Off-the-cuff

I struggle with writing. I want to produce content that many people will find interesting. This is hard for me because different people have different tastes. So, to work around this I’m going to cheat a little. I’m going to hold forth on a few different (church-related) topics with the hope that people will be able to find at least one thing that strikes a chord. These are pretty random, but they are all related in that I think they are ideas that we could adopt in church.

Having gotten that out of the way, off we go.

 Technology, pt. I

Do you remember the story Elder Haight told at the beginning of his November 1995 conference talk? He said “When Elder LeGrand Richards was getting along in years, he generally gave extemporaneous conference talks. As you know, we have some time restraints. There was concern as to how to notify him when his time was up. A little flashing light was put on the podium, and during one of his talks he said, ‘There’s a light here that keeps flashing.’ The next conference they made the light red, but he just put his hand over it. “

Why don’t we have something like that on the pulpits in our chapels? You don’t even have to limit it to signaling a speaker to wrap things up. You could use the flashing light to move things along when a talk is boring. You would need to work out a code for what the flashes mean.

One flash means that most folks in the congregation have pulled out their smart phones and are looking/checking Instagram; you better throw out a joke, whip up an anecdote, or say something controversial to reel people back in.

Two flashes indicate that the moms in the audience are starting to pinch their babies in order to have an excuse to get out. It’s hard to come back from this one. Your best bet, regardless of how much talk you have left, is to say “In conclusion…”

Three flashes is real trouble. The congregation has gone to DEFCON High Councilman.  Your only hope here is to pray that the bishop cancels the rest of the block as a peace offering to the ward.

 Mob mentality

When your ward’s three-hour block ends, does it look like this? Mine does. Come to think of it, EVERY ward I’ve ever been in looks like this. This has always bothered me. Don’t get me wrong; over the years I’ve contributed my share of chaos and noise to the pot. I’m not blameless. But I wonder if we could do something to bring the herd back into the barn, so to speak?

My wife teaches school and she has a piece of equipment in her classroom called the Yakker Tracker. She can set a decibel threshold, and if the students exceed that threshold, the Tracker will let them know. We could co-op this technology for our church buildings. Any family or individual that sets off the Chatter Checker (renamed to avoid a lawsuit) will be assigned to clean the building the next week. Is that too harsh?

 Good eatin’

Speaking of cleaning the church, I think if you have kids under the age of nine you should automatically be signed up to clean the chapel. Listen, I get the need to eat during church. Heaven knows that my White Cheddar Cheeze-its won’t eat themselves. And how else are you going to keep kids quiet during Sacrament Meeting? What I don’t get is the messes that are left behind. I once found gum under the armrest of a chair in the temple, so it takes a lot to surprise me, but some of the things I’ve found while cleaning the chapel simply boggle the mind. Who knew that crayons, raisins and Zwieback toast combined together to form a varnish that can withstand all cleaning methods known to man?

I think babies must know a branch of physics that no one else has discovered. How else can you explain what they can do with an ordinary 8.5” X 11” ward program? They start with that and somehow end up with what looks like the aftermath of a NYC ticker tape parade. It’s frightening.

And don’t get me started on the slot where the hymn books sit. Have you ever looked down there? It looks like the inside of that garbage masher on Star Wars. They never get cleaned out because the member’s closet doesn’t dispense nuclear isotope gloves. No one is sticking a hand down there unprotected.

 Technology, pt. II

I heard a rumor once about an idea that, if true, would be one of the greatest ideas ever. The story goes that a ward ‘with means’ had installed LED screens in the corners of all the adult classrooms, similar to the “Now Serving number X” displays that you see in the DMV.

The way it worked was you would drop your kids off in the nursery and receive a number in exchange. If your kid acted up or needed a diaper change, they could just punch in your number and it would flash in the classrooms. You could then get up and head to the nursery to take care of business. No more nursery workers roaming the halls with screaming, smelly kids, interrupting everyone in the building while they tried to track you down. Absolutely brilliant.

The one drawback is the concern of privacy. You don’t want everyone knowing how horrible your kid is because you leave the room every time number 24 shows up on the screen. You could get around this by issuing beepers, similar to what they do when you put your name on a waiting list at a restaurant. Much more confidential that way.

 Conclusion

So there you have it; a few of the random thoughts bumping around inside my head. I hope it wasn’t too boring for you. I’d love to hear any ideas you might have that we could adopt in church.