Does your ward have cliques?
Just this weekend, a friend I grew up with announced on FB that he will never go back to his current ward because of how his wife was treated during a recent fundraiser. Another friend chimed in that this was the very reason she had ceased to go to church. I also found that a commenter had piped in on a post I did on cliques in 2010 back on Mormon Matters which prompted me to revisit this 7 year old post. She shared a very bad experience she had in her southeastern US ward:
The person new to a ward or having trouble fitting in is not the person that should be the only one responsible for trying harder. Suppose that person is clinging to the very last piece of strength and faith when they enter the ward, only to be rebuffed by their sisters? I am. I’m a widow without family (here) to attend church with me. I’ve sat down in Relief Society next to someone I know and received a “look” so I moved so their clique member could sit in “their” seat. Cliques hurt, exclude and don’t belong in church. I was asked to provide center pieces for a RS dinner. I was so happy to be asked! I communicated regularly with the RS activities sister, letting her know that all was planned and prepared. Two days before the event, she called and told me that one of her clique-sisters had picked up some plants for the tables. Did I mind if they used them? I told her that I did, that my centerpieces were classic and beautiful. I’d spent a lot of time and effort designing them, not to mention all the time shopping for supplies after work. She said the decision was made and hoped I hadn’t been “put out” by this unplanned change. I told her that I was “put out” and had already made beautiful centerpieces – glass cup planters with ribbons contained violets, with glass saucers, set on decorative paper mats and surrounded by decorative accents pieces and candies. I prayed hard about this deliberate exclusion and went to the dinner, head held high. It’s the last ward RS function I’ve attended. The cliques are still there today and they still exclude many, except for a “project” newcomer every once in a while. I am not the problem. I don’t need to try harder, make myself available, choose not to be offended or anything else.
Another commenter pointed out the problem when wards label the person who left as having been offended, a way to blame them for their reaction to the treatment doled out rather than focusing on how we can be more inclusive and welcoming.
And let’s not forget how the word “offended” gets thrown around. If you are accused of having been “offended” by someone or something in the Church, you are immediately classified as the one in the wrong. By saying someone is offended in our Church, you are (IMO) labeling them as weak, not valiant, not strong in the faith. The comment goes directly to your character and your testimony. While I agree that finding offense is or can be corruptive to your state of mind, do you think those who do the offending get off scott free? Is it OK then to be mean and nasty and exclusionary? No, I think not.
Cliques tend to form within the boundaries of a larger group among individuals most likely to interact based on common interests. While cliques can occur within any group, the term is pejorative. And yet, to some, “inclusion” is considered pejorative. One Christian site decried the “gospel of inclusion” as a heresy designed to soften the gospel to allow sinners into the ranks of church members. Last I checked, we were all sinners. Well, except Dana Carvey’s Church Lady.
In my post 7 years ago, I shared the theory behind a psychometric test called the FIRO-B that attempts to gauge one’s interest in being included. It covers the following personal characteristics:
- Inclusion. Those with high inclusion scores want to belong. Those who want to belong feel anxious about being excluded while those who don’t want to belong may be unaware that they don’t belong.
- High Inclusion: Am I missing out on something that everyone else is doing? Am I in the “in” crowd?
- Low Inclusion: Maybe if I unplug the phone and don’t answer the door, they will go away!
- Control. Control relates to one’s desire to direct the activities of others. Ask yourself: How much say do I want to have in what the group is doing?
- Affection. This relates to one’s desire for warmth in relationships. Which do you value more: warmth and intimacy or independence and privacy?
- High Affection: I just love people. I’m a hugger.
- Low Affection: Boundaries, people!
The FIRO-B instrument measures two other aspects as well:
- Expressed behavior. This relates to one’s own actions in relation to the social group. Ask yourself: How much do I take initiative to meet my needs for affection, control, and inclusion?
- Wanted behavior. This relates to how you would like others to act in relation to your needs. Ask yourself: How much do you want others to initiate actions to meet your needs for affection, control and inclusion?
- High Wanted Behavior: If I have to ask you for what I need, then that’s not much of a relationship. You should know what I need.
- Low Wanted Behavior: When it comes to being included, I could take it or leave it.
Personally, I’m pretty low on the inclusion, control and affection scales, and I’d rather initiate contact (or be ignored). I recognize, though, that I’m an outlier. Most people want to be involved. And even I, at some point, am capable of feeling snubbed and marginalized.
So, cliques happen. That much is a natural byproduct of social groups. But we want to make church a welcoming place for all, even though it’s not something we seem to be doing very well on the whole. What cliquish behavior occurs in church?
- Extending callings based on personal friendship. Or conversely, those called to serve together closely may form a clique that outlasts callings.
- “Lunch Bunch” or book club groups in Relief Society.
- Families with same age kids tend to group together. Stay-at-home moms may bond over play groups.
- Working women may feel excluded when activities are geared toward daytimes when they are unavailable.
- Single fathers are often excluded from play groups.
- Singles in general may feel like an afterthought.
- Priesthood grouping by age can foster cliques.
- Less active members or converts may find it difficult to break into established groups of people.
- The church is now focusing on multi-generational families being the “backbones” of the wards and stakes which may make newcomers and converts feel like outsiders if they aren’t asked to participate in leadership positions or councils.
- Some wards seem to be staffed almost exclusively by a few key family names.
- Ward members whose homes are less fancy may feel embarrassed to host parties or groups the more economically diverse the ward is.
The church also has some clique-busters built in:
- Rotating visiting & home teaching assignments.
- Callings that rotate and mix groups of different interests, age groups, and socio-economic status into presidencies and quorums.
- A spirit of inclusion; activities are to be open access to all ward members and at no cost to participants.
- Fellowshipping for converts and ward missionary programs.
- Focus on service activities for all which keeps us on the same “team,” helping our communities.
What do you think?
- Is your ward cliquish?
- What types of cliques have you observed?
- How do you get past cliques?
- Does this model (FIRO-B) help explain how people relate to groups? Where do you fall on the various scales?
Discuss.
**This post is a re-hash of a post I did in 2010.
Wheat & Tares 
The question “is your ward cliquish?” is a dangerous one! Reminds me of the big bang theory episode on bullying where Penny is the only character who didn’t have bullies at her school. As the conversation continues it becomes apparent that she was part of the bully crowd!
That said, every ward/branch I’ve ever been in I would say is probably more welcoming than the average other social groups that I interact with. If anything over the years my complaint would be that the wards/branches I’ve lived in have been too preoccupied with making sure everybody is getting along, which is also annoying. Maybe we are stuck with the whole Jacob 2-3 problem “the pure in heart” wards out there assume talks about not being cliquish are aimed at them and go into over drive trying to make people get along!
Or another reason is I was in YSAs for a very long time and am just barely coming back to the family branch scene. So maybe now I’ll notice a difference.
This issue was always funny to watch in YSA branches. The complaint of cliquishness usually meant “why doesn’t the boy/girl I want to date want to date me?” The same people who would complain about how cliquish everyone else was, would also turn away others who wanted to be friends with them. Cliquish appeared to mean “I have a right to have the group of friends I want” and they never seemed to consider that someone out there was complaining about how THEY were cliquish since they did the same thing to others they complained about so much.
Now again, due to the frequency that this topic is discussed I’m not trying to deny the problem. And I is absolutely agree that saying “they got offended” is both an overused and an incredibly counterproductive way to deal with hurt feelings. Heck, as I pointed out at the beginning, like Penny in the big bang the fact that I don’t see it as big deal in my neck of the woods is probably rock solid evidence that I’m the problem! But part of me wonders if the reason why this is such a widespread issue is because a good chunk of us reading this are the problem too. Maybe we all look to others to be more welcoming to us, only to find out someday that others were looking to us to be more welcoming to them.
I’m in a Sandy, Utah family ward, and it’s extremely cliquish. The problem here is that tight geographical boundaries means that ward members interact as neighbors, school parents, bike race teams, book club friends, soccer coaches, and so on. So when a bunch of them go on a cruise together, or share a houseboat, others feel left out. We’ve also had several marriages in the past few years between ward members (youth who grew up together), which has allied families as in-laws and added to that dynamic. With the top-down elimination of ward activities lately, I feel like there’s less unity in the ward and no reason to connect much outside of Sunday, except for those people with whom you share callings or you’re friends with outside of church. I dream of moving outside of Utah and away from the drama.
I ‘ve had experience similar to acw that when there are fewer ward activities, it tends to foster cliques who tend to do their own activities. I think activities tend to foster an ability to interact outside of Sunday and form some friendships. Hopefully that becomes a chance for some new friendships to form and eliminate cliques. In a previous ward, we had a 60-year-old single convert who wanted to be friends with all of the young couples and felt left out from that clique. He was constantly getting offended for not being included. However, there were a lot of older single people who wanted to be his friend and he was not interested. Sometimes those kinds of situations are deemed clique problems, but I agree that in a lot of Utah wards, there are legitimate cliques and no desire to include new people. Back to socializing, our stake is one of the few in the church that has sacrament meeting last (supposedly better sacrament meeting attendance numbers). The natural time to socialize becomes right before sacrament meeting, but they have instituted a hard line stance that we should be reverent and are trying to do everything possible to shut down the socializing. Why not replace Sunday School once or twice a month with a social hour with some treats in the gym? Seems like it would bring everyone together and allow some chances to socialize. People are out chatting in the hall anyway.
I don’t feel my ward is cliquish, but I have heard a few people complain that it is. It is tricky on what constitutes friends vs being a clique.
My wife has a few really close friends that she has known for decades. The 4 of them like to go have lunch once or twice a month. Other sisters would occasionally see them at the local restaurants. Some complained they were being cliquish. When it got back to my wife, she was upset and said that they only want 4 at lunch as it is hard on conversations with too many people. It loses its intimacy. Should my wife’s “group/clique” be open to more people? Given she would go out to lunch with almost anybody that asked and did have other lunch groups she would go out with, was my wife being cliquish?
I almost look at it as a question of if being in a ward automatically means you should be friends – as in you have a right. Too me that feels like a lack of boundaries. There are members of my ward over time that I really don’t want to associate with. I am an introvert – not the same thing as being shy. Interacting with people is generally work for me. I prefer just being with a few close friends rather than “working a party.”
I think it is important for everyone in a ward to feel there is someone genuinely happy to see them at church. The best ward I was in for combating cliques was an informal assignment to invite 3 couples (or individuals) over for dinner every few months and to rotate to people you didn’t know.
FIRO-B sounds interesting, but certainly not named by someone with a marketing degree.
One other question I have on this topic is if men are more cliquish than women. It seems to me that men are just so busy with work they get lots of social interaction and SAHM are the most wanting of interaction and the most likely to feel there are cliques keeping them from interacting with others.
My ward growing up had a serious clique problem with the adults. Mostly the kids and teenagers all got along fine. My personal opinion is that the clique was due to a woman in the ward with a toxic personality. She was what we called queen bee of the relief society (usually in the presidency) but weirdly enough I think most of the women in RS we afraid to get on her bad side because she was vindictive. So if she decided to exclude someone, many of the RS women went along with it out of fear of what she would do to them. My mom was one of the people excluded because she committed the unpardonable sin of having a career. This in turn made many of the other women in my ward tell their children I was a bad influence because I didn’t come from the right kind of family. When I was 15 the family had to move due to a restraining order placed on one of her sons for some sexual assault issues. It took about two years, but all the cliquishness seemed to melt away after that. It was amazing to me how much damage one person can do.
On the other hand, I agree with Happy Hubby to the extent that you really shouldn’t have to be friends with everyone in the ward, that’s bad boundary setting. You should treat everyone with respect and try to go outside your comfort zone to welcome people, but do we all really need to hang out outside of church? When I was a kid, every 4th of July we would have a fireworks party with just our little block (about 10 families, 2 of which were not Mormon). Then one year half the families stopped coming. It wasn’t until I was an adult that my dad told me that the Bishop had pulled all the member families aside and told them they were no longer allowed to have the celebration. He said that we should be making it an activity for the entire ward or not having it at all. My dad paid no mind to him and we continued coming and so did one other Mormon family and the two non Mormon families. It is not healthy for a Bishop to disallow members of a ward from spending time together that is not sanctioned by the ward.
My current ward seems super non cliquish. I am pretty low on the inclusion, control, and affection scales so I don’t really care that much if I have a lot of friends at church. This probably stems from being a bit of an unorthodox Mormon in Utah. You get used to not being part of the in crowd and after awhile discover it’s quite nice to be an outsider. That being said, when I moved into my current ward I was a bit overwhelmed at the over the top friendliness of practically everyone I met (and I honestly think most of them are being completely sincere). They invite me to their playgroups and book clubs all the time even though I never come (I work during they day so playgroups are out and for book club they read church sanctioned books and then follow the Sunday School method of only faith affirming discussion – not really how I want to be spending my limited free time). I stopped attending Church about 18 months ago and they still invite me to neighborhood events and parties. When I go there is no obvious judgment. They treat me as on old friend they haven’t seen for awhile. When we recently re-landscaped our front yard a number of people from the ward showed up to help without being asked. I’ve been impressed with the kindness of this ward. I do sometimes wonder if they think we stopped coming to church because we were offended, and I hope none of them blame themselves because they have all been extremely kind.
This is not unique to Mormonism.
I think this conversation is less about groups of friends and more about centers of control. I’ve lived in many wards that had so-called cliques, but in those same wards were other groups of friends that no one was vying to get into. Being in the latter group of friends did nothing to increase one’s sense of control or status in the ward. It is very disempowering to realize that one will never have decision-making power over their own life or situation and others will always have some level of decision-making power. For this reason, I understand why folks will call for an end of cliques and for more social inclusion. Unless we plan to all get together in meeting halls, it simply won’t work. If the centers of control (cliques) include a few more people, then those newly included folks just become part of the problem. The discussion has to be around how power is organized, how power is shared, and about who is empowered and who is disempowered. Talking about controlling relationships and demanding inclusion into micro social groups (four friends going to lunch) suggests that people do not have a right to have social boundaries or consent. That is a dangerous position.
My current ward is quite good in this regard. It is far and away the friendliest ward I have ever been in. In contrast, the last ward I was in which is only 3 miles away was the worst.
Recently, I made my semi-decadal visit to the local ward (suburban Michigan). I decided in advance to only attend Sacrament Meeting. Just after entering the building, crossing the foyer, I was audibly intercepted by a short, Hispanic elderly woman sitting on a couch. “Welcome to Sunday!” she exclaimed, holding out her arms, indicating I should reach down and hug her so she wouldn’t need to stand. I found this delightful as she reminded me of an elderly Hispanic woman who treated me this way in the suburban Maryland ward I grew up in. Though I feel I’d fall in the middle of these FIRO-B scales, in the above context I happily transitioned into high affection.
When I entered the Sacrament Room, I noticed the overflow room had been opened preemptively. I assume attendance levels are fairly consistent in this suburban ward. But, this is also significant because the Sacrament Room was not packed by the time services started. We might have all fit in, but convenience and comfort prevail when the option is available. So, I headed straight for the overflow area, even though I’d arrived early and had my pick of side and center row seating in the Sacrament Room. It would be fair to say I preemptively othered myself somewhat, as a longtime inactive.
Incidentally, listened to a Mormon Expression podcast last week where John Larsen pointed out how cliques develop among ex-Mormons too. Some of it is a matter of practicality, and may even be desirable. But it’s also good to have these check-ins where we look at our circles and see if we are guilty of alienating others.
Is my ward cliquish? I don’t personally know. I do know that a friend of mine some years ago felt that the HP group and their wives were kind of cliquish, because they always had their once-a-month activities. These high priests were, for the most part, the younger, dynamic, capable people in the ward. They were considered the people worth knowing, the ones you naturally wanted to hang out with. Being the wife of an elder, and one who would probably never get to be a high priest, my friend naturally felt excluded. When the bishop told her that there was nothing stopping her from having similar activities with members of the elders’ quorum, she wasn’t too excited. There just weren’t that many people in that quorum that she wanted to be around. I guess the “good” ones were too young, and anybody who was approaching middle age and still “only” an elder was considered not to be capable enough to get on the high priest track. Some were okay, some were definitely not socially desirable.
So that’s her story. My story is that some people just naturally gravitate together. In my ward here in northern Germany, a lot of members are related by blood or marriage, so they naturally gravitate together. Others have shared interests, such as younger children, or they grew up in the same ward, or whatever. It’s hard to break into a group like that if you’re an outsider. I’m an ex-pat who didn’t grow up here, and isn’t related to anybody by marriage (except my husband, of course.) But then, I was probably born an outsider. I’ve certainly never made it into the inner circle of anything, ever. So the only thing I know about cliques is that I’m not in one, and now that I’m older and don’t care so much, I probably wouldn’t recognize one if it bit me on the backside. (Although I admit, I used to care.) I really don’t know what to do about them. You can encourage people to be friendly, but you can’t force friendship. I tried that a few times. It just doesn’t work.
It is absolutely true that cliques are not Mormon-specific. I do think some people feel that at the church, being a perfect organization, should just be able to show up and be everyone’s friend.
I am reminded of a statement I heard someone say years ago: When you are in a clique you never feel like it is one, but from the outside it is easy to spot. I think there is some truth to that, but I don’t see that as absolute statement. It is hard to see your own action of hanging around with good friends as a clique, but that does not mean that all such grouping are cliques.
I think EBK is onto something. Cliques and friendships are normal, but if there are some groups that have power and others don’t have power, cliques are alliances that can be used to be vindictive or controlling of others, to deliberate ostracize those one sees as undesirable. That’s when they are toxic. But people sometimes mistake their desire to be accepted or befriended by everyone they like as “cliques” that exclude them.
In the example I opened with, this person’s wife was treated very poorly by a ward clique after she spent long voluntary hours trying to put together a charitable event. They blocked her from holding the event in the community pavilion that had been made available to others. So this was about power and disempowering someone who wasn’t in the “in group.” It wasn’t merely friendship. To me, that’s where a clique is toxic and wrong. Simply not inviting everyone in the ward to a lunch of friends isn’t an issue. But I’m aware that some may feel excluded by that if they feel they want to be included and aren’t.
In your example from the RS table centerpieces, the sister who was asked to provide them, should have immediately submitted her receipts for the purchases, & the reason why she was submitting them directly to him, to the ward clerk. I say this, because in another ward & stake not so far away, this was quite common, & my husband was the ward clerk. The nuts & bolts as he saw it would have been, when the sister was asked , RS funds were committed. It they decided to go with something else later, they can do that, but they cannot stiff the first person. Reimbursing for the plants would have required the express permission of the RS president, since “funds” had already been paid out for that event. My husband said that when there were insufficient funds in an auxiliary budget to pay for both, & he pointed out that the first sister had been asked by the person authorized to ask her, thus she would get the funds, that the clique sisters were not happy… but it was a fair amount of time before they pulled anything like that again. His name was taken in vain for a while about it, but the bishop was happy to not have to referee it, & it did take care of it, but only for a while. That particular ward had problems with “changing their minds” a lot over Cub Scout stuff, RS Stuff, & YW Stuff – always the same set of sisters involved, always a clique sister who “had a better idea”. Not caring for the drama in the first place, it always seemed a bit much to me.
My grandmother’s garden club was extremely clique-ish — none of them were Latter-day Saints. Way too much drama. I think it is human. Even if a organization really has no cliques, it will be easy for someone to imagine that it does.
Marivene: Good points about how to deal with this mind-changing nonsense.
ji & Kullervo: I’m not sure why you both feel the need to point out that this is a human thing not unique to the church. It’s patently obvious. The OP makes that clear and nobody has claimed anything to the contrary in any of the comments.
In our ward, we’ve got a clique problem in our youth. It’s not a power thing (nobody’s actively trying to control anybody), and it’s not really an exclusion thing (I don’t think anybody is really being shunned), it just looks like they congregate with the kids they feel most comfortable with. Since they’ve all been in the ward so long, the pattern has been reinforced for years, and the kids from the different groups simply don’t seem to interact. They don’t even really say “hi”. It’s so weird. They don’t seem to think poorly of each other, they just say “Oh, so-and-so hangs out with “. Even weirder, each group consists of only one sex, so the boys and girls don’t interact all that much. I’m probably making it sound worse than it is, but our youth leaders have tried a number of things to mix them up, but they’re like salad dressing. You can shake them up, but it doesn’t take them long to separate again.
I agree that power is what complicates these things. There’s also a difference between feeling welcome and being people’s friend. When I transitioned out of the YSA Ward into a traditional ward the bishopric asked me to be the girls camp director less than 5 minutes after meeting me. I said I didn’t think that would work because I’m not physically able to camp and I already had travel planned for the time period in question. I also told them that I’m happy to serve in other positions, but this just wasn’t a good match. I specifically mentioned that I play the piano and organ and love primary and RS, even as a sub. A few days later they sent the RS president to visit me and let me know that primary and music “are couples callings” and that as a single, working woman I belonged with the Young Women. That type of interaction made clear that I was unwelcome there because of my demographic identifiers. In contrast, my current ward is very welcoming. I don’t interact a lot with the ward members, and we’re definitely not friends, but they always smile and seem glad that I came (on the quarterly occasion that I show up 😊). Cliques are a problem when they send the message that we don’t want you here. Being friends with everyone is not a requirement for being welcoming.
I think I am more like hawkgirl on the spectrum. I’ve never looked to the ward for a social life–though one of my longest friendships to date–stretching over 30+ years–began as fellow ward members. Though I now rarely attend ward activities, when I did, I always looked for the table where people seemed alone.
Leaders really should get to know people and meet them where they are-/find out if they need or want a calling, and what talents they might want to share. Maybe they just want to attend Sacrament meeting and that is the extent of their involvement. I think perhaps more people would attend if they weren’t a “project” or shoved into a cookie-cutter mold.
Just make everybody feel welcomed !
Cliques= Stop management (same ten old people). In other words, it’s called Ward leadership.
Elizabeth St Dunstan, I am sorry to hear that! Sounds like that ward missed out on your talents just because they put you in the “single” box. Glad to hear you are having better experience at your new ward.
YSA wards are particularly bad when it comes to this. At the time of this post I went to the Sunday regional and it didn’t surprise me at just how many cliques there were within the San Diego region alone. Seeing people talk only within their ward groups is why I never enjoy going to multi-ward events or gatherings anymore. Nobody is willing to meet new people unless they’re investigators. Cliques are particularly noticeable at the schools, too, and that’s a major problem, especially if groups consist solely of people from Utah.
Cliques are really about power. A group of friends is not a clique unless they use their group friendship to advance each other at the expense of others. My ward has cliques based off of friendship and common experience or acceptable,demographics. In my view they went from being mere friendships to being cliques when they started to call their clique friends to important ward and stake callings and ignore the those not in the clique. As an outsider I tend to take a dispassionate, clinical, and anthropological view. For women inclusion in the clique appears to require being a SAHM with some experience in Utah either being from Utah or having attended BYU. One’s attitude must be gushy and perennially positive (think of the popular girls in YW) unless some heart-rending tragedy happens that requires group comfort (basic child rearing challenges) and, seemingly a certain perpetually teen-like physique with long hair are required. For some reason adoration of clique approved self help books is required. Or their husbands must be in the male clique. Or they must be “projects” to the clique members. One must be married amd married in the trmplemwith both husband and wife active emvefs. The men seem to have their cliques too with substantial income, worthy profesions of being doctors or company directors, huge houses, somewhat nasty to their wives and children, and being devoid of any experience of ill-health or ill-fortune. They are also generally slender, tall, with full heads of hair. They also tend to be unable or unwilling to perform repairs on their homes or vehicles themselves for some reason. Also, and this is tremendously strange but male clique members have the softest hands. But they also tend to call their People Like Us (PLU) to important callings.
In rhe church setting clique members often verbally remind and reinforce their superiority. They physically band together. They tend to be loud and extrememly declarative of their superiority over non-clique members. If a non-clique member voices a different point of view the clique either rapidly reinforces the idea that their perspective is the only one that matters or they do the silent treatment.
To be ineligible for exclusion from these cliques any number of behaviors disqualify. If you employ critical thinking, especially if it challenges some unspoken premise of the clique you are banished. If, as a female, you have a careere you are ineligible. If, as a emale, you are not ebullient in your expressions of group loyalty you’re out, or at least the subject of gossip (oops, I meant “concern’). For men, if there is any hint of an advancement or income ceiling to their career they are ineligible. If men are handy with tools men cannot be included in the clique. If men have rough hands they are ineligible. If men have had any financial issues in their lives after the age of 24 thye are out. If you are a true native to the area and not an import from some highly-Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints- conentrated enclave in the west you’re ineligible. If, as a female, you have advanced degrees you are ineligible. If, as a frmale, you have a bachelor degree in some discipline that is not directly relatable to child rearing you’re ineligible.if you are known to have health challenges you are out.
In applying the meaning and effect of these observation I cannot be dispassionate. For my part I cannot deny what I see and it does pose certain challenges to my testimony of some things. Apparently important callings are based on inclusion in these cliques and clique members call their fellow clique members to important callings. I really don’t care for the euphemisms given to differentiate important callings from ankle biter anonymous ones. I call it as I see it. So either the Lord is particularly interested in the advancement of these clique members at the expense of the non-clique members, a notion that puts a sizable dent in my testimony or these people simply look after their own and effectively use the authorities associated with their important callings to make their clique more powerful and exclusive. And I am supposed to raise my right hand and sustain these people as though the Lord called them.