Logo from My Hometown website.
Frequently here at W&T, I’ve read comments decrying the lack of community in the Church. Roadshows are no longer. All Church gatherings have to have a spiritual purpose and not just for friendship and hanging out. Church buildings could be used as community gathering spots but instead they sit empty much of the time.
So when I heard about My Hometown Community Resource Center this week, I knew I had to tell all of you about it. At my exercise class, I mentioned signing my son up for guitar lessons and how much they cost. One of the other women told me about free guitar lessons at a stake center not far away. “What?” She called it a community resource center and said I could get free guitar lessons at a stake center. Also free piano lessons. And cooking lessons. And English as a Second Language. Also computer classes, and art classes, and dance lessons, and general mental health principles, and some sports and fitness stuff. If someone needs help with their yard, they go talk to them, have them sign a few waivers, and then take care of their yard for them. They do spring cleanup and fall cleanup.
I kept asking questions. I’ve never heard of anything like this. All of these community resources? At a STAKE CENTER? I followed her out, still asking questions to find out why all this was available at a stake center and she eventually admitted it was a service mission, “but we don’t proselyte! at all!” she hurriedly assured me. “Are you a service missionary?” I asked. Yes, she was a service missionary. How totally cool. She’s a retired woman who teaches watercolor painting for free at a stake center once a week as her service mission. She lives at home in the community she’s lived in for decades, sees her grandkids all the time, and teaches painting along with doing some administrative stuff to run this community resource center.
I hurried home and looked it up. MyHometown.com doesn’t say a word about the Church on its homepage. Notice the .com in the website. When my exercise buddy said they don’t proselyte, they don’t proselyte. The way you know this has some sort of connection to the Church is the address for the classes — they’re held at Church buildings.
MyHometown lists community centers in several cities in Utah. I clicked into the Salt Lake City option. They’re serious about helping people with home and yard maintenance. They’ve got contacts with city resources as well: “Salt Lake City actively supports by helping with dumpsters and call to haul for homeowners. They also partner with us in parks and other open spaces. We also refer homeowners to City and other non-profits who partner with the city to solve large issues with homes.”
Of course, much of this is volunteer labor. “Volunteers play a crucial role by staffing Community Resource Centers and organizing and participating in Days of Service. Community Resource Center volunteers teach classes. Days of service volunteers identify neighborhood needs and coordinate additional volunteers to complete neighborhood projects.” I’m sure the word ‘volunteers’ includes a lot of Church service missionaries. Senior missionaries, like my friend, but I bet teenagers who can’t serve proselyting missions get brought in to help.
Check out this list of classes you can take at one of the centers:
And then you click the arrow to see the details:
Is that cool or what?? If you learn to play the ukelele with a group of people, I bet you are friends forever. I mean, it’s not a roadshow, but close!
In the comments in Dave B.’s post about Autonomous Driving Units, several people suggested that the Church pay for piano lessons for anyone who wanted piano lessons. Naturally, the Church isn’t going to pay when they can get volunteers to do it, but check this out:
Hosting piano lessons at a Church building is a great idea. Lots of pianos! All those teachers are teaching on the same evening at the same location. The classes run in semesters of about eight weeks. They ask you to register, probably to make attendance somewhat of a commitment and also to balance class sizes. Running classes for eight weeks and then taking several weeks off keeps volunteers from burning out.
The classes vary by location. Here’s another snap so you can see the variety. I’m sure they customize class offerings based on what the volunteers can teach:
This appears to be just in Utah, and from what I could see, it’s based mostly in lower income communities like inner cities. I could be wrong about that. Since it’s likely staffed by non-proselyting service missionaries who live at home, these would have to be concentrated in LDS-heavy areas. I don’t know if these are pilot programs that will spread eventually. There’s enough LDS density in some nearby states that I would think a resource center like this would be feasible, but typing in hometownid.com into the search bar (for Idaho) brought up nothing.
Questions:
- If you lived close enough to one of these centers, would you volunteer one evening a week?
- My answer: At this point in my life, no. However, I’m looking at the scheduled Days of Service and thinking it might be fun to take my kids out for a service project once in a while.
- What would you teach?
- My answer: I could teach sewing. One location offered a class on the U.S. Constitution and I could teach that. While I know how to cook and garden, I wouldn’t enjoy teaching those as much.
- What classes would you attend?
- My answer: Painting. I would take the watercolor class taught by my exercise friend. I ought to take the home maintenance class but bleh.
- Are you surprised to learn that the Church offers these resources? And that they don’t proselyte? Based on how much effort it took for me to drag the information about these being run by Church service missionaries, I’m going to assume that part of their training emphasizes the “don’t proselyte” rule.
Wheat & Tares 
Janey – Thank you for sharing this. This seems to be the perfect answer to the many suggestions we have heard in the Mormon bloggosphere about ’empty-building syndrome’.
This is fascinating. I kept reading, waiting for the catch – that they are offered by the Community of Christ, but that didn’t happen. So yes, I’m very surprised, but still a bit wary.
My brother, who lives in MD and who officially resigned a couple of years ago, attended a service project sponsored by the United Way that was held at an LDS chapel near him. I guess he had to sign in, because Elders started showing up at his door weekly for months afterwards. He will never step into an LDS chapel voluntarily again.
I hope this is a pilot program that will expand because this is a great example of what being a Christian is about. I hope local leaders don’t get the “bright idea” to use it as a missionary tool, because bait and switch generally does the opposite of what you’re trying to accomplish.
As a ward and stake RS president, We asked about something similar 10 years ago and were told:
1) a Melchizedek priesthood holder has to be in the building, and
2) liability issues for the person who offers the class if someone gets injured and if the person offering the class gets injured.
3) what are the credentials of the person offering the class or service?
We couldn’t navigate beyond these issues and aren’t aware of anything new since then.
I always like to see the church trying new things, and I love this in particular. I hope it’s successful and spreads. I liked the justserve.org idea but I feel it hasn’t fully lived up to its potential.
I don’t see myself volunteering for something like this in the near future, but maybe later in life I could see myself doing it. I recently took a metalworking class through a local arts center, but that requires facilities that you’re not going to able to host in a church building.
Honestly the greatest obstacle to success for something like this is that staffing temples is going to take up so many members’ time going forward. As a matter of fact I work an occasional shift at my local temple because I was asked to years ago. I’ve never asked to be released because I don’t mind it too much, even though I don’t find it a peak spiritual experience like others do, nor do I think about the temple in nearly the same ways as most others there do. I’d gladly trade my occasional temple service for teaching a community class.
My husband helps with the financial side of the 3 My Home Town missions in Ogden. We have friends in the mission presidency for one of the three, as well as ward members who have been called as service missionaries.
https://www.myhometownut.com/utah/ogden
They teach much the same kind of classes. They have developed a trusted and effective partnership with Ogden City, which helps them legally provide the services. They also have an annual day of service where members of some broader area stakes are asked to show up en masse to help with various projects.
From everything I see, it’s a wonderful program! The people I know genuinely believe they are making a difference in people’s lives. I am delighted and grateful that the Church has stepped up to help fill a need in these communities.
Thanks for this write-up, Janey.
I was not aware of any of this but find it encouraging. And, in light of the Church’s recent change to the “kindoo” system in chapels across the United States and Canada, offering the chapel as a community center is a breath of fresh air.
The Kindoo system is a keyless entry system for external chapel doors. It utilizes a secure app on a smart phone, which then is associated only with certain callings within a Stake or Ward. I’m sure there are all sorts of reasons to upgrade and utilize technology, but I just find it amusing to juxtapose the “Visitors Welcome” sign posted outside with the Church making it increasingly difficult to get inside the building, and to fewer and fewer people.
I really hope this program finds traction and promotes members of our church to, at least, balance the “service” work they do for the “living” as is done for the “dead”.