Tech Forum

I'm finalizing the calendar for next year and asked the bishop about having linger longer events as we will be the last ward in the building for 2010. He informed me he was directed to discontinue linger longers but could not remember the details or the source of the mater. Any hints?

Al

showseason wrote:I'm finalizing the calendar for next year and asked the bishop about having linger longer events as we will be the last ward in the building for 2010. He informed me he was directed to discontinue linger longers but could not remember the details or the source of the mater. Any hints?

Al

We still do them in my stake, so it sounds like more of a local thing. Check with your Stake Presidency.

I don't know if there has been any guidance out of Salt Lake regarding "Linger Longers" but I know that in our stake it was being discouraged. The main issue we found was that Sisters were missing Relief Society in order to go home and get food for the event. No matter how hard the Bishop's tried to get Sisters to attend their meetings rather than running home to get food there was still a significant number that ignored the plea and missed meetings.

I am not sure that was the entire reason for discouraging Linger Longers but it was definitely one of the issues. Since I don't remember seeing any guidance (letters from SLC) I am assuming that it is a Stake issue whether to encourage or discourage the event.

It might have been a local leaders reaction to talks like this: Dating versus Hanging Out

Young women, resist too much hanging out, and encourage dates that are simple, inexpensive, and frequent. Don’t make it easy for young men to hang out in a setting where you women provide the food. Don’t subsidize freeloaders. An occasional group activity is OK, but when you see men who make hanging out their primary interaction with the opposite sex, I think you should lock the pantry and bolt the front door.

We use to bring our food with us going on church, so we don't loose any meeting.
After meeting we warm food who need it and that's all. No one has something to say.

We were told not to as well to better keep the Sabbath, forgoing any extra work that goes into setup, food prep and cleaning after the meal. It would be better for local leadership if such training items were formalized with a bulletin or letter from Church headquarters. It would cut down on the confusion (and sometimes contention between leaders) who didn't receive the training or don't remember the precise details (which I may not myself other than not to have meals on Sundays.)

But not everything we do should not be covered by a letter from Salt Lake. And not everything one Ward or Stake does, or doesn't do, is applicable to another.

We do them monthly, 5 minute setup, 10 minute clean up, everything is brought before church and kept in the kitchen. We focus mostly on snack type foods, not on making it a meal.

In the Meridian of times Saints gather together for "Dinner of the Lord".
Paul disappointed cause it became a convivial dinner.
Now we have Sacrament Meeting as spiritual dinner and linger longer as social meeting.
I see (as italian we have hundred of years expertise) dinner together is the best way to enforce brotherhood/sisterhood.
As italian we look at "longer" in a very litteral way (this means more than one our)!
So we can enjoy Zion's spirit; speaking on many arguments quietly and funny.
Set up and cleaning are parts of service spirit.

When we were in Boise, Idaho(approx. 2006?) our Stake President read a letter from SLC that stated no linger longers were no longer to be held. I have tried to locate the letter, but cannot find it.
When I was called to be a Bishop, I asked the question of my stake president and he instructed me that linger longers were no longer to be held.

gasedrick wrote:When we were in Boise, Idaho(approx. 2006?) our Stake President read a letter from SLC that stated no linger longers were no longer to be held. I have tried to locate the letter, but cannot find it.

I certainly don't see anything like that in that time frame in Official Communication Library. I would have expected it to be placed in the 2010 Handbook, but I'm not aware of anything like that in there.

The only thing I could find is that it may not conform to Handbook 2: 13.1 Purposes of Church Activities.