The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced that on September 6, 2026, the Sunday meeting schedule will change once again. For details see the church website, but in a nutshell they’re shortening the Sunday School / quorums so they can have all the meetings every week instead of alternating — and they’ve shortened the break to five minutes!
The Main Street Plaza team has opinions!
chanson: Personally, I think that shortening the meetings is kind of genius and shortening the break is incredibly stupid. Both of my opinions are related to the lack of actual content in the meetings (as discussed last time).
By increasing the number of meetings and decreasing their length, they increase the proportion of time spent on “opening exercises”, singing, prayer, welcome, etc., and less time on the “lesson” — making it less obvious how empty and repetitive the “lessons” are.
Regarding the break, though, I think they are wildly underestimating the importance of unstructured conversation for building community and a sense of belonging. (Not to mention the importance of going to the bathroom…)
I predict that re-lengthening the break will be the next scheduling change. I don’t have a great track record on predicting things, but I predict the 5-minute break won’t last a year. What do you think?
Donna: I don’t see how such a short break can work. First off, the bathroom time is no small thing. Especially considering the church’s lack of retention among the younger generations along with its continual emphasis on growing families. No way can Boomers, Gen Xers, and women in their third trimester just “hold it” through an entire 2-hour block. The Brethren would either need to redesign the garments to accommodate “leakage,” or expand the meetinghouse bathrooms to truck stop capacity.
But I can’t stop giggling at the mental picture of these chaotic 5-minute transitions. Cue the zany music. Now picture a Sunday School teacher sprinting out of Sacrament Meeting like Usain Bolt so he can hyperventilate through a 20-minute “deep immersion” into the holy scriptures. The second he’s finished, the Relief Society teacher is vaulting over the rows of chairs, with tablecloth flying and silk flowers between her teeth. And for what? A 20-minute regurgitation of a Conference talk for a group of exhausted women who are desperate to pee, go home and collapse, or both. As you point out, any hope of community is in the toilet. –Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. From here on, no more bathroom humor!
chanson: Seriously, any time they save by shortening the break is going to be eaten up by waiting for people who were last in line of the toilet and with admonishing people to try harder to get to class on time and be reverent. But maybe it’s a feature! Light shaming for everyone will be a weekly part of the church experience.
But I am absolutely floored by how much they’ve managed to stamp out any danger of encountering any new information in these “lessons”. So the adult priesthood & “Relief Society” lessons will be spent “discussing” conference talks, while the youth will be “learning” about topics such as “Jesus Christ will help you” or “Your body is sacred” — each of these for a month!
Also, I’d heard that they’re having people read conference talks at the podium in Sacrament meeting instead of having people write their own talks like they used to in the olden days. If that is still the case, then I can’t imagine why anyone would attend or listen to General Conference live when it happens — that would just be spoilers for the upcoming six months of church lessons!
Donna: I think you’re onto something. Light shaming as a feature. It’s certainly been a go-to in the past. In fact, in one of the instructional videos–can’t recall which, there are so many–a leader calls the chit-chat ahead of the Sunday School lessons “fluff.” In other words, no more of that useless fellowshipping. Just sit down, shame on you, and let’s discuss…General Conference? Blech.
What a new low, especially given that the Conference talks are vetted by church correlation. Even the leaders have to answer to the censors. Consider the letter sent out by that stake in Lehi recently, forbidding fireside attendees from sharing audio/video of Brad Wilcox’s talk. Sigh. No more batshit crazy talk. Honestly, what a bore. Almost makes me miss Boyd K. Packer. Ahem…almost.
Well, I’ll be thinking of the long suffering faithful next Sunday as they race the hallways to class. Like I say to you at the end of our weekly Saturday zooms: Here’s to another Sunday without church!
chanson: Yeah, the videos seem to indicate an increase in discussion and participation, but… always in the context of incredibly rigid and leading discussion questions.
You can see examples of their idea of discussion questions in the church materials linked above. They’re all like “How is this teaching by the General Authorities a blessing in my life? Give examples.” They’re absolutely not welcome to discuss questions like “Is this teaching by the General Authorities a blessing in my life? Why or why not?”
My guess is that the increase in discussion is due to the fact that they’re planning to reuse manuals like “For the Strength of Youth” for multiple years — and the lessons will seem fresher if the audience provides their own faith-promoting anecdotes.
I shudder to think what they’re going to do when it’s time to replace “For the Strength of Youth” with a new manual. I’m not sure they can dumb this down any further without breaking the laws of physics….
Even 40 years ago when I left, the lessons were so rote and repetitious that teachers had a hard time getting anyone to respond to questions. It felt like answering the question, “What do we call the star the Earth orbits around?” No one wants to say, “The sun,” because we feel like idiots saying something everyone knows. Every lesson was a Mormon reenactment of Ferris Bueller. “Anyone? Anyone?” It must be even more excruciating now.
Yes! Donna and I watched every video in the church’s instructions about this (linked above), and their instructions on the importance of participating in the discussion were really striking. One woman told a story about how she thought of a comment and then it inspired another woman to make a comment. And there was one where a guy talked about how he read the selected General Conference talk in advance and was better able to participate in the discussion — and another member complimented him after class on his participation. They didn’t include any concrete examples of the wonderful comments people made, but the content’s not really the point…
Inspired leakage! One rationale is that having the same schedule every week will cut confusion for irregular attendees. But can’t Salt Lake see that the point of church is re-connecting with your community, not regurgitating. Ugh… They should have a whole meeting that is for checking in and chatting, but then, who knows what might happen
Yes, exactly. I sincerely think that they’d rather have people fade away from church activity than encourage members to talk amongst themselves without being led by discussion prompts.
Unstructured discussion at church leads to some pitfalls that the CoJCoL-dS wants to avoid:
1. Older pioneer-stock members discussing deep/folk doctrines with newer/younger members who aren’t aware of the doctrines that have been de-emphasized,
2. Members thinking it’s safe to ask each other about confusing rumors they’ve seen on the Internet, e.g. JS marrying 14 year-old girls, etc.,
3. Rank-and-file members agreeing among themselves about problems with church policy or local leadership — thus undermining confidence in the sacred bureaucratic hierarchy. Members need to always be reminded that if you have a problem with anything your church leaders have done or have commanded you to do, the problem is you!
I imagine the alternating schedule gave many an excuse to skip church on the weeks they didn’t need to teach class or otherwise participate. You would think the obvious solution would be to find ways to inspire people to come every week, not find ways to make them come. But that’s just never been part of the plan.
Many years ago I was called on the carpet by a RS president for using materials outside the manual in my Sunday lessons. When I told her that I was only trying to make the lessons more interesting, she said, “If the sisters are bored it’s their fault.” So I quit. Or I was fired. Can’t remember–one or the other always ended up happening. lol
Wow!! I guess it’s not surprising…