I completely agree. My husband doesn’t though. But when we’ve been in wards where it was literally impossible to get home and visiting teaching done, I would have been more than happy to not have anyone assigned to us so they could visit someone else.

Home Teaching is the most vital and underused program in the church. I tell you now, if each ward had 100% home teaching numbers, activity in the ward would be far higher.

I’d love to be home taught every month. I have no problem with other members visiting my home and imparting a message about the Gospel. If done properly, they will bring the Spirit into our home.

Hometeaching active families can well be used to encourage less active hometeachers to have the blessing of home teaching. Thus the hometeacher is strengthened through the exchange. Plus – you never can tell about active families. My dad and I were assigned to several families = some of the active families went through hard times, fairly unexpectedly. My dad is just glad he could be there for the family. I also think it is too bad when HT families are swapped so quickly. A change every year doesn’t seem to be the most optimaly situation.

Yeah, I think every family should be home taught. In a church of perfect hometeaching, it strengthens members and leverages the bishop’s time significantly. Should we feel like failures if we don’t home teach every family? I don’t think so. And, to be completely honest, like Devyn, I don’t mind (and often prefer) when the hometeachers miss me.
For what it’s worth, I think PPI’s are a great tool. Way back when I was an Elder’s Quorum President, during PPIs we didn’t ask for statistics, we asked the home teacher to talk to us about each family. The HTs gave us information to pass to the Bishop that was used to help, nurture, sustain. The statistics were a byproduct of this reporting system.
Here are some unorthodox ideas that I’ve seen:

1. The winner and most unorthodox I’ve seen (lasted about 6 months) was “group home teaching”. We were in a ward (which shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) with a lot of active young couples and a lot of inactive families. To focus on the inactives, the active families got together briefly after church, talked for a few minutes, and were declared “home taught”. They were then instructed to get 100% of the inactive families. It produced mixed results.
2. “Activation Home Teachers”. This was another experiment in the same ward. Two of the best home teachers in the ward were assigned to only one inactive family. Their assignment was to activate this family. They were to contact the family no fewer than 2 times per week until the family made progress. The assigned family was coming to church regularly within one month. However, after the “experiment” ended, the family drifted off into inactivity. Perhaps the ward failed to reached out to them over the long haul with the same enthusiasm that the home teachers did.

i’m with dan and mark. and we’ve been ht three times and vt twice in the past 4.5 years. and i’d only count one of those visits as a “real” visit.

#7, we had a ward who did the first thing, “pod teaching.” don’t you know, the first counselor’s friend knew someone in utah who had a cousin who called mary ellen smoot and got her express permission to do it? (no, really, that’s what they said.) it was totally not effective. the next ward cut back to quarterly visits, no companionships (why do the men always seem to handle companionships better than the women? this has been our experience in every ward), group “teaching” that included things like a checkmark if they all went out to the neighborhood playground… yuck. they ran less than 30% the entire time. i’d rather run those numbers by the book than in such willy-nilly ways.

Our stake president has just instructed us in the stake to prioritize home teaching in this order:
1) single mothers, widows
2) new converts
3) less actives who want home teachers
4) Active families with youth
5) active families with no youth.

In our branch we have 350 on the rolls and 100 active. So we do not home teach active families unless instructed by the bishop. I do not know how it will work, because this was just handed to us this month. Of course with the amount of members per home teachers we will not be home teaching most of the active families.

Interesting perspectives. Danithew – I have had great experiences as a hometeacher – usually with families who are less active or struggling and rarely with active families who are not struggling. However, this post is about being hometaught where I have not had great experiences.

Dan, Mark and Anony – exactly why I posted this. I don’t want the HTer showing up at 9PM the last Sunday of the month when they actually come.

adam – I like the triage and think that it makes a lot of sense in most cases

Devyn, sorry about that. I meant to share experiences of hometeaching and being hometaught.

I’m surprised anyone wouldn’t want to be hometaught. I’m always grateful when someone comes by and goes to the trouble to share a spiritual message. It’s the ones that don’t even try to set up an appointment that bother me.

Devyn, when you say “we are all made up on inconsistencies” … well,l I couldn’t agree more.

Maybe I’m evil. I rarely use the Ensign in my hometeaching visits. It’s not deliberate. I have nothing against the Ensign. But usually I try to tailor the lesson or spiritual thought to whatever is going on with the family I’m visiting.

I couldn’t agree more. There is little need for my family to sit around and pretend like we are interested in a lesson that a person we barely know gives us, and we know that it is quite likely the case that he does not want to be there either. Perhaps I say this because I also do not like home teaching.

My wife and I had a conversation about this very topic a few nights ago, and I think what I told her was almost exactly word-for-word what Wayne just said. (By the way Wayne, I think I was assigned to HT you at one point in your old ward before you moved. I guess I did you a favor by not calling, right? I’ll count that as service.)

HT almost always feels like going through the motions with each visit, especially with an active family. To make matters worse, when I do feel motivated to do my HT, I find that families often aren’t helpful in being available for visits. This is true about active families just as much as inactive families. I generally interpret that as a lack of desire to be visited, because I can relate to the feeling. I haven’t been home taught in over 3 years, and I don’t miss it at all.

A couple things about HT I’d love to see change:
1. If you are a Priesthood leader, do NOT use guilt as a source of motivation.
2. If a family does not appear to be willing/happy/anxious to accomodate a visit, the Home Teacher should be able to identify the situation and have the family removed from their stewardship. Either that, or allow a check-in system where a monthly phone call or conversation at church counts. I’d rather make 4 monthly visits to willing families than 2 visits to families that couldn’t care less about the visit.

Our ward has a similar ratio, and there are 10-15 families on each HT route. This means that getting 100% or anything close to it pretty much unrealistic, which is really nice because it’s the first time that the focus has been on quality home-teaching and ministry rather than statistics. It’d kind of liberating, really. Instead of setting percentage goals, like most Elders’ Quorums I’ve been in, we are instructed to prayerfully identify the families that need to be seen each month and then visit them. This means that many of those active families don’t get visited every month, and I have no problem with that.

FWIW, my way of dealing with numbers-emphasis and guilt-tripping has been to just ignore it. I guess my attitude is that the EQ President can harp on me all he wants but my skin is thick enough that I don’t care what he says and I’m 100% unmotivated by numbers or guilt. When they would ask me how many families I home taught I wouldn’t tell them numbers, I would give a short report on each family: how they’re doing, what the last visit was like, etc. Maybe it’s just my passive-aggressive way of steadying the ark.

More relevant to the post, when my father was Bishop, he instructed the ward priesthood leaders about specific families that did not need to be home taught (only a few). He also instructed them to take families that consistently refused home teachers off of routes. Obviously the percentages went up, but the visits did too. It’s alot easier to call up and visit two or three families who you know want you there than 5 or 6 of which only 1 or 2 care that you even know their name.

JKC – that is a nice approach for dealing with numbers guilt issue.

KyleM – I would agree with SilverRain that an email could work. I know that while it may seem like a waste of time to do a letter, they can make a difference for an older or secluded person. However, with that said, save the postage and the trees for the majority of members. I like your father’s approach, it certainly would make it easier to hometeach.

In every ward I have been in, I have resisted having visiting teachers come over. I was active and I had very little free time that matched up with theres, especially as I was usually the only one working. Emails or a card in the mail were welcome – the lines of communication were open. And they would personally visit maybe every other month or every few months. This was a great arrangement. I think with home teaching, this same principle should apply. If its a super active family, and theres just no time in the month for a visit, chatting with them at church and maybe calling a couple times during the month to see how they are doing should really serve the same purpose…just make sure and visit every now and again. I think the issue is sort of a spirt vs. letter of the law…we forget the spirit of home teaching, and focus solely on checking a family off every month.

That being said, and SilverRain…this is for you :)
I had never ever gone visiting teaching. Not even when I was in the RS presidency. I just didn’t want to be forced to be friends with someone. SilverRain, your number 12 describes where I was PERFECTLY. Then I moved into the ward I am in now. My VT partner has been a member for about 8 years, has a special needs child, and is the only member in her family. She just took over…she calls and makes appointments with them and all I have to do is drive. At first, I tried to find a way out of it, but the women is like and angel and I couldn’t say no. I and all the women on my route work, and I usually don’t get home until around 7, so all the appointments had to happen after then. I was really dreading and resenting using up my evening for this, but, I went for it. And I was SOOO surprised to see how much I enjoyed it. Because this women has gotten me off my butt and doing it, I have made friends with the women on my list, I have made friends with my partner, I feel like I’m really a member of the RS and I have been totally spirtually uplifted. Its like a total 180. I actual look forward to our visits, even though the women are all much older than me (like my parents age or older). I still find it more awkward being visited, but that has been an awesome experience as well. It really has in a short time made a big difference in my life and its the biggest surprise to me ever. I think I may actually be developing a testimony of visiting teaching, which I never would have guessed.

I think VT is central to creating unity in our relief societies, and I think HT is the same for our wards. And in building Zion in our community, I think unity is pretty important. Im not in EQ however and don’t know how they administer the program, but I think Adams stake’s idea is along the right lines…our time has to priortized and I think its unrealistic to think a ward will ever be 100% if that means a 30 min in home visit every single month.

I also know in RS, usually the VT assignments for the really active women (say the presidency etc) who were in RS every week, were usually given to the less active sisters, so, the active good VTs were assigned to those who need it most, that way, the program was working to fulfill its purpose best.
(phew, sorry, I got long winded).

In my stake (~2800 members), the latest HT stats came out at approximately 28%. VT stats were about 60%.

If this was a public company, the management would be fired and replaced with new management team. They in turn would likely change the mechanics of hometeaching or modify the program itself.

Instead, our stake will continue to list along at 28% HT.

Is this level of HT success an anomoly or par for most stakes?

I can’t remember if I said this before, but maybe 85% of the women in our ward work. This leads to a domino effect/affect (somebody help me with that one, I can’t get it) of stressed out lives. It’s really hard for them to be visiting teachers and I suspect their husbands are stressed out, as well. It will take the wisdom of Solomon to figure this out, but it is sure difficult in our ward.

I am sort of the idiot savant of our ward re visiting teaching because I know everyone and I’m OCD about arranging it so everyone can participate who wants to and people are looked after. But I’m getting burned out and discouraged. What you suggest, Devyn, appeals to me on so many levels you can’t imagine. I need a nap.

I don’t know about home teaching, well, nobody does it, so there’s not a problem.

We do have women who will not let visiting teachers come in. In one case, I have assigned a neighbor to keep an eye out and be a friend. I know, that sucks, but for now, it’s what we can do. And keep them in our prayers.

There are several others who we have assigned a home bound sister to send a short note. She goes the extra mile and is devoted to the women she has a stewardship over. She sends them little treats and cute things and never forgets them. She said last month a woman she’d been doing this for, for over a year, had greeted her in a very friendly manner, thanked her, and told her she was glad she was her visiting teacher.

But like I said, I know almost every woman in our ward, fairly well, and I cherry pick them for each other.

The guys, I don’t know, they suck. No offense. When home teaching is done right, it’s not an imposition, it lifts the burdens of the family. That could mean when the family is too busy for a formal visit, the home teacher goes over and shovels the walks. Or takes a pizza once a month. Anything goes as long as the bond is established, strengthened, and blesses the lives of the people we have a stewardship for. Is that a dangling participle? I really want to know because I think I do it a lot.

I guess visiting teaching is my equivalent of global warming. I can get very violent in a discussion of this principle. :)

Hmmm. . .is a preposition also a participle? Among us, it’s okay. The other day I was in the Maverik buying the traditional Wednesday slurpees for Rowan and Max, and I let them have an additional treat. It was an important decision. They were all over the store trying to decide. Finally, as I herded them out the store, I said, “Grandma don’t have no more money.” This educated looking guy glanced at me in derision. I just winked at him.

But you know, Devyn, I’m not one to slam the men of the world. We need you guys. I almost wonder if men aren’t more stressed than women. I also wonder if these programs aren’t obselete and need complete overhauling.

You people are crazy!!!