This church attendance policy was given out to students in a stake at BYU-Idaho regarding church attendance.


Sabbath Day Attendance Policy

As a student at BYU-Idaho, you have committed to obey and uphold the Church Education System honor code and help those around you in their commitment to live the honor code as well. One of the key standards you agreed to follow was to attend church in the ward in which you reside. This means, that you should be attending YOUR ASSIGNED ward every week! Not just for Sunday services either, but for your Family home evenings, and other ward and organizational meetings. We really want to have each and everyone one of you in your assigned ward as often as they meet. There is a reason each and every one of you are in your assigned ward at this time, and we want you to be able to see the blessings that come from building the kingdom together.

The stake presidency has asked that we formulate and implement an attendance policy that will hold students accountable for attending their church meetings and other activities, in a way that helps them come unto Christ, and keep their commitments to their personal integrity. We have followed the counsel of our administrative leaders by prayerfully creating the following attendance policy.

Each student is expected to attend Sacrament meeting, Sunday school, and Priesthood or Relief Society with his or her assigned ward each Sunday. On occasion you may need to attend a different ward besides the one you are assigned to. We have allowed a total of 4 absences during your block at BYU-Idaho. Note that this does not include major holidays.

This means, if your best friend is getting married, or going on a mission, or maybe your little sister is getting baptized, or maybe you just want to go home for the weekend; you have 4 Sundays to do so. On top of that, on a major holiday weekend, like Thanksgiving, if you want to be with your family, we understand! We expect that most people will be home and enjoying life with their families, so we do not count that as part of the 4 allowed absences. The same applies for the Christmas holiday and spring break.

Because we want to make sure you are doing well and that everything is okay, if you miss a Sunday, don’t be surprised if someone checks up on you. We also do not want you to be caught unaware that you are nearing the 4 absences allowed. If you have been absent 3 times, a member of the bishopric will ask to meet with you. At this point, the member of the bishopric will also be sending a letter home to your parents and home Bishop asking for their support in helping encourage you to better attend your meetings.

If you have missed 4 Sundays you will be asked to meet with your student ward bishop. He will be checking in with you on your absences and helping you to understand that if you miss a 5th Sunday, your ecclesiastical endorsement to attend BYU-Idaho will be in jeopardy.

We hope you see the intention of the stake presidencies and your ward leadership in following the attendance policy. It is not our goal to intensely supervise you, but rather we hope by informing you of the attendance policy, that you will be able to act, and not be acted upon.

Boyd K. Packer stated, "Take advantage of the great blessing you have to learn the doctrines of the Church and the teachings of the prophets. Learn that which is of most worth. It will bless you and your posterity for many generations to come."

We look forward to a great year with you and are excited to grow together and become better disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I met with the bishop at Ricks a couple times. The enormous portrait of BY behind his desk dominated the room and creeped me out. I think he understood I didn't care about his lameass church or the lameass college he taught at.

Ron Burr

"It is not our goal to intensely supervise you..."

B***S***!

Haha.

Yet again, the church is treating adults like children.

I bet a lot of students at BYU are quite depressed in the church, with beards being heavily frowned upon, Coca Cola too. I think this might piss people off and cause some of them to stop attending completely when they finish BYU.

"It is not our goal to intensely supervise you, but well OK that is exactly what our goal is but we are lying liars and we figured if we lied to you about it you would not notice."

fixed

4 Absences!??? The whole letter reads like "Big Brother" is watching you!! And the morg wonders why people call them a cult! That letter has cult written all over it!

If they tried this crap in a family ward, their attendance would drop dramatically!!

So...Satan got a job working for BYU-I?


edited to admit: Yeah, they all signed up for it, so it's okay.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2015 12:00AM by elderolddog.

in the good ol days all my bishop did was fail me at chemistry.

This is a joke, right?

edit: this is what I found on BYU Idaho's website, which doesn't stipulate the number of times a student can miss.
http://www.byui.edu/student-honor-office/ces-honor-code/church-attendance/church-attendance-policies



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2015 12:14AM by imaworkinonit.

I wonder how the moron bureaucrat who did the letter came up with 4 Absences!??? It's not anywhere on the link!!

However, the letter is purportedly from a Stake President, not from BYU-I itself. It could be real, and just be the result of some self-important SP pulling something out of his ass completely separate from BYU-I's official honor code. Unfortunately, TSCC allows local leaders a lot of leeway to make up stuff.

Is this a spoof, or for real? This is extreme, even for a cult. If that letter is real, that alone is justification to resign from the church. Anyone stupid enough to invest in an education in a church school under these circumstances, deserves to lose out when they've had enough, get kicked out, and end up without any degree and up to their eyeballs in student loan debt. The church should never expect your attendance. If the teachings are fulfilling, you attend. If not, you don't attend.

The first sentence is very telling. "help those around you in their commitment to live the honor code as well."
Students are not only encouraged but are expected to rat each other out.

Who is the stake president? Ross Baron?

Was this your bishop's idea? Stake president's? I've heard of crazy stake presidents and Orewellian bishops, but it's just insane to think this is BYUI official doctrine.

Either way, though... fuck this place.

So if you have more than 4 family events God turns his back on you because you worshipped him in a different building with your family instead of carefully assigned friends?

Perfectly put!

But remember folks, they're all about religious freedom! They complain about it all the time on TV!

In all seriousness, I'm not sure if this is real or not. It sounds just plausible enough to be true, but my sense of credulity is being stretched a bit. Not even the church is this domineering.

Then again, I guess BYU is a different beast.

I wonder what. would happen if some reporter asked the GA's about this during one of their news conferences!?

A GA having a news conference, I remember when they used to do that never.

Did they recently start?

They had a couple over the summer. Mainly it was over " religious freedom/ religious liberty" and SSM.

In several of my wards at BYU we were quoted percentages that we must be present. When my Sunday attendance dropped below 75% I was asked to meet with the bishop. That's when I dropped out. ;)

When I was at Ricks NOT much of a College, my room mate and I frequently went back to our common home town to visit, about every other week end. Mostly so he could have sex with his non member younger girl friend who was still in high school. Don't worry, he went on a mission anyway, they made him an AP, gave him a scholarship to BYU, he dumped this chick that he had used extensively so he could marry a provo cheerleader, and his non member HS girl de facto consort was still heartbroken over 30 years later. So it was a true MORmON style suck-cess happy ending.

Anyway, I never would have made the trip home that much on my own, but since I had the chance to ride along for nothing I did, just to get off ....... of the stifling MORmON campus at Ricks, far short of the comprehensive sexual gratification that my friend was getting, that was enough motivation for me.

I can not comprehend having to check in with the bishop to approve my visits to home, and to confirm that I have attended churchin' meetings where ever. Its way too bad that LDS Inc did not have that policy way back then. I might have said "FUCK YOU" to "THE" church way back then.

Just to clarify this was at a stake level. Nothing official from the administration at BYU-I regarding # of church attendances.

If it's at stake level, odds it'll be sent the bishops there to read aloud at SM to a bunch of adults being treated like kindergarteners!!

How many of the students will be attending church physically but not mentally? It also means that if someone is really sick and contagious, they should attend church so everyone will be exposed. Wonder if they would send you home if you came to church looking like death warmed over, coughing or sneezing the whole time and then, throw up. Could be faked.

>> Because we want to make sure you are doing well and that everything is okay, if you miss a Sunday, don’t be surprised if someone checks up on you.

I thought that this is what roommates are for.

"Boyd K. Packer stated, "Take advantage of the great blessing you have to learn the doctrines of the Church and the teachings of the prophets. Learn that which is of most worth. It will bless you and your posterity for many generations to come.""

This quote has nothing to do with the rest of the attend-our-meetings-or-else letter.

Why do the feel the need to add a quote from one of their business executives in their letters? I've seen it done quite often.

If every student takes that BKP to heart, then he/she will be out in a blink of an eye.

The letter sounds legit with all the garbage they push on the members.

Well, that's it for student jobs.

I got a bad strep infection at BYU, with a high fever and the worst headache I ever had. For 3 weeks, I could barely drag myself to the minimum amount of classes, and missed the classes altogether, if they did not take attendance. Of course, the religion classes took attendance. If I hadn't been able to rest on those weekends, I don't think I would have survived. That's 3 Sundays missed.

My GA relative lived in SLC, and I would go up to visit, at least once a month. That's another 4 Sundays missed. I probably could have gotten a letter from him, verifying my church attendance in SLC.

I don't think that letter is real.

Sounds Legit, My Niece attended byu-i and her bishop mandated that she attend church every sunday and arrived fifteen minutes early so that she "could feel the spirit" the bishop also mandated that she attend fhe. This put her in a bind because it limited her to where and when she could work. (monday nights were out of the question as was sunday) The thing that really sucked was that her room mates all ganged up against her and accused her of drinking alcohol.(she was a freshman and they were older college kids) So after attending two semester and getting the idiot treatment, she won't be back. The sad thing is that my poor niece qualifies as a pretty straight laced kid, alcohol has never touched her lips and I sincerely hope some of her asshole roomates burn in hell because of the emotional torment they put her through. For people that think that byui has cheap education, it is true, but there is an emotional price to pay for the manipulation taht occurs at byui

I'd hate living with that kind of a policy.

anal

Glad this didn't excised during my Ricks years. Whatever happened to free agency? Come along children!

I think that they replaced "free agency" with " agency".Any way you look at this, they're going to lose members over this. As if grown adults need to be treated as children. I wonder do these stupid childish rules apply to the stake presidency and bishopric as well?? Or just to the students!???

The attendance statistics must have really sucked for them to be so heavy-handed.

Yay!!!!!!

I also expect rental vacancy rates will go up in the boundaries of this stake, at which point the landlords will explain reality to the stake president.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2015 12:21PM by Brother Of Jerry.