My ward has been disbanded

[Roy]

I live in a town that has had 2 wards that meet in our church building (1st and 2nd). We also have a large section of our town that is zoned to travel to a church building in another smaller town 10-15 minutes away where the membership is not enough to support themselves.

When we did scouting, all three wards would have the scout aged kids meet at our building. Likewise now for Wednesday night youth activities, all the youth meet together at our building.

1st ward has struggled for a long time with a section of town that is not really growing (it is not the part of town with any apartments or newer housing developments).

Last Sunday we were all invited to a special meeting in the chapel where it was announced that 2nd ward was being disbanded and folded into the 1st ward. Since there is now only one ward, it will just be known by the name of our town. All the ward boundaries were changed and now approximately half of our town is zoned to travel to the smaller town for Sunday services.

There was significant emphasis that this was revelation and that this was what God wants for us and our assignments are where He wants us to be. The idea that this was needed in order to "rebalance" the wards was specifically refuted in favor of revelation. It was pointed out that these changes went to church HQ and were approved by the 1st Presidency. We were warned against any complaints arising from the changes. It was shared that when changes happened to another ward in the stake some people took issue with the change and voiced their feelings. This caused some other people to become so troubled that they stopped coming to church and started attending another non-LDS church. Perhaps our own testimonies might be strong enough to survive a little complaining about the extra drive or being separated from friends or the new ward meeting time etc. but any complaint that we make may be the thing that causes someone else to lose faith and leave the church.

Every prayer asked God to help us to know that this was God's plan, every testimony testified that it was God's plan, the song for the special meeting was "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go." Then after all that we were asked to "vote" in the common LDS custom of raising our hands in support or anyone opposed could also publicly express it (nobody raised their hand in opposition).

There are lots of topics that tangentially touch upon this. My biggest takeaway was that the tactics used to preemptively quash any dissent seemed extreme to me.

[nibbler]

Yikes. Where to begin? Warning, some of this will be very uncharitable.

The ward I attended was dissolved a few years ago, I forget exactly when. I say dissolved but more accurately our ward got absorbed into several other wards in the area. I don't think it's much of an indication of actual shrinkage in my area, we've since added a new stake. Granted, we have several small stakes now as opposed to the several large stakes we had before the split. It feels like we shuffled things around on paper.

I think my old ward got dissolved because of another stake creation (we've had several in the last decade) and they redrew the boundaries such that it left a half dozen youth in one ward whereas all the other wards had several dozen, even some bursting at the seams with youth. I think it was a necessary decision to not keep the kids in the one ward in relative isolation. A demographics thing. Some neighborhoods just don't have 12-18 year old kids.

There was significant emphasis that this was revelation and that this was what God wants for us and our assignments are where He wants us to be.

I'm no fan of this. It feels manipulative to me. It communicates that they know it's going to be an unpopular decision, so they're citing authority (god no less) to preemptively shut down people's concerns, which they'll be ignoring.

I know it's not easy to work within the rules the church has set up with respect to where people attend church. The locals shouldn't get thrown under the bus for that. At the same time, it feels dirty to hide behind god to defend decisions. Isn't that what taking the name of the lord in vain was all about?

Perhaps our own testimonies might be strong enough to survive a little complaining about the extra drive or being separated from friends or the new ward meeting time etc. but any complaint that we make may be the thing that causes someone else to lose faith and leave the church.

A little appeal to people's ego mixed with victim blaming. I bet the complaining didn't lead to people leaving, people probably left because they weren't a part of a decision making process that affected them and they were summarily ignored when they raised their legitimate concerns.

From personal experience when my ward boundaries were redrawn and later when the ward was dissolved, I heard all that same language about it being god's will, the will of the first presidency, a challenge to overcome, etc. It's certainly not a new phenomenon but it feels like there's an uptick in pulling the god card or Jesus card to get people in line.

Don't like garments? They represent Jesus. You mean to tell me you don't like Jesus?
Don't like being uprooted from your community out of the blue? It's what god wants so whatchagonnado?

I wrote this post with one foot out the door. I'll come back later in a separate post and rebut all the points I just made.

[DarkJedi]

There are lots of topics that tangentially touch upon this. My biggest takeaway was that the tactics used to preemptively quash any dissent seemed extreme to me.

I agree it seems extreme but I think they (meaning higher leadership) has learned from experience. But to the observer it's clear what's happening and probably has little to do with revelation other than confirmation bias.

I have mentioned here how our ward struggles. Not only are we very old (at 64 I'm on the younger side), people just keep moving. We have one active AP boy, and three active YW (all sisters). I think there are a couple reasons we are not being disbanded:

1. One less ward would put us under the threshold for a stake (we're 5 wards, 3 branches spread out over a large geographic area). I'll come back to this one.
2. We are the only ward in the stake center.

The next closest ward and building to the central part of our ward is about 20 miles away. I think if our building were not the stake center they wouldn't care about the inconvenience. Also outlying areas of the ward are much farther from other buildings/units (I could go 30 miles either east or west but there are many members farther away).

However, I still don't think they'd care that much about distance and that's because of what happened last year.

We used to be 4 wards and 4 branches - for years. There was some pressure from above to be more in standard compliance but that was not easy to do. The way the did it was splitting a ward and disbanding a branch. There were multiple problems that arose. The branch dissolved was somewhat remote itself, and most of the members already drove some distance to get there. Although their numbers were dwindling (they were averaging low 20s for attendance and lacked priesthood), it was home for those stalwarts. Many of those stalwarts were old (late 70s-80s). They sent those members to three different wards depending on where they lived. It was at least 20 miles for all of them, upwards of 40 for some. Many of them stopped coming and did not go to their new wards.

The ward that was divided also has problems. They were a close-knit group with a sizable core of long time members. They did not like being split from family and friends they've had for decades. One of those wards in particular has struggled nearly as badly as my ward. They are not happy with their ward boundaries and not especially happy with their ward leadership. As one ward they had a fairly robust missionary program with several baptisms per year. That dried up. Essentially, problems were created where there were none.

I was not present for any of these and don't know how they were presented, but I would guess they probably did couch it in revelation. Apparently not everyone buys into it. I do think members are more willing to push back nowadays, even if it's sort of a passive push.

[Cnsl1]

From my vantage, and trying to be very objective here, it sure seemed like wards and stakes in my area "grew" several years ago. By "grew" I mean wards were added to stakes, but the consensus opinion of the people in those wards was that they were smaller. When wards were added, the reasoning presented was that the church was growing and we needed to accommodate that growth.

More recently, however, these same stakes have consolidated to fewer units than they had prior to the "growth". This time the reasoning wasn't that the church is shrinking or that we're losing active members, but so that leaders can better serve the stake and that more members will be blessed. The wards seem larger than they were after the splits, but no larger than they were prior to those splits when there were more total units than today. No matter how it's framed, it appears pretty clear that there just aren't as many active members as there used to be. No one acknowledges that, but it's very difficult to not see it.

I've not attended the temple in several years, but I've been told that it's more difficult to attend the two nearest temples because they are not open all the time. It's best to make a appointment. I remember when one could just go any day, so long as it wasn't closed for remodeling. Again, this seems to suggest that there aren't as many members attending the temple, OR that there are too many temples. Not two decades ago there was one temple within a 2.5 hour drive. Now there are 5.

[nibbler]

Back to it.

Not that it matters, but I struggle to come up with alternative ways the church could do things given the models we're currently operating under.

Everyone here knows that the policy is that you go to the ward you're assigned to go to. They do make exceptions but the culture is such that people that would like exceptions generally don't bother to seek them out.

As with everything, there are pros and cons with having assigned wards. The cons are pretty obvious. I try to imagine a borderless ward in a lay ministry environment. When a new bishop is called, a ward could experience a mass exodus because people disagree with who was called into leadership. The church could be divided into "-ites" where wards are divided up along ideologies, socioeconomic status, race, political leanings, etc. The "this is your ward" approach creates problems but it solves other problems.

In my earlier post I mentioned that one reason people are upset is because they don't have a say in the process. These sort of decisions are made by a very small group of men that often already share similar opinions. It's impossible for them to factor in everything into their decision making process, it's a small group with limited time and limited knowledge.

But I struggle coming up with an alternative. A large meeting where everyone gets a chance to speak? I doubt there'd ever be consensus on the subject of where to draw ward boundaries. There would at least be a pretense of being heard though, but it might create even more bitter feelings in the long run.

In times of growth, boundaries have to be adjusted to accommodate it. In times of decline, boundaries have to be adjusted to keep wards running. It's a pickle.

[AmyJ]

Back to it.

Not that it matters, but I struggle to come up with alternative ways the church could do things given the models we're currently operating under.

Everyone here knows that the policy is that you go to the ward you're assigned to go to. They do make exceptions but the culture is such that people that would like exceptions generally don't bother to seek them out.

As with everything, there are pros and cons with having assigned wards. The cons are pretty obvious. I try to imagine a borderless ward in a lay ministry environment. When a new bishop is called, a ward could experience a mass exodus because people disagree with who was called into leadership. The church could be divided into "-ites" where wards are divided up along ideologies, socioeconomic status, race, political leanings, etc. The "this is your ward" approach creates problems but it solves other problems.

I would recommend that the church organization spend some of the time and money talking to city planners about "best practices" around transportation issues, recreation planning, etc. I think it would help.

In my earlier post I mentioned that one reason people are upset is because they don't have a say in the process. These sort of decisions are made by a very small group of men that often already share similar opinions. It's impossible for them to factor in everything into their decision making process, it's a small group with limited time and limited knowledge.

But I struggle coming up with an alternative. A large meeting where everyone gets a chance to speak? I doubt there'd ever be consensus on the subject of where to draw ward boundaries. There would at least be a pretense of being heard though, but it might create even more bitter feelings in the long run.

In times of growth, boundaries have to be adjusted to accommodate it. In times of decline, boundaries have to be adjusted to keep wards running. It's a pickle.

I think that part of the problem is that lack of diversity in the decision-makers. But I think the bigger consideration is how the current system is designed to have a specific number of priesthood holders (male priesthood holders) among other factors. While the rules of the system may shift some, it is one of the limiting factors for organization design.

The most daring way I could think of the upend the current system is to ordain women to the priesthood and re-calibrate everything. This would take about 20 years probably for the dust to settle, but the organization design decisions would look very different and be more inclusive.

City Planners host meetings to hear from the local stakeholders and I think that surveys and email correspondence is also available. While the church organization could do that, it would cost time and budgets for church employees (or more likely get dumped into the volunteer local leadership's lap). Maybe each ward needs 1 male and 1 female representative called to be "organizational planning consultants" or something that specifically focuses on how the needs of the members intersect with the physical resources. These individuals would help make the buildings more disability friendly, make sure that quiet rooms for nursing mothers and others who need the quieter space are accommodated, and that the needs of the members are brought to the stake's attention.

[Roy]

I work in a management position at my job and I am accustomed to looking at things from a big picture/organizational perspective. I feel like I can be trusted with the truth. Have we lost members, lost active priesthood, need to rebalance for youth programs, maybe with two wards there are just that many more leadership positions to be filled by the same people over and over leading to burn out?

It feels similar to the removal of ward building custodians, I have a pretty good grasp on the organizational reasons for why that decision would make sense. But the only reason that was given was that it would give the members additional blessings to clean their own building. It feel patronizing or infantilizing. Why not just level with the members and explain the mundane, secular, and logistical reasons for a change IN ADDITION TO the spiritual revelation and blessings.

I also feel that there is precedent and scriptural justification to claim that every decision made by committee is the product of revelation. Revelation doesn't exist in a vacuum separate from identifying a problem, studying it out, having discussion, weighing pros and cons, etc.

The way it was presented (as revelation without any supporting explanation) also feels somewhat analogous to President Oaks explanation for what he calls the Priesthood Restriction. God commanded the restriction without explanation, God later commanded the removal of the restriction without explanation. We cannot know more and there is danger in speculating.

[nibbler]

God commanded the restriction without explanation, God later commanded the removal of the restriction without explanation.

Which is a mighty convenient way to avoid taking responsibility.

[DarkJedi]

I would recommend that the church organization spend some of the time and money talking to city planners about "best practices" around transportation issues, recreation planning, etc. I think it would help.

I agree, but the church isn't in the habit of doing this kind of stuff. Granted in Utah many of the cities were/are planned by members based on some old ideas (Joseph Smith's and Brigham Young's city plans) and newer ideas. Also in Utah (and the rest of the Corridor) the church for the most part controls the government at least passively (government leaders do the will of the church overtly or not). There are some exceptions, of course, thinking about the initial proposal for the Tooele temple and the kerfuffle with the temple in Wyoming. Outside Utah church relationships with local governments are often tenuous at best. Could the church improve some of those relationships by reaching out and showing some willingness to work together? Sure, and it has happened in places like Palmyra and even Philadelphia. Is it the norm? Apparently not.

Unlike many corporations and government organizations, the church is not in the habit of involving stake holders in decisions. Their model is in fact the complete opposite.

These individuals would help make the buildings more disability friendly, make sure that quiet rooms for nursing mothers and others who need the quieter space are accommodated, and that the needs of the members are brought to the stake's attention.

Interesting, and I know experience varies. Our building was built in 1990 and is fully handicap accessible (including the stand), has the front row for the signers for the hearing impaired, a mother's lounge with audio, another "quiet" room with audio, and an allergy sensitive room with audio. The last two are capable of video as well, and during times like stake conference they are set up. Also during SC there is another designated room for parents to take children who may not be quite as quiet as some would like, also with video/audio. I maybe naively assumed this to be standard practice because in more recent years similar changes have been made to our older buildings (many of which are 70s era). Is it not?

[AmyJ]

These individuals would help make the buildings more disability friendly, make sure that quiet rooms for nursing mothers and others who need the quieter space are accommodated, and that the needs of the members are brought to the stake's attention.

Interesting, and I know experience varies. Our building was built in 1990 and is fully handicap accessible (including the stand), has the front row for the signers for the hearing impaired, a mother's lounge with audio, another "quiet" room with audio, and an allergy sensitive room with audio. The last two are capable of video as well, and during times like stake conference they are set up. Also during SC there is another designated room for parents to take children who may not be quite as quiet as some would like, also with video/audio. I maybe naively assumed this to be standard practice because in more recent years similar changes have been made to our older buildings (many of which are 70s era). Is it not?

We have a Phase 2 branch building and there was talk of upgrading to Phase 3 (as of 2020 - but I think I'd have heard through my local network if anything changed). It felt like there had been talk of upgrading to Phase 3 for years.

The accommodations include a ramp up to the door and also up to stand, the smallest classroom converted to a "mothers room" during sacrament. There was a fragrance free paper sign on the doors to come in. I the hallways were wheelchair accessible as well.

The speakers in the mother's lounge didn't work (but maybe none of us knew how to request that they get fixed). I took my kids to the RS room when they couldn't sit in sacrament and when I needed to feed my youngest. We usually sat in the nursery when my husband came to church with us because of the level of fragrance/lack of ventilation in the chapel (also good for toddler distraction). Someone was kind enough to keep the bathroom stocked with baby wipes.