Several years ago my LDS ward started a neat summer activity called a Neighborhood Walk-About, where, every other week in the summer, three homes in the neighborhood would place some lawn chairs, blankets, and light refreshments out in their yard, and neighbors would walk about the neighborhood, stopping at each home to chat with other visitors. The activity would typically last from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. It was a very popular activity, with kids riding bikes between homes, creating a great opportunity to chat with our neighbors outside of church meetings or service projects. The best part was that non-LDS members of the neighborhood were quite involved in the whole thing, frequently functioning as one of the stops in any given week. There was great participation and a lot of friendships were kindled during these activities. My kids looked forward to the “walk-abouts”, and would get bummed out during off weeks. How often can you say that about a church-related activity these days?
Well, all good things must come to an end, apparently, because the neighborhood walk-about died a slow death over subsequent years. The first intimations of the activity’s death began when the ward council decided that the LDS families hosting a refreshment stop during each week’s walk-about would be asked/pressured to co-host with a non-member family living near them. This resulted in awkward conversations between neighbors, where the LDS neighbors were asking non-LDS neighbors, who sometimes were reluctant to participate, to co-host with them. Eventually, LDS neighbors volunteered in fewer numbers to host refreshments stops, due to reluctance to pressure non-LDS families into participation. As a result of this, two things happened:
- Some families hosted twice during a summer in order to have enough refreshment stops each week.
- Some weeks the number of refreshment stops was reduced from three to two, meaning there were larger gaps between stops within the neighborhood, which meant that some walkers only visited the home nearest them rather than walk to the other side of the neighborhood.
The next stage in the activity’s demise was when the activity officially became a ward mission activity, with the activity’s coordination turned over to the ward missionaries. This resulted in greater pressure for LDS neighbors to co-host with non-LDS neighbors, as well as direct requests from the ward missionaries to non-LDS neighbors to host a stop. To the neighborhood’s non-members, the activity changed from being a neighborhood activity to a ward activity. They got the message that the entire enterprise now had a goal of proselyting rather than neighborhood cohesion. As a result of less participation, the number of scheduled activities went from every other week (about twice per month), to once per month (only three activities for the entire summer). My kids were crestfallen and, needless to say, were not impressed.
The last gasps of the now, effectively, ward walk-about, occurred last summer, when it was reduced to just one Sunday for the entire summer. In addition, there were now three designated stops in the neighborhood, with refreshments provided by the ward: one in the church building’s parking lot, one in a grass strip at one end of the neighborhood, and another in a cul-de-sac. It was now an official ward activity, with flyers delivered by the ward’s youth to each home in the neighborhood. We happened to be out of town on the week it was held but heard that turnout consisted of essentially the ward’s core members. Our non-LDS neighbors expressed their disappointment that what had started as an inclusive, laid-back, low-key summer activity for the entire neighborhood, had become yet another ward activity.
The whole thing reminds me of terrible movie sequels. Why do we ruin good activities by “improving” them like this? Why can’t we just recognize something good and let it alone?
Wheat & Tares 
Excellent example of a sad story, and an illustration of how badly wrong we get it, with the best of intentions. Also, some people are just killjoys.
I often wonder how missionary work might have been different if our time had been spent on community activity alongside others just giving service. We had a glimpse of this with one of our RS presidencies that started a project to regularly commit to helping with a local women’s shelter. It felt so good to look outwards as a group.
Wouldn’t it be good to have time to be a positive force in our community rather than move house for ward members who are perfectly able to afford a removals firm?
I think your walkabout sounds like it was never broke and never needed fixing.Maybe the missionaries could have just tagged along, making conversation alongside everyone else. Your neighbours would have known exactly who to go to if they wanted a discussion about the church.
We do that in the UK through the Open Garden scheme, but it is pay for entry in order to raise funds for local charities. It’s still an excellent community builder, and sometimes extends to whole villages.
I’ve seen something similar a few times. A ward had a first Friday potluck supper the first Friday of each month — well attended, and clean-up always happened. I brought a visitor on several occasions. All was well for a couple of years. Then one member of the ward council got involved and messed up everything. It was always unplanned, really a potluck, but she wanted to make assignments by the first letter of the last name and so forth. Then, she recommended cancellation on a first Friday when the bishop would be out of town (he said no, the event had always gone on with people coming if they can, or not). She just kept on intruding, and succeeded in killing it — but she wouldn’t see it this way. She was an overzealous busy-body. They exist in every organization, but in a ward we’re too nice to tell them to be quiet.
Interesting how people can’t resist trying to control or exploit things.
Sad too.
It’s not limited to church activities–this happens plenty of time in the corporate world. Projects that were working just fine somehow collapse in on themselves in followup iterations. Changes in leadership, resources, scope creep–it’s almost a “natural man” sort of thing that has to be actively resisted.
The opposite can also happen: we have a successful monthly potluck in my ward, but when circumstances require us to move the date for one reason or another, people freak the heck out. I understand getting upset if we announce the change the day before, but if we’re a week out and announce through multiple channels that we’re postponing the event?
The phrase “missionary opportunity” needs to be banished from our lexicon. Why does the foundational premise of every ward function have to be proselytizing? To outsiders, it makes us look like a high-pressure MLM scheme at best, a cult at worst. To church members, it completely deflates the recreational/social/community value of activities when you add the pressure of trying to attract new converts. It’s so inauthentic and agenda-driven.
Great title and post. I have sat through many a ward council where great activity ideas were pruned back to add a ‘spiritual’ or ‘missionary’ purpose. Not that I am saying activities shouldn’t have those, but the ensuing evolution and final product is often very much like the story told in the OP.
Because everything has to be about the church. My stake this year (new SP) decided that wards will not have ward level Young Men super activities but there will be a super spiritual stake level Camp Helaman. It has to be referred to as Camp Helaman. The name alone is turning off young men in droves.
What ever happen to Ammon’s example where is just lived like everyone around him and was super successful?
Many years ago my then 10 year old daughter was paid hundreds of dollars to play her violin in a Christmas program at a large Baptist church. She was too old for me to hover closely at the rehearsals but not old enough that I totally trusted her to be alone with a church choir of strangers. She could be a little hellcat even at that age, it goes with the spirited musical talent. So I loitered in the back of the sanctuary and wandered around the church popping back in often.
Of course, since I was in ecclesiastical enemy territory, the usual boundaries of privacy and respect for property went out the window. One of the important skills no longer taught in the YM program is how to jimmy a door open. I sat in the minister’s chair with my feet on his desk, rummaging through his drawers looking at the financial records. Oh my gosh, this huge beautiful church raked in slightly LESS money that our ward tithing haul the previous year.
***
Then I ran across a pamphlet preserved in a file folder that answered the question posed here. The title was “How to Organize a Lay Ministry.” It was based on sort of social science studies done at some Christian college like TCU. They looked carefully at church congregations that failed and that succeeded. Protestants don’t stick around long at crappy churches when they can walk across the street to another one. So the results are easier to see than with us.
The pamphlet described three types of lay members.:
1. Sheep of the fold. The majority of typical members, as much as 90%, who will do some work but not too much and who don’t like rapid change. They tend to be reasonable and sensible but prone to apathy.
2. The creative types, as few as 1-5%, who have many good ideas but lack the personal or social resources to execute them. At least half of their ideas are not going to ever fly but they are happy if even a few of them are implemented.
3. The regulators, about 5-10%, who will be most visible to the pastor since they are always visible and quickly volunteer and want to do things and will often tackle large projects and make them happen.
The pamphlet described how it was crucial to keep these three groups balanced. Change is needed but not too fast and not too much. The creative types are the key to change since they have the fresh ideas, but in moderation. They are often motivated by sincere devotion to Christ far above obedience to organizations and they bend rules. The regulators must be given tasks to keep them occupied, tasks that require work and precision. For them the organization is the pathway to Christ. They are rigid and they easily lose focus on Christ. The Sheep of the fold can be given less attention because they are loyal followers and reasonable and have basic faith in Christ, at least until things come unraveled when they will seek fellowship with the Savior elsewhere.
The common key event identified that often leads to the failure of a church is when the regulators gain too much leadership influence and start becoming controllers and then quarrel with the creative types and drive them out. Forgiveness and tolerance is lost. The storm will appear to have passed, but next the controllers will begin to drive out the sheep of the fold and then collapse follows.
Good leaders are hard to find. They will be typically sheep of the fold with good balance between taking responsibility and delegating it. They often are busy at work for the same reason. The creative types make excellent counselors and their ideas need to be heard efficiently, evaluated and the best ones implemented. The regulators need to be given tasks where they do less damage to people when they start to control. If they ever get firmly in charge, collapse of a Protestant church is nearly inevitable.
***
After reading this I realized that in my ward the creative types were either already driven out or deeply underground. And that the regulators were firmly in control. I think the observation that the same 10 families (or is it 5?) do all the work in a ward is a description of the end point when regulators have become controllers. Yet, in the LDS faith, because of our high devotion, dedication to a geographical ward, successful buy-in of exclusivity and possibly fruits of the pioneer experience; our wards don’t collapse as easily. But they limp along heartlessly. The prophet worship cult thrives as symbols of the organization which becomes the real object of worship, not the Savior. The “maturation” from home teaching to ministering will not change much if the regulators remain in control and the creative types are not heard.
The neighborhood walk-about was probably started by creative types who managed to get it going in spite of themselves, then taken over and mismanaged by the regulators who turned into controllers. Not being bolstered like other aspects of the LDS faith, the activity then collapsed quickly as expected.
I don’t know how accurately I have described or understood these concepts, but I am confident that there are experts in organizational behavior at churches that do and I hope this is close to what they comprehend.
Mike I am dumbfounded by your comment. You seriously broke into the pastor’s office at another church?!? That is despicable.
I seriously doubt he really broke into the pastor’s office. I think he was just trying to make a point about how religious organizations run, or should run.
The walkabout sounds like it was a nice neighborhood activity, & seems to have been appreciated as such. As soon as it became a ward activity, it had to have a “purpose”, and be managed. It is a pity that “we” as members cannot seem to accept the value in simply increasing the social bond of the community as a “good enough” goal.
I think the term “missionary opportunity” needs to be used LESS. Great term, but overused. Not every event has to have the label. Can’t we all, as a ward, just enjoy one another and visit without any other purpose, just fun?!!!
E and Robert E: Yes and sort of yes.
I am not proud of it but I was raised with a strong dose of us-versus -them mentality in a ward filled with Mormon hoodlums and sometimes I do stupid things. Sort of like those BYU football players who punched the crap out of the thug Memphis state team after they lost a bowl game in 2014 in defense of the church. I did break into the pastors office using a credit card on the lock and rifled through his files.I thought I would find some scandalous nugget. Instead God rewards me with wisdom and insight. This is a very Protestant example of a sinner being shown the Grace of God. At some level I am just a typical “Mormon boy” not far removed from the era of J.Golden Kimball and in much need of Grace. By some miracle my children turned out really good in spite of my patchy example.