Ministering to the Ministers

     Just as the process of ministering starts with making regular (ideally monthly or even more often) contacts and visits with assigned persons or families, so also ministering to the ministers absolutely requires regular accountability contacts.  The Church Handbook says “at least quarterly” for a formal accountability meeting, but perhaps contacts happening more often, such as a monthly phone call.
        “Anything new about your families/sisters that I need to know?”
        “What has happened with _______ issue or problem?”
        “How are you feeling about your relationship with them?”
        “Have you visited them recently/over the past month?”
    As an aside, it might be helpful if brothers and sisters with ministering assignments in a ward might be expected to be the first line of defense, the primary persons who are expected to provide ministering efforts to members with needs.  We have a tradition of wonderful bishops, relief society presidents, and priesthood leaders who reach out to help ward members.  But in the promotion of all ward members to become strong in ministering, it might be wise when a ministering leader hears of a new problem in the life of a member, to resist making a contact themselves, but rather to start by calling their assigned ministering person and suggesting that they follow up and report back with what they have learned.  It might be discouraging and almost embarrassing to learn from a Church leader the details of problems being experienced on the part of someone to whom they are assigned be the Church to be the minister.  These kinds of problems may be the very opportunity that a person needs to master the ministering process and to build ministering relationships.
    Just as Church families might often interpret the failure of an assigned minister to make visits as evidence that the person does not care for them, so also the failure of a leader to schedule and conduct quality accountability interviews at least quarterly might well be also interpreted negatively.  Either the leader does not care for the assigned minister or else he or she does not care for how the ministering program is being carried out, that effective ministering is not important.
    Based upon my experiences, I believe that quality ministering accountability interviews should be:
    1) Held regularly, no less often that quarterly.  This could be at the church, at the leader’s home, or the minister’s home
    2) Scheduled by a secretarial person
    3) Planned for at least 15-20 minutes
    4) Opened and closed with prayer
    5) Leader takes notes, copy could be shared
    6) Focus on needs of family/persons, ministering goals, strengthening the ministering relationship, the companionship, the ability of the ministers to serve this family/sister.
    Overall, making ministering assignments is only the beginning of overseeing ministering.  The goal is create effective, committed, and loving ministers and to bless every family/sister in the ward.

President Richard Barker’s System for High Quality Home Teaching
(Robert Lewis, written in 2019)
    We moved to a new home in Taylorsville, Utah in 1969, and three weeks later I was called as Elders President in our new ward.  I discovered that the Stake President, Richard Barker, had a very serious and elaborate strategy for generating high quality home teaching in his stake.  We had over 100 families assigned to our quorum.  Under this program, we achieved nearly 100% of families visited each month and I believe had a relatively high level of quality ministering relationships and ward unity.  
    In President Barker’s vision, he established a role division between stake and ward leadership.  Stake leaders would be concerned about making sure that all families were visited regularly (as per D&C 20:47/51).  Ward leaders were to be concerned about meeting the specific needs of persons and families (see Moroni 6:4).  Here are details:
    1) Home teachers averaged about four families each.  In the quorum presidency, we divided the supervision of about 30 home teaching pairs into three districts of about 10 each.
    2) The stake took most of the responsibility for overseeing that all home visits were made.
    a) Every weekend of the month, at about 9 pm on Saturday, I received a call from the High Councilor assigned to our ward, in which I was expected to report on which families assigned to my quorum had already been visited.  He had a current copy of a list of all our families and checked off the ones I reported.  In order to make that report, I and my counselors needed to have made contact, probably earlier in the day or week, with all the senior home teachers we supervised to get information about the status of their visits to their families.
    b) Early on Sunday morning there was a meeting in which these High Counselors reported the month’s home visit progress to President Barker.
    c) This process continued weekly until the full month’s visit report was made.
    d) The stake goal was 100% of families visited.  Occasionally, our Quorum Presidency made these visits as a back up.
    3) Members of our Quorum Presidency were expected to conduct an accountability interview with each Home Teaching pair or senior companion monthly.
    a) We generally did these on about the second Sunday, before or after Church, at the churchhouse.
    b) Our quorum secretary arranged the appointments.
    c) We allocated about 15 minutes time for each interview.
    d) Contents of the interview included prayer, discussion of needs of the families, and  identifying goals for work with each family and actions the home teachers planned to take to reach these goals.
    e) We had a small pre-carboned form that the member of the presidency used to take notes on needs, goals and action plans, and shared a copy with the home teachers.
    f) Follow-up meetings, of course, included discussion of progress on goals and plans.
    g) The stake required a report at the end of each month on accountability interviews conducted and expected 100% compliance.
    4) Our Quorum Presidency met monthly with the Bishopric to discuss the needs of our families and the strategies for filling these needs, with an emphasis on the quality of the visiting and ministering to our families.
    a) This meeting was usually held mid-month.
    b) It would typically last at least an hour.
    c) It was separate from administrative meetings such as ward council.
    5) We were instructed and tried to minimize failure by home teachers.  We recognized that some home teachers had capabilities and limits different than others, and would not be as successful with so many families.  “It looks like in your situation right now having only two assigned families will work best.”  We also recognized that almost every family knew the expectation of at least a monthly visit by their home teachers, and possibly would interpret the lack of visits as not caring, making a ministering relationship more difficult to achieve.   Therefore we did not allow the lack of visiting of a family to continue more than a couple of months, but would reassign these families and give different home teachers a fresh start for building the desired rapport with their assigned families.
    6) I found the atmosphere for working with home teachers under this arrangement comfortable and satisfying.  We were able to counsel home teachers and see them grow.  It seemed to help create a climate in the ward that was positive and supportive.
    I wonder if we might learn something about how to successfully implement the new ministering effort from President Barker's program?