All true. And the bishop is also charged to teach his youth in ways they will understand, and usually has the priests quorum in his office each week. And twice a month when the ward council meets and discusses the member progress report and the quarterly report and other items, not all members and leaders have access to this information on their phones.drepouille wrote:Interesting. I did not know that the guidelines for technology in meetinghouses allowed us to donate monitors or televisions to the ward. I know that the guidelines state that no privately-owned equipment may remain in the meetinghouse overnight. They also state that computer donations are not to be accepted.
It's a tough line to draw in this electronic era. But if we roll the television from the library into the bishop's office it becomes the elephant in the room. The Relief Society President, elders quorum president, and high priests group leader no longer have a place to sit, and the other four folks on the same wall can't see the monitor. Or we could throw out the Young Men, Women, and Primary Presidents instead. And this is all contingent on the absence of the fire marshal.
I bring my laptop to church on regular occasions, but I am always cautious, because that same laptop is my own personal computer that replaced my desktop and has all things personal on it, journal, family documents, family finances, everything that used to be on my desktop at home. But it also streams general conference, regional firesides from apostles, training meetings from the area seventy, face to face broadcasts for the youth, and stake conference broadcasts.
So yes, official policy allows a bishop to function in his small office mostly with paper and pencil. I understand why we have the church policies that we do. I have not figured out a better way to obediently comply with current policy than to keep a small monitor in the material center and carry it to the bishop's office each week for use, then return it for safekeeping. This all assumes that a small monitor is even authorized by the FM Group for the meetinghouse.
If I brought a personal small monitor to use in the bishop's office, I would not carry it home every week, either. But I think it might also fall into the same category as the dozen phones, iPads, tablets, and laptops brought in every week by all of the other teachers in the ward. After all, the Handbook says the bishop is a teacher, also.