Just when I thought things were leveling out and stabilizing….
Saturday, I received a phone call from our High Council representative wanting to meet my wife and I on Sunday before church. When I told my wife, she looked at me and said “Brandt, what did you write on your blog!!! I told you to stay away from the controversial stuff!” As we talked more, a light bulb when on in her head and she said “You’re getting a calling. I know it.”
Great. (And that is meant to be read with all the sarcasm in the world).
I’ve been called to be the first counselor in the Elder’s Quorum Presidency. I accepted the calling. And (for the next month), the Bishop will have me doing double-duty in both Young Men’s as well as Elder’s Quorum.
Honestly, I’m a little sad. I’m sad to be leaving my boys, I’m sad to not be able to have awesome lessons where Communism, the Lord of the Rings, and some random gospel principle get thrown into one. I’m sad that I don’t get to bring donuts once a month if they bring their scriptures 4 straight weeks (which, aside from one week, they’ve been going on 6-7 months). I could go on and on about the amazing boys I have, and their amazing example to me. But I won’t, because it would make me sad.
So I’ll do my calling in the Elder’s Quorum to the best of my ability (this is my 3rd tour of duty with the Elder’s Quorum, after having been a President and 1st Counselor, while the other 2 members of the presidency this is their first time). But I’ll still be hanging out with them before Priesthood, still be friends on Facebook with them, and still try to hide my phone number from them so I don’t get obnoxious text-messages. But it will be hard.
So what does it mean for this website? Absolutely nothing. My father joked to me that I could rename my site and call it the “Elder’s Quorum Counselor,” but it didn’t have the same ring to it. I’ll still be pressuring my sources for scoops on the new Duty to God information, I’ll still post lesson write-ups every week, and I’ll still post my thoughts and opinions on the young men’s program and commentary on what’s going on. I just won’t be on the front lines any more.
By the way, BIG NEWSon Wednesday on the new Duty to God program. Here’s a little bit of a sneak peak……my sources might have gotten me some pictures of the new Duty to God book, including one of the inside pages!
The Young Men's Counselor 
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June 28, 2010 at 11:56 am
Bryan
That’s a little sad to hear. I just came across this blog yesterday. I’m a YM counselor as well and I was looking forward to the additional insight and experiences. Good luck with your new calling and I’ll certainly be checking out the blog in the coming weeks. I’m dying to know more about the new DTG plans.
June 28, 2010 at 12:05 pm
brandt
Don’t you worry, Bryan. I’ll still be here. Still posting my ramblings. I just won’t have my ear-to-the-ground and getting the inside scoops like I used to.
And if you have been anxiously awaiting the new DTG stuff, I promise, Wednesday will NOT disappoint.
June 28, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Bryan
Excellent, glad to hear that.
June 28, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Mr. T
Just had to comment.
We got our new Duty to God books last week. I have to confess to being extremely disappointed. The program has been dumbed down to the point of the lowest common denominator. It is nothing like Personal Progress, and reminds me more of the REALLY old Duty to God program that had almost no requirements.
I don’t like this new program at all. It’s as if we felt like the old program required too much and our boys couldn’t do anything that hard, so we had to go to the other extreme and create an incredibly easy and brainless version.
June 28, 2010 at 2:32 pm
brandt
Mr. T,
I’m going to agree and disagree with you.
I think that the previous PREVIOUS Duty to God was basically a token-award given to any boy who went through the Young Men’s and Scouting program, and I think it really didn’t serve a purpose other than gaining a bit of legitimacy among the other Boy Scout troops. As if we were saying “See, we’re like you, we’ve got our own award.”
So the BSA and the church got together to do this new program. It was tough. Very tough. And tough can be good, just look at the Eagle Scout award. However, at what point is it unattainable? And at what point is it just another award?
They introduce this new program, and while they took out many of the small requirements, they tried to keep much of the focus (I’ll go into detail in my post on Wednesday).
Did you have any specific things within the program that you didn’t like?
June 28, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Mr. T
I have to say that I have been a HUGE fan of the Duty to God program. I’ve been serving in the Stake YM Presidency and have seen incredible things being done with Duty to God in combination with scouting. I’ve talked to YM who carried their medallion with them as they served missions all over the world and the great feeling of accomplishment they feel every time they look at that award.
I liked how hard it was. I LOVED the physical aspet to it. I loved how it forced boys to get out and do things that were difficult. There were outings, camps and some very difficult fitness activities that were part of it. I felt that the overall message of the program was “if you are to hold the priesthood, then you need to be prepared to do hard things”. As a YM Leader I took up the challenge to do the program myself and i’m a much better, healthier, more spiritual leader for it (I actually lost twenty lbs. doing the Priest Physical Fitness section, and continue to run 3 times a week for 30 minutes as a habit now). I look at all the requirements that are checked off in my booklet and have a great sense of pride that I am reminded of each time I look at the medallions. I also felt that the demands of the old program really helped prepare YM for the demands of full-time missionary service.
I looked forward to the new program with much anticipation…in hopes that it would incorporate a lot of the YW Personal Progress award and actually be even more involved and challenging. I am one that believes we ought to require more of our young men…not less. Now that I am serving in the Bishopric, I hoped that the new program would provide our YM with specific projects that would stretch them mentally, physically and spiritually. In that I am very disappointed.
We have gone from 90+ requirements to about 21. Most of the requirements don’t really involve ‘doing’ much.
I think that a young man who is a ‘go-getter’ will set high standards and goals for himself…others will just get by with weak goals. Both will get the same recognition and only one will really benefit.
Overall, the program feels very ‘feminine’ to me. Each requirement follows the pattern of: Study a topic – write your feelings in your journal – set some goals – share your experince with others. Boys (by and large) learn by being active, hands on and doing physical things…there doesn’t seem to be much of that in this version. It seems to be a lot of study and writing.
I also think it’s a mistake to take away any award other than certificates. I don’t think that earning a piece of paper will ‘drive’ many boys to dive heart and soul into the program. I am told that eventually there will be a ‘frame’ that you can put your certificate in…again, that seems like an award that appeals more to YW than to a YM.
We have many boys who could care less for scouting, and they were really into the old Duty to God program. It gave them something to do that achieved similar results. This new program seems like can be done in just a few weeks and then what do they do?
It also seems to be very vague and open ended. Like I said, some people will sieze this as an opportunity to work hard, others simply get by. I tend to think more will do the latter because it is easier.
My 13 year-old son just completed his Deacon Duty to God booklet and has worked very hard on completing it. When I handed him his new booklet he was pretty discouraged. His statement to me was “Is that all? I did all that hard work in that other book for nothing?” When I told him they were phasing out the medallion he was even more upset. He was really looking forward to ‘joining that club’ of Priests from our ward who had achieved that status, and had a coin to show for it.
I know that in the Church, a boy should be driven by spiritual growth and not by an award, but reality tells us that, boys being boys, getting that reward is pretty meaningful. With Duty to God, that meaningfulness was accompanied by a lot of personal growth, the boy became part of something bigger…like being an Eagle Scout. This new version seems to have lost a lot of that growth potential in my mind.
Just a few of my thoughts.
June 28, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Mr. T
I think that I have to qualify my statement with the following:
I believe that our YM are warriors…like Elder Hamula stated in his Gen Conf address in spring of 2008.
Warriors are more than just soldiers, they are elite, they are special. They are a cut above the average soldier.
Warriors are like Green Berets, Navy SEALS, Recon Marines or Army Rangers. To be a warrior of this calibur requires one who will go that extra mile, who will give it all for a cause. One who will sacrifice personal comfort for the safety of his brother.
Training for such a warrior does not hold back. It is demanding. It pushes beyond percieved limits. A common demoninator in warrior training is to take the warrior beyond what they thought they could do and then asks them for more.
I felt like the old Duty to God program accomplished this for YM who took the program and ran with it. No program is perfect…clearly our leaders felt that the old program wasn’t working…I felt like it was. I’ll support the new program, but I plan to encourage the boys to set VERY HIGH goals…ones that will not be accomplished with a minimal effort, or that can be done in a very short period of time.
June 30, 2010 at 11:03 am
brandt
First, thank you for commenting, Mr. T. I want to let you know that I appreciate you expressing your concerns, and that’s what I want this website to be – a place where people can openly discuss what’s going on with their youth program.
I understand your concerns. The previous Duty to God was difficult, and difficulty isn’t a bad thing. However, my concern with the old Duty to God was that it was being forgotten. With the priesthood responsibilities of the boys, plus the scouting responsibilities, and the culmination of the Eagle Scout award as the apex of the young men’s program (whether that’s right or wrong, that’s how our culture is), where does Duty to God fit in?
Here’s a couple of thoughts that I have:
1. My wife and I were talking about the new program, and I asked her what she thought. She said she liked it, but then said something I never thought about. She said she thought it would be effective because it’s teaching the boys skills to take with them for the rest of their life. Not like the old program didn’t do that, but look at what a lot of the focus is on? While it may seem “fluffy,” doesn’t it all work out in the big picture? A habit of scripture study, researching and writing about doctrinal topics, understanding one’s priesthood duties, and journal writing are all good habits to start young, I would think?
2. I think that it would be nice if the church were to come up with an elite award, but look at what the Eagle has transitioned into. While in the outside world, it’s still extremely rare for someone to achieve it, within the church, it’s probably (with my guess) at 85% achievement rate for the scouts that enter and stick with it through their Deacon years. The Duty to God would go from being an elite award to an award that is elite-but-social-required. We could say the same thing about a mission. It should be for the elite, the most prepared, etc, but if someone doesn’t go for whatever reason, there’s a stigma put on them. I think that in the big scheme of things, Duty to God is important, but not the main focus.
Who knows, maybe I’m off in my thinking.
July 4, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Kim
Wow Mr. T. In my mind you are pretty off base about the new program, but I suppose it depends on the experience your ward is currently having. It seems to me that in our ward (I am female but am called to be our Duty to God coordinator), it ended up boiling down to a checklist with young men saying “uh, yeah sure, I did that,” especially for the goals that were to be accomplished at home or on their own, which was pretty much most of them by the time you got to Priest. That program got them to DO something, whereas this new program encourages them to BECOME something. I think that is the whole point. I think the same ones who were doing the old program will do the new one, and then ones who were slacking before will slack now. It is just that those who participate now will BECOME more and have life long habits. Anytime you set your own goals you are more invested, more motivated, and have a higher likelihood of success.
Those are just my 2 cents worth.