness. Not exactly an ideal topic to track references to the savior. Contrast that to say the topic of repentence, the atonement, or faith.
For this survey to be meaningful you’d have to do it over many Sundays.
Further, given that it is easter, I’d expect there to be far more talks about the savior this month than normal.
I recognize the, um, irony of this coming from me, but I find such an experiment a little too cynical. Part of what we’re doing in Sacrament Meeting is trying to be the body of Christ. For me, this means trying to figure out how it is that the person up there giving a talk that is driving me insane with its poor grammar, cliched images, or hackneyed stories is a part of me, how “God hath tempered the body together.” Doing such an experiment would inevitably yank me out of my (admittedly usually pitifully inadequate) attempt to care for the speaker as I would if I were the one up there trying to articulate my thoughts.
Sorry, I couldn’t think of a way to say that without sounding preachy, and I don’t mean to say that the experiment shouldn’t be done (or that I haven’t thought far more judgmental things about people’s talks–sheesh!), but I’d rather do it in a ward I was visiting or something–the stakes feel too high to me in my own ward.
Kristine, I may be wrong, but I think that the intent of the experiment is to focus our attention on what we should be striving for in our sacrament meeting participation. I don’t think the point is to show how awful sacrament or testimony meetings are, but rather to listen specifically to the content, with the intent of changing our own behaviors.
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that I’ve made a personal commitment to bear testimony of the Savior and use passages from the Book of Mormon in any talk that I give. Having made that personal decision, I’m pretty aware of how other people do or don’t do this in their talks. I don’t necessarily think any less of talks that don’t follow this formula, but I do notice, and I know that it has become easier for me to write talks that I get something out of having this awareness.
To me, this experiment is kind of like when you’re singing in a choir, and all of a sudden you take the time to listen to everyone else.
And where have you been? Good to see you.
Clark,
I would like to avoid passing judgement on whether the discussion of Christ in a talk is “superficial” or not. I don’t think that any of us are well qualified to judge such a thing. I don’t think that we can draw conclusions about our dedication to Christ by looking at this kind of information.
In this experiment, I think that we should assume that all speakers, whether they speak of Christ in their particular talk or not, believe in Christ, recognize that he is the central figure of the Gospel, and that when they do speak of him they are completely sincere, whether or not they speak of him in cliches or not. The goal is to find out more about how often we communicate faith in Christ, not whether we have faith in Christ.
While I understand your concerns about nuance, I think that, given a few guidelines, people are savy enough to identify whether or not the speaker is talking about the Savior, even if he or she says “The Lamb of God” or “The Word made Flesh.”
You’ve made some good points about the drawbacks of sampling only one Sunday, the fact that some assigned subjects more readily reference the Savior, and the fact that Easter is this month. Perhaps sampling the tesimony meeting will be a better experiment after all because it lacks any set theme.
Kristine,
I appreciate the franknss of your concerns with this sort of thing. My intentions are far from the cynicism of “Testimony Bingo,” I think, but I am glad you are concerned, nevertheless.
As I said to Clark, I don’t think this experiment should try to say anything about the faith of speakers nor about their sincerity and delivery. Faith and sincerity should be assumed and adptness of delivery should not be counted. I am interested in how often we communicate about certain subjects, independent of how sincere our belief may be, or how well delivered the message.
I too would be concerned if this were designed as a way to “judge” the speakers. I am hoping that we can note patterns in our communications without judging. By identifying patterns I hope we can become more aware of how we, as a people, communicate, or fail to communicate, our faith–with an eye toward improving our own communications of faith.
I am also fascinated with the untapped ability of the bloggernacle to gather this kind of information. We can count the number of Book of Mormon citations in a general conference in relation to the number of biblical citations, but until this, it would have taken a long time to gather such information from sacrament meetings, and even harder to do it for simultaneous sacrament meetings on a particular day.
I understand the struggle to not judge speakers, and if you, or anyone else thinks that joining in this experiment will only intensify your own temptation to judge then by all means refrain from participating. If, with the objectives I have in mind, you feel that you can participate without becoming judgmental, I would love to have your help.
Incidentally, I will not have access to a computer today (thurs. March 3) until the evening. Please continue to develop this idea without me until then. I would like to create something in PDF format for those who will participate to download, print out, and take to church with them on Sunday.
Something like:
Testimony 1
Sex: [ ] Male [ ] Female
Age (est.): [ ] 12-17 [ ] 18-31 [ ] 32+
Savior: [ ] explicitly/implicitly [ ] obliquely [ ] no
Joseph Smith: [ ] explicitly/implicitly [ ] obliquely [ ] no
Book of Mormon: [ ] explicitly/implicitly [ ] obliquely [ ] no
Temple Worship: [ ] explicitly/implicitly [ ] obliquely [ ] no
Testimony 2
…
Does anyone else ever feel like members of the Church have been suckered into a contest with Evangelicals to see who can yell “Jesus” the loudest?
I’m with Kristine on this one. I read your responses to her and have tried to keep an open mind, but something about this just makes me uncomfortable.
I understand concerns about cynicism. When I finally finished my own experiment, it was because I had succeeded in proving to myself my point, but there was also a part of me that was relieved because I didn’t have to worry about “grading” the talks anymore. I was very aware of how close I was walking to the cynical line, which is why at the time I never told anyone except my wife what I was doing. Although I only recorded anonymous data, if I had continued for much longer, I might have been able to intuitively detect a pattern in some individual members of the ward, which might have lead me to unrighteous judgment.
Nevertheless, it was a helpful exercise for me, because as I indicated before, Sacrament Meeting had begun to feel like a waste of my time. My hypothesis was that this feeling came about in part because of an insufficient focus on the Savior. My exercise proved the point, and knowing that there was at least one reason why I was feeling disappointed with Sacrament Meeting helped me reframe my perspective, and approach my worship time in a better way.
After my experiment, I did occasionally share the results with the Bishop, EQP, and a few others. They were very interested, and I believe it also helped them to reframe perspective, and perhaps even personally refocus onto the Savior.
If we use the three-part categorization, one would expect a normal distribution of talks to be something like 3:4:3. But, this is not what I experienced. Furthermore, I don’t think that in the Church of _Jesus_Christ_ of Latter-Day Saints, a normal distribution would constitute a “healthy” distribution. I would expect something more like a 4:4:2, especially in Sacrament Meeting, where the explicit purpose is to remember the Savior and partake of the Sacrament.
This Great Bloggernacle Experiment should only be used to provide a statistical snapshot to see if this expectation is reality.
Just watch. The theme of our sacrament meeting talks will be “family preparedness” or something, and we’ll end up looking like the least Christ-centered ward in the Church or something.
Put me in the uncomfortable camp with Andrea and Kristine. In my opinion, not many positive things could come out of performing such an experiment.