Last weekend, we went back to Church for the first time since March. Our Stake President is a doctor and is very wisely cautious about the procedures to protect all Church members in his purview from spreading Covid. He only allowed Church services to resume when cases were finally consistently coming down in our state (since AZ summers are crazy hot, people go indoors more where air circulation increases the risk of getting it unlike in colder climates where you go inside during the winter. Winters here are bee-yoo-tee-ful.[1]
Generally, the precautions were pretty well administered:
- 100% mask wearing except for a few toddlers.
- Many elderly people stayed home (and the meeting was available on Zoom).
- Every other row was designated as empty, and family groups sat six feet apart.
- The overflow was opened when it started to look like it was too many people.
- YM who did the sacrament wore masks and gloves and did some safety theater with hand sanitizer first.
- All bread was in individual cups.
- There was a discard tray that was separate.
- Every person was given the sacrament directly from the YM, not passing it down the row.
- No singing, just organ music–which was also a lot shorter than singing all 4 verses of I Believe in Christ, although sacrament prep time took quite a bit longer.
The only thing that we didn’t do correctly was that there were more than 50 people present. They should have had a sign up. But still, it was overall not bad, and it was nice to see everyone. I haven’t loved this ward since our boundary change a few years ago, but there are many great people in it. I guess I just preferred my last one. But at least this last Sunday I thought, “This could be worse. Maybe we (mostly) dodged a bullet with this ward.”
The Church discourages ward shopping. Unlike Evangelical Churches that try to entice congregants to join their ranks with programs and preaching suited to different people’s tastes, our Church teaches that you should “bloom where you’re planted,” and enforces this by literally making it impossible to attend a different ward than your own on a regular basis. You can go wherever you want, but you won’t belong. You won’t get a calling, your records won’t move to follow you, and you will be a visitor, homeless in a ward sense. When we talk about a ward being a family, it is in an apt metaphor. Not only is it the place where you should find support when you need it (or as Robert Frost put it “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in”), but you will also find people whose views and values may horrify you and even embarrass you. There will be creeps. There will be people who say racist and sexist things. There will be a few boundary-less busy-bodies with no social filter. Yep, it’s pretty much exactly like any other extended family.
Speaking of homeless, we are moving. Well, we are moving out at least. We haven’t yet found a place to move into. We will probably be Airbnbing it for a few months while we wait for someone to list something that we don’t hate. There were tons of great homes this summer, before we were on the market. The housing market in our city is insane right now. We listed and had two offers within days and are under contract above our list price. Our plan was to buy in a specific part of town that has lower property taxes than where we live (and raised our kids) because we could get a house that’s on par or better but for less money. It was a great theory, but so far we just keep seeing stuff that’s not right for us: backs on a loud, busy street or has had zero upgrades in any of the bathrooms or the kitchen is too small or there’s no walk in closet in the master, or the flooring is cheap or the pool doesn’t have a water feature. We’re too old to deal with all that crap again, or so we think.
Part of the decision to move for Mormons who attend Church always involves vetting the local ward, trying to decide if it’s going to be a good match. We did that when we moved here (and we hit the jackpot!), and this time, it feels even more important since it’s like moving from one house to another. I don’t want new problems, but I don’t want to lose the things I liked about my old situation either. Trying to make this change without being able to actually attend a real ward meeting is kind of a crap shoot, unfortunately. But it does make me think about the things I most want in a ward. Here’s my list:
- An open-minded interesting Gospel Doctrine teacher with thought-provoking discussion. A sense of humor helps. Being aware of current events helps. Things to avoid:
- Boring, read from the manual teachers with literally the same threadbare material I’ve heard for 50 years and the “same ten answers” regurgitated for every classroom question. Honestly, kill me now.
- People who make sexist, homophobic or racist comments and go unchecked. If I have to be the one to say something contrary, so be it, I will, but ideally, there shouldn’t be broad acceptance of these attitudes.
- Total lack of curiosity among class members and teachers. Literalism and certainty and focus on authority all kill curiosity. Members who tattle on teachers for saying anything not explicitly in the manual kill thinking.
- A demographic mix. At age 52, I should probably not be among the “youngest” in the ward, nor the oldest; I should be somewhere in the middle, at the upper end of the middle even. There should be enough kids for a real Primary, and enough teens for a real YM / YW program.
- Leadership should respect science enough to follow reasonable precautions regarding Covid transmission. I’ve heard there’s a ward in Mesa (or somewhere in East Valley) where ward members were so divided on mask-wearing that the ward holds one meeting with masks and one without. That, to me, is cuckoo-balls. I mean, they should definitely track and share their data with the CDC (or with some reputable scientific group now that the CDC is gagged). It’s just a weird world we are living in here in the USA right now, and if ward leaders are treating this anti-mask BS equally with actual safe protocols, no thanks. That tells me something is wrong with the leadership.
- Leadership in general is a big factor of whether a ward is good or not, and it’s hard to gauge during a pandemic, but the types of things I don’t want include leaders who are arrogant about their own authority and certainty or too pushy about their personal opinions with the members in their charge. As Joseph Smith said, “It feels good not to be trammeled.” (He may have then trammeled a few folks, but he didn’t like it happening to him.) I like leaders who are friendly and approachable, who don’t scramble to check the handbook for routine things, who aren’t always asking higher ups how to do things, and who are respectful to the members and not full of themselves. And by golly, they’d better pick good speakers because nobody’s got time for listening to bad talks with terrible topics.
- The ward members can’t be clubby or cliquish. That gets old. Unfortunately, a lot of wards have cherry-picked a few “favorite” families who kind of rule the roost, and to a newcomer who doesn’t know why these randos are super special, man that sucks. It is a huge turn-off. It’s like they’ve been pre-anointed by the ward as the future leaders of everything, and they often revel in their social status and power. I don’t think all wards have these people, but most do. I absolutely despise it when someone who was a bishop years before I was ever in that ward still insists on (or the ward members insist on it) being called “bishop” still. Get over yourself! I was once Nursery Leader, and I don’t insist on everyone calling me that forever.
- Any ward members making thinly veiled swipes that are taken out of the GOP playbook are gross, in my book.
- I’d rather be somewhere in the middle for wealth. I don’t love being in a ward where I’m among the wealthiest, nor the poorest, and I do like some socio-economic diversity, but too much swing isn’t great, IMO, in terms of how the ward runs. Both ends of the spectrum can be eccentric.
A few good signs:
- Women wearing pants occasionally, and nobody caring. Likewise, facial hair and colored shirts for men.
- People saying hello and being genuinely welcoming to visitors / strangers.
- Kids having fun without being totally out of control (ideally), and adults who enjoy them.
- The majority of the Relief Society having careers (not just jobs).
- Talks that are actually funny, not just “funny” like when the GAs make sexist or other stereotyped comments and everyone courtesy laughs. Quoting anyone other than a GA or C.S. Lewis is a pretty good sign. Especially rap lyrics or something else not traditionally heard at Church.
- Racial diversity (a girl can dream), and single adults holding prominent callings, not just married couples running everything.
Let’s hear from you:
- What do you think makes a ward good vs. bad?
- What do you try to avoid?
- What symptoms do you look for to assess the ward?
- Have you successfully shopped for a good ward?
Discuss.
[1] Summers are like living under Satan’s ball sac, no offense.
Wheat & Tares 
Tasteful facial hair on men and colored shirts is a great sign. Living in Idaho, a beard or a non-colored shirt pretty much guarantees that you have a very low chance to be called into leadership positions. Same with women and pant suits (although perhaps even more so).
I think the only time I’ve ever seen someone challenged for their misogynistic, racist, homophobic, etc. views in church was when I was at BYU. It only happened twice. But at least it showed me that there are people with conviction in the Church.
Other than your dollar not going as far in the housing market as some other places in the valley, it sounds like you need to move to Ahwatukee.
You would hate my ward, and probably every ward I’ve seen in Utah and Idaho with the exception of a student ward I attended many years ago.
Great ward here. Coloured shirts a plenty, facial hair esp. my Mr who has sported it for a lifetime and been in ward and stake leadership positions, and trousers on women in winter. High number of state employees including bishop and unfortunately many with family difficulties arising from differences of gender norms and beliefs. Minorities running quorums and most women have careers.
Testimony Sunday is quiet though. We do run the risk of thinking that we are all minorities, and so keep quiet.
Anyway, it’s all been pretty academic of late since we haven’t met, even virtually since March. It was fun while it lasted, but I won’t be back until we can vaccinate against covid as I have an immune impaired daughter, and if I think about it there are very few families in the ward who are not at extra risk somewhere.
Years ago, when we lived in rural Wyoming, most of the men had facial hair/beards, moustaches, sideburns, polyester suits with western ties, and cowboy boots. Leaders and all. I was there in January for a funeral and noticed that the attire for men is still the same. Some things rarely or never change.
Years ago, when hubby was called to a bishopric position in Utah, the SP asked him to shave his moustache. I suspect it all depends on where you’re located.
And swipes from the GOP will continue, now more than ever. We had a guy in our ward in Utah who bore his testimony every month. Included were always a few GOP “swipes”, including encouraging ward members to “fast and pray” that Mitt Romney would be our next US President. The ward member was old and feeble, so everybody sort of awkwardly chuckled. He died last year, which is unfortunate, because I looked forward to his crazy rantings every month, even though his words were totally inappropriate. No one reigned him in, as far as I know.
Thank you, hawkgrrl. I enjoyed this.
I have been in a huge variety of wards. Like, I can’t really think of a type of ward I haven’t been in before.
The hardest one for me was one that was 80% students (I was not a student). Tons of turnover, not a lot of peers to be friends with, poor youth programs because of small numbers and leader turnover, and all of the “adults” were shuffled around leadership so it was presidency musical chairs and everyone got burned out so fast. pretty bad teachers and talks. Chaotic and disorganized. We always got told we were a “training” ward which is all well and good but it gets pretty exhausting. I may have had a better experience if I hadn’t personally been going through a super hard time that no one seemed to notice because we appeared to be fine and there were so many big needs elsewhere so I just kept getting asked to help more and more and more even though I really needed help myself.
That said — the one silver lining in that ward was that I found that the young people–although hard for me to really relate to (almost every Sunday was 20-yr old newlyweds speaking, cool once in a while but got really old)–were not afraid to admit they weren’t perfect, or had questions, or struggled with things. So I totally hated that ward, but I did see the beauty and importance of being able to be vulnerable at church. We also had some halfway houses in the ward and there’s nothing sweeter to me than a testimony that begins “I’m 6 months sober …” Seriously. There’s Jesus for you.
I would take a class or talk where someone is vulnerable and open about struggles and focuses on how a gospel principle is actually helping him/her survive life over a fancy, deep doctrinal lesson from a professor of ancient scripture any day. But that requires that people not worry about being perfect and that can be hard to find among Mormons.
Cliques make wards so difficult, especially when the people in the cliques have no idea how their behavior excludes others. Of course everyone is going to find friends who they relate to better than others. But having very exclusive, large parties and then sharing the photos all over social media really does a lot to make the members of the ward who weren’t invited feel unwanted.
The best wards I attended had lots of welcoming social activities that were great at including just about everyone. The activities committee in my last ward organized a Sunday dinner activity where once a month we had a potluck meal with 10-15 other members of the ward. We all got to know everyone well, including the people who wouldn’t naturally end up in our social groups.
I want to be generous and give ward leaders the benefit of the doubt. In so doing I have to admit that there is NOT an ideal ward model or prototype. That would be impossible to exist. Why? Because wards mean different things to different people. Heck, as I’ve evolved as a member of the Church the definition of a “good ward” has evolved too.
There was a time when for me the definition of a good ward was one that followed the formula. I didn’t want to hear the Gospel according to Bishop X or brother Y. I wanted the correlated version from SLC. And I wanted structure. You know, meetings and interviews and programs. That was me when I was on the leadership fast track with my wife and beautiful 4 kids that filled the Primary and then the YW Program. You’ve seen us.
But in the last few years as I’ve become a more nuanced member, the last thing I need is the lesson manual version of the Church. I don’t want the redundancy of the correlated version of things. Now, I really value hearing brother Y’s perspective from the back row. So now I want a ward that will tolerate a diversity of opinion, not a conformity agenda (which I used to appreciate). I want everyone to be accepted, not just the “virtuous”.
I used to see blue shirts and beards as a sign of weakness. Like, “why can’t they get with the formula”? Now I see a blue shirt or beard and think, “good for them”. So the definition of a good ward kind of depends on each of us.
Some feedback for you: it’s appallingly bad taste to make any complaints at all about your experience of the housing market. You sold your house for more than you expected in two days, but are complaining that you can’t find a walk-in closet? Please grow some awareness that multi millions of us are about to be evicted, after years of grappling for housing in markets engineered to exploit us. The people with ANY right to vent about housing are students being taken to court to extract a year of inflated rent for a unit they won’t even occupy given online only college; families being evicted during a pandemic; millennials who despite having a graduate degree and a decade of work experience can’t afford to live in even a mobile home without 4 housemates from Craigslist who turnover regularly; black Americans who’ve been relegated to those areas near the loud highways or trains that are below you; seniors stuck in homes in areas that have newly become yearly flood and fire zone, etc. This especially rubs me wrong after your earlier random complaint about renters daring to have the simple desire to make their living place a home by having a pet. 1/3 of the US rents, because the housing market has been engineered to force us to, and a pet–a stable companion, known to improve mental and physical health and sense of purpose–is such a SMALL thing to ask of life. It’s not about your profit margin. Clearly you lack the perspective of having to rent and having to beg and hustle and still fail to be allowed the small dignity of having a pet, or privacy, or autonomy, or a stable home environment generally. You need to spend a lot more time thinking about tenants rights and why we have to build more housing.
God, imagine the criteria for a place to live that you “don’t hate” coming down to whether the pool has a water feature.
The next Nelsonian adjustment I would like to see is that we can attend a ward of our choosing, although I do have fond memories of living and attending Church for six years on the East Coast in a former industrial town.
We have a second home in Southern Utah and enjoy attending that ward much more than our home ward in Northern Utah. The reasons include:
1. It’s congregation is more diverse in terms of age, ethnicity, part-member families.
2. The bishop is more authentic, realistic, and pastoral and he has a way of instilling those qualities in the members.
3. I see fewer ties and white shirts on men and more pants on women.
4. The lessons and discussions reflect more progressive attitudes while our Northern Utah ward is dominated by conservative, outdated and, in some cases, discredited concepts.
5. Our Southern Utah ward goes out of its way to make visitors and non-members feel welcome with no strings attached.
Marrissa: I’m sorry for your struggles. Don’t read too much into my situation vs. other people’s struggles. I am totally for more rental properties and affordable housing. I’m also for rental relief during the pandemic. Me having a greater struggle doesn’t improve someone else’s situation; it doesn’t affect it at all. Even if my position seems enviable by some standards, it’s also a come down due to the pandemic. It’s all relative. Our city is getting an influx of buyers from the west coast where a really small place is over a million dollars, so they don’t mind paying more and more here, which is driving up prices. As you say, the housing market is stacked against consumers.
“The people with ANY right to vent about housing are students being taken to court to extract a year of inflated rent for a unit they won’t even occupy given online only college.” Actually, that’s us also. There’s a good chance my daughter will be sent home due the pandemic, but we won’t have a home for her to come to. But I disagree with your hierarchy of who can complain. There’s plenty for all of us to complain about.
I actually have no idea what you are referring to about people having pets when they rent. We are very likely going to have to rent for a while starting later this month, and we do have cats. Are you confusing me with someone else?
Regardless, I do care about the issues you’ve mentioned, and I will vote accordingly. That’s really the best I can do. I understand your anger at hearing about the struggles of someone you think has it better, but that’s how life works. In my current ward, I am basically seen as living in the ghetto. Most families have multi-million dollar homes with tennis courts and casitas out back. We just had a normal house. When one sister (from my part of the ward) volunteered to host a ward cooking lesson, another sister from the nicer area remarked “But she doesn’t really have a house that’s made for entertaining.”
I enjoyed reading about your ward having the first meeting since March (I can just imagine it) and your real estate activities. My ward at one time had the best gospel doctrine teacher in the church. You had to get to class early to be assured a seat, because the hall-walkers all showed up too. Unfortunately he is no longer with us, and we’re back to ordinary volunteers doing their best.
I read about your experiences with the housing market with interest and empathy. I’m glad that some parts of our economy are still functioning. I wish you the best in finding a good place to live. I recommend a look at the Willo neighborhood. Just sayin.
We cross-posted. I can laugh at your ward ghetto status. I might add that in my ward, all activities hosted in someone’s home were governed by the STP principle. (Same Ten People)
MDearest: If I told you who those individuals were I suspect you would not be surprised at all.
Angela, thanks. To clarify, I’m not even objecting to you shopping around for the best deal you can get. I object to calling the possibility of buying any functional house “crap” that you shouldn’t have to “deal with” and using the word “hate” to describe buying a house that has a private pool but no water feature, or the other minor preferences you listed. It’s still offensive to the growing number of people who aren’t sure we’ll ever have a house, or have a roof of any kind in two months’ time, whether or not others in your neighborhood have worse rhetoric. I’m glad if you have YIMBY politics. The anti-tenant pet comment was a footnote on an otherwise unrelated BCC post of yours, which is less anti-tenant than I remembered now that I reread it. I still think that if somebody wants to have tenants at all, it should be a foregone assumption that the tenants can keep their (normal) pets. Just a basic aspect of building a life.
We’ve never had the luxury of ward shopping. We generally had a 3 or 4 day house hunting trip to select a house and get on contract. The ward would end up being a feature or a bug of the address. Usually a bug.
The best ward we ever lived in was in CA. the ward boundary was the base boundary. Since every household had at least one Active Duty military member we were all bonded by shared experience. Cliques were difficult to form since the turnover rate was pretty high. There was a great mix of families. Although, there wasn’t anyone older than about 45. This was before we had kids, so I don’t know how well the primary ran. It was large. The youth program was enthusiastic. The kids all had interesting backgrounds and were generally well adjusted. I loved that while running like a well oiled machine, there was genuine love and caring among the members. There was no shadow of past leadership as past leaders were released because they moved. As did anyone who “remembered their leadership with fondness” It truly spoiled us to the crap shoot that is a Mormon ward.
I suppose what makes a “good” ward and what makes a “bad” ward boils down to whether the member feels he or she belongs in the ward. Since marrying, my wife and I have lived in seven different wards. Of those, I only really felt like I have belonged in two. One was really, really nerdy and we fit in quite well. The other was small and in the midwest, everyone was needed to make the ward function. All the other wards have had an in group and an out group, usually drawn by socioeconomic or family lines. Being neither part of the family on in the ward’s upper crust, we just didn’t feel like we mattered.
Angela C: Some of the good signs you seek in a ward are considered rebellious, non-conformist, outside the box, pushing the envelope, etc. And I say that’s OK! To a certain extent, Joseph Smith and the restoration was considered all those.
My question is this: Should you, and others likewise, find your preferences in a ward to be the majority, would you be tolerant of the traditional views that would then be the minority? I would hope so, but I doubt it.
Why? Because I came out of a religion that was fundamentally conservative until the beginning of the counter-culture 60s. Voices cried out for diversity, open-mindedness, and tolerance. Once their viewpoints gained the majority, there was no room for other opinions, and the liberal voices were now close-minded and intolerant.
An example: most of the men in the ward are wearing colored shirts, and you’re pleased. How would you view me in my white shirt?
Mark Gibson Gibson: Actually, I’d rather if my ward has both colored shirts and white shirts, both progressive views and conservative ones. I just don’t like it when there is no push back from the membership for damaging ideas like homophobia or sexism. I don’t require that there be no homophobia or sexism. Just that it not be seen as “normal” and “acceptable” by everyone. I don’t mind being in the minority. I just mind being the only one.
I’ve served on a ward council in one capacity or another in six wards we’ve attended in the last two decades. Very diverse wards—some urban, some suburban, some in between. And in every ward, there has been a report in ward council that (a) someone feels like this is the worst ward they’ve been in; and (b) that someone feels like it’s the best ward they’ve ever been in.
Not sure what I’m saying here except your mileage may vary significantly as what makes a good ward. I also think the ward in general can be great, but if the immediate people around you suck (in your calling, or your neighborhood e.g.), that’s going to color your view considerably. And vice-versa.
Marrissa: I don’t remember that post specifically, but as to the pet question, generally, I think you are right. When we rented our house out during the first housing crisis (we were living overseas), our property management company said basically the same thing you said, that people looking for our type of house (very family oriented schools and neighborhood) would probably come with pets. My oldest son was allergic to dogs, but we still said that made sense and we allowed dogs, and I would do it again. I agree that people have pets and that pets enrich lives. In our case, unfortunately, the property manager didn’t do a thorough move out inspection because their dogs caused quite a bit of damage we had to replace (a few thousand dollars’ worth). It took us 7 years to bother to fix it. My own cats have caused hundreds of dollars in damage over time, and I’ve paid out plenty to fix it as well. So while I don’t know what my objection to tenants with pets was in my other post, if I have an objection, it’s just that pets often cause damage. I pay for their damage when it’s my pets. When it was my tenants’ damage, I also paid for it.
Ward shopping futile in some parts of Utah. In my area of Northern Utah County, wards a just a few blocks by a few blocks in size. One would have to visit a lot of wards to find the “right one” and then have extremely limited housing options.
I had a co-worker that was in six different wards and two stakes over an 18 month period – all while living in the same house. The area was growing so fast that wards were splitting like crazy.
Attending a Spanish ward in Utah. My wife and I have been attending for the past 5 years. We have people from all over. At least 13 different countries. Ward activities with food are to die for. There is always dancing. And everyone dances. Even the abuelitas. It’s great. My wife and I felt that the gringo wards in Holladay were somewhat inbred. If you were not from Holladay or had family in Holladay, you felt a little bit like an outsider. The Holladay gringo ward we attended for 6 years felt insular as well. Most were only interested not just in their own culture, but their own childhood upbringing. People would ask me where I went to high school. Even worse, when I said, “Provo High,” people would jokingly sneer at me. “The closed-minded Utah County boy.” I know that they tried to mean it in good humor, but it has seemed like a pattern ever since I moved to Salt Lake County. Mormons from Salt Lake City tend to look down on Utah County.
Suffice it to say, I thoroughly enjoy multi-cultural wards. They feel more liberal. And I like liberal, well, Mormon style. Probably not Portland style.
Sounds like you live in S Tempe. Don’t go to Gilbert or Awatukee. Try one of the older wards in Tempe around the University. They are multi cultural and could use you. Or try Manhattan first in NYC. I went there for 3 years . Best church experience ever. As Richard Bushman put it “we like questions in Manhattan ward” Good luck.
Have you considered building a house that meets all your requirements, perhaps out of something like eco blocks, so your house is also super insulated, could be enviromentally neutral, with solar panels and possibly batteries. Do you need to live in the city, would you be better semi rural? This is the chance to Build your dream.
When you find the ward you want (which will change with the next bishop anyway
Marrissa,
I read your comments and then re-read them. Certainly hawkgrrl can speak for herself, which she does and has done. However, to lump all the world’s problems onto someone, anyone who has been able to survive and prosper is ridiculous. How do you know that the person(s) you are criticizing haven’t been donating time, service, and monies to a multitude of causes throughout our world?
Susan Brown,
It doesn’t matter how much she gives. It’s the fact that she *has* more to begin with that’s the problem. Arguments from charity don’t justify structural inequalities. If you think they do, I have a whole brochure of GOP BS economics to sell you.
Marrissa, thanks for speaking up. Hawkgrrl, thanks for responding as kindly as you did. I’d like to live in a ward where that kind of callout-of-the-callouts dialogue can happen and not ruin everybody’s day. I think that takes humility, which, despite all our emphasis, is rare in the church.
One more thing, though, that I can’t resist:
“I understand your anger at hearing about the struggles of someone you think has it better, but that’s how life works.” Hawkgrrl, re-read that a couple of times. Then imagine Jeff Bezos saying that to you. Do you think that statement makes him seem *less* privileged? I’m not trying to start a wokeness pissing match, but goodness, that felt tone deaf.
Billy Possum: Just to clarify, I’m not shrugging off wealth inequality as inevitable or OK the way it is, nor did I mean to imply that Marrissa or anyone else just needs to accept it. I don’t like that it works that way. It doesn’t have to be that way. Other countries are far more equitable, but we have half our country hysterical about “socialism” which as far as I can tell just means “any government programs that would alter our current kleptocracy.” I completely disagree with those who believe they deserve their great fortune, which is partly due to circumstance, chance, family support, race privilege, and yes, partly due to effort to use those things to personal advantage. What I meant was that me (as an individual) having it worse off wouldn’t help someone else given our current systems and infrastructure. It would lower (?) my situation without elevating another’s. I’m not OK with the current wealth inequality that drives so many into a hand-to-mouth situation or causes so many to go without health insurance. I’m especially not OK with those who have financial privilege who then fight tooth and nail to avoid paying more in taxes to support their fellow citizens’ health insurance or affordable housing.
One reason I left my high paying corporate job in 2013 was that I felt I was getting too disconnected from reality by living such a privileged life. We wanted to be around “normal” people. We wanted our kids to have to think about and understand money, not just rely on us. We wanted to help others have a better life and connect with people who were struggling, which is why we opened our specific business. I’m not sure we accomplished those things, but one thing that definitely happened is we took a huge financial hit and came way down on the prosperity scale. We’re still fine (not like we were), but did that really help anyone else? I’m not convinced it did. It probably helped my kids in the long run to take money matters more seriously, so I guess I accomplished something, but it was certainly not a slam dunk social experiment.
It’s a tough balance. I think there is such a division right now in the Church between conservative, orthodox believers and liberal nuanced believers that is really affecting world views and values. I see more and more conservative members who think that religious liberty is hanging by a thread and that the Second Coming will be here in the next 1-3 years and we need to hunker down and be righteous until that happens. Who cares about making the world a better place because it’s going to burn soon. The liberals are led astray by worldly thinking and will leave the Church and not be strong enough to stand firm until the Second Coming. The liberals want to change the Church, have more acceptance for different views, dress, etc. We come together in a ward and try to make it work and it’s really hard. The liberals are trying to change the conservatives and push the Church in a more tolerant direction and the conservatives want to weed the liberals out or push them out and have a smaller “pure” core group. I think in any other denomination we would have a split. I hope we can keep it together. I think there are wards in the Salt Lake area that are more liberal (I’m lucky to be in a great ward), but you need to know where to look. There may be some in Arizona too, but it may take some digging.
Geographic church is a weird thing – when I lived on the East Coast (in a Rust Belt industrial town), our ward covered 200 square miles. Each November we did an activity where we assembled Thanksgiving meal boxes with donations from members and elsewhere. The irony is that some ward members probably needed to be on the list of recipients.
What makes an ideal ward?
My family and I lived in a heavily military ward in the 1980s in Maryland, where families rotated out every few years, to a new assignment elsewhere. The attitude was, we‘re only together for a short while, so let‘s make the best of the situation, and do as much together as we can. It was wonderful.
Then we moved overseas and spent 14 years in expatriate English-speaking wards in Asia, dominated by high-income businesspeople and diplomats. The same “welcome aboard” attitude applied. It was great. The one fly in the ointment, which created awkward problems periodically, was that the large contingent of people who enjoyed privileged lives, sometimes were uninterested in including the less-privileged people at Church (students; Filipino guest workers working low-paying jobs, to send money back to their families in The Philippines, a country with a largely destitute economy; non-Americans who did not speak the local language, and who therefore worshipped in English, whose situations did not fit the general Ward expatriate culture; and American women who had married native men). But overall, a very welcoming Church culture.
Then we moved back to Maryland, to a rural part of the state, and it was a Church culture shock. We started attending Church, introduced ourselves, and said, we’re here to help. The response was pretty much, who the heck do you think you are? We don’t know you. Several people told us that there was a prevailing church culture of having to live there 15 years, before people would fully accept you at Church, and that turned out to pretty much be the case. We wound up making good friends, and filled several “key” callings, but found the general mistrust of newcomers to be at odds with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Bishop told us he felt promoted to call my wife as YW President, but resisted the promptings for several months, because he did not know my wife. He had the grace to apologize, but it was a classic case of letting one’s personal tendencies override the promptings of the Spirit. Good grief.
The best Ward is one that welcomes the newcomers in its midst.
I don’t think that the majority of women having careers in a ward is necessarily good or bad. I think that a good sign is when parents feel comfortable to make employment choices that are best for their unique family situation and personalities. This would mean a mixture of employment situations for families. There would be families with 2 careers parents, SAHM and career dad, SAHD and career mom, career mom and dad with a “job” or career dad and mom with a “job”. I think its a problem when people see only one viable choice for families whether it be the traditional career dad with SAHM or both career parents.
We just moved for a year to Winchester, Virginia. Our new ward allows 25 people, total, in the building at a time.
I’ve attended by Zoom. The bishop wears a face mask even while conducting.
It is hard to get a feel for the ward, but I think I like it.
Wow, I didn’t even know “ward shopping” was a thing. Whenever I have had to relocate and find a new place for my family to live, we considered practical things like price range, neighborhood, commute to work, schools, etc. but the makeup of the local ward never entered into it. It was an afterthought. And if I happened to live in a ward that I didn’t like, I did not have regrets about not living in a different ward nearby that I heard was “better”. Unlike those other factors, ward boundaries are entirely abstract, man-made and very arbitrary, and those boundaries are subject to change at any time without notice. Also, leaders change regularly. If you don’t like your bishop, just wait a few years and there will be a new one who does things differently. Members move in and out, children grow up and move away, etc. Wards are too dynamic to place definitive labels of “good” or “bad” on them, because they are in a constant state of change.
Of the many different kinds of wards I’ve lived in, urban big-city wards tend to be more diverse and accepting of different viewpoints, but they come with other problems, like more serious poverty that places additional burdens on the members. Big suburban wards with lots of kids are great for families, but overwhelming for leaders. Rural branches can have a close-knit “family” atmosphere, but are often short-staffed and fighting for survival, not to mention long drives for members. So I don’t know which is best. But no matter what kind of ward
The notion of RS members having careers is interesting to me, but from the aspect of drama/pettiness/conflict in the ward. In my experience, the people who engage in drama and pettiness and cause friction are the ones where church meetings and activities are their primary source of interaction with adults other than a spouse. Very general statement, but I think people who are balancing a career with everything else simply don’t have the mental energy to care about who said what, hold a grudge, etc.
My family is in a stake in Chandler that has a branch on the Gila River reservation. Several families and couples from around the stake are assigned to be in the branch to help give it enough members to function well. The reservation is challenging in many ways (poverty, significant health issues, unemployment, addiction, crime) but the gospel is very applicable there. We’ve come to love the people we have met, and nobody blinks an eye when someone shows up in shorts and sandals, or otherwise doesn’t fit the typical template. It’s awesome and I dread the day that we get moved back to a “regular” ward.
@Ethan I’ve never noticed whether women without adult contact other than church are more likely to contribute to drama / pettiness. And I’ve really never been in a ward where that was an issue. What I have noticed in Mormon circles is that women (both working and SAHM) often feel threatened by the ones who didn’t make the same choice. The SAHM’s feel a need to point out that they are really smart and could have a career if they wanted to, the working moms feel a need to justify their choice to work and prove they are still good moms, and overall I think *both* are constantly seeking external validation for their choices and the fact that another woman made a different choice and seems happy seems threatening and undermining to them. It’s pretty annoying and needy TBH. That’s now far afield from the topic at hand, and maybe it’s common outside of Mormon circles, but fundamentally I think Mormon women are trained to rely on external authority and validation rather than internal and so are constantly seeking that from peers and leaders (and insecure when they don’t get it).
@Elisa good observation! The notion of needing external validation and feeling threatened is spot on. I have also noticed the same among women around degrees, mission experience and callings. I’ve been in callings where I unfortunately got to hear all about the various conflicts and bickering in the ward (because hey, instead of just an interpersonal disagreement let’s make it a ward issue that we expect ward leaders to mediate and resolve). So I know it’s anecdotal but that’s what I saw, was that certain people almost forgot how to act decently around others. But that was in one ward and specific people so maybe it was an isolated thing.
As to the debate about women with careers, this is just a preference based on shared common interest. Maybe there’s drama & pettiness among the RS in some areas, but I’ve never felt like I was a part of that, perhaps to the point made above that when you have a career, you either don’t have time for that or you just aren’t as invested in Church as your only source of adult social interaction. Maybe. I’ve only been in one ward where there were almost no other career women (some had jobs, but weren’t ambitious and their jobs weren’t something they were that invested in). The only problem I had there was just nothing to talk about with these women. Our temperaments were completely different. If I made a comment, they looked at me like an alien from another world. They all buzzed with excitement about the same types of things: crafts, food storage, sewing, making jam, things I didn’t have time for or honestly, any interest in. They were friendly, and we were friends, but it was despite having little in common. They didn’t enjoy reading, they didn’t know anything about politics, they didn’t travel, they couldn’t relate to my life, and I couldn’t relate to theirs. I found wards with more career women to have a wider variety of interests among the women than that ward did. I have since met SAHMs who did have broader interests than what I found in that ward, so it may have been socio-economic due to living in a very small geographic ward in Utah where no women had careers. The size of the ward may have meant less variation. They also often talked about feeling inadequate or depressed, things I can sympathize with, but that aren’t me. I kept wondering if they all really felt that way because that was a lot of women to all be feeling inadequate. I wondered if they thought they were supposed to feel that way as an expression of Mormon women humility or if they really did.
I love what Taiwan Missionary said about wards being accepting of newcomers. One of my favorite ward experiences was living as an expat in Singapore. The ward was solely expats, which at first felt classist to me, but then I realized what chaos it can be to integrate long-term local members with a constantly rotating cast of foreigners. If you stayed in the ward 2 years, you were a long-timer! In my current ward, they keep people in calling for years and years and haven’t changed ministering assignments in decades. It seems to work for them, but it creates some serious inertia and complacency, and it does make it harder to integrate newcomers.
Besides 2 years in Argentina wards/branches as a missionary, I’ve lived in Utah wards my entire teen and adult life – probably around 10 wards total. Some of the wards were rich, some were poor, some were just middle class. I don’t recall any radical differences among those wards – just the “normal” stuff that occurs when you bring 200 people together with various backgrounds and personalities. Some people get along and some don’t. Some people share their life stories every testimony meeting. Some people bring up political questions in Sunday School. Some people refuse to give talks in Sacrament meeting for a variety of valid reasons. Some people are completely different people on the basketball court than they are in EQ. I don’t remember disliking anyone in any of the wards I was in. I remember having some good friends in most of them.
I guess for me a good ward is one where the members are genuinely trying to be good Christians as defined primarily by Jesus’ words delivered in the Sermon on the Mount.
The best ward I have ever been in was in a touristy, arty place. Our oldest daughter went home from school with a friend, and when we went to pick her up, the father had his own TV programme. Lots of equalty among disparate people. Respect.
In the ward the Bishop went to uni to learn hebrew so he could understand the scriptures better. Another member was qualified to be a rabbis, and taught the ward chior gregorian chants. There were wonderful discussions in classes and great talks(before talks were based on conference talks). There was a very inclusive and welcoming feel. We even had an architect designed chapel, with the baptismal font in the entry foyer, high curved ceiling on the corridor, and moon bowls reflecting rippling water on the chapel ceiling. I was on the bishopric. About 100 members.
We then moved back to the area my family came from, which we hadn’t realised was much more conservative. A daughter converted a young man who she later married. After some months I asked the bishop why he had not blessed or passed the sacrament. He was not wearing a white shirt. The daughter had helped him buy pastel shirts.
Pharasees? Welcoming?