The best reason to reduce church to 2 hours
 

is because you can't get people (non-members) to even entertain the idea of coming to church for 3 hours. It's a huge mental barrier.

My friend was asking about church, and he almost coughed up his drink when I told him it was 3 hours. Of course, I didn't tell him about PEC and Ward Council and BYC and APC and giving sacrament to the shut-ins and stake training and everything else that pulls me away.

You may want to listen to Uchtdorf's Saturday morning talk. Particularly the story at the beginning.

I did.

And I have had another good friend tell me that she wouldn't consider our church because of the demands she has seen. After I invited her to attend.

You may say that is separating the chaff from the wheat, but I think there is a good argument that some of the stuff we do is unnecessary.

Indeed. I've made it myself (you saw my post on eliminating meetings, right?).

Also, I don't think your friend is chaff. Being an active, faithful Mormon is a lot of work, and not everyone is at a point in their life where they are ready for that. Uchtdorf's point was that the incredible blessings far outweigh the sacrifices. That's the message our non-member friends should be hearing from us.

Assuming we believe it, that is.

I wish we could something different for Sunday school than the lecture/comment setup we have for Gospel Doctrine.

I wish we could have small study groups that are more interactive.

The church does have some small group setups for Sunday School (like Family Relations). I proposed that in WC/PEC, but was shot down. We probably couldn't staff it, as small as our ward is.

If one is fully immersed, then one often finds the demands to be worth it. However, if you seek to attract good people who don't initially see the benefit of the demands of a church requiring 24/7 dedication, you will lose a lot of good people.

Sacrament meeting is important, and I can see the benefits of priesthood and relief society. The way Sunday School is currently constituted, I don't see it to be very valuable.

Here's another thing. I see the Church members, Church service and parts of the Church community to be valuable. I don't see the Church meetings on Sunday or even the Church organization, in and of itself, to be very valuable.

The content of those meetings, often like the content of our meals, may continue us along life, but they often are lacking. The Members themselves are more valuable than the lesson plans and endless organizational meetings. I'm not a big fan of meetings. I really dislike Sunday School.

Couldn't we rotate SS and RS/Phood?

Possibly, but the constant flow of converts suggest otherwise.

We're all doing our best.

The thing that starts to get to me sometimes is that the burden falls disproportionately on some people more than others. It's like there are two tracks in the church for men: 1) those with leadership time-consuming callings, and 2) those without them.

Some of us might need to be able to take a break at times, and be put into a non-administrative calling for a time. I have a time consuming calling now, but I like it more than most because most of the time spent is doing stuff and not sitting in meetings. Although I have to do that too. :(

We don't have that great of flow compared to the Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses. Plus, new member retention issues also call into question our methods.

I am not arguing the process is a complete failure, but it loses a lot of good people for reasons that are correctable.