Loss of members spurred LDS singles ward changes

Yes, it is unrealistic, SD.

This is not new, nor is it any worse in the LDS Church than anywhere else. I work at a college, and those years are very non- and ir- religious, by and large, no matter what the religious affiliation. My own sons are a great example:

The oldest went to school far away from us. There were, maybe, three active members at his college the first year – and none his second year. The majority of those he knew were raised Mormon were, in his words, “non-practicing, gay” members. He was inactive, technically, for most of those two years. We pick him up from his mission at the end of June – and we weren’t sure he would choose to go. He left when he was almost 21 – and delaying leaving probably was the best decision he personally could have made. I understand totally why the standard is 19, but it was a better decision for him.

Our second son goes to college five blocks from our house – and lives on campus. He is one of two members on campus, and the other is his convert girlfriend – who wasn’t a member when she enrolled. He is involved in theatre, and many of his weekends are filled with plays and practices and events that make it very difficult for him to be “fully active” – even though he can ride with us each week. He is planning on going on a mission when he graduates, and he is one of the oldest “traditional students” in his class – which means he will be 23 when he starts his mission. That absolutely is the best way for him to approach it, for multiple reasons that aren’t necessary to share here.

I’m glad neither one of them lived in an area where there could have been a single’s ward or branch. I’ve hoped they would be eliminated for quite a while.

This topic was actually being discussed on an lds pro-gay forum. A friend of mine on this group was pointing out some problems with Elder Ballards talk. He said I could share it here. Mind you, he has an ax to grind against the church, but wonder if you think he made some valid points.

As I read the article, I couldn’t help but to shake my head and wonder how the church leaders could get something so wrong. While I do not think that I am necessarily against reworking the singles program in the church, it seems to me that the Brethren are taking a desperate measure in an effort to stop the hemorrhaging lost of members. I don’t know that their new take on the singles program is going to do what they want it to do, however, because I think their logic is fundamentally flawed. For example, let’s look at some of the quotes that were in the article:

>>Ballard repeated LDS President Thomas S. Monson’s recent admonitions to young single Mormon men to stop “hanging out” and start dating with an eye toward marriage. Ballard said he was confident that this change would improve the group’s spiritual and social opportunities.<< Hanging out? Really? Is that what LDS young men do? They “hang out?” Mormons have a reputation for marrying early for a reason. Culturally, there are strong factors that push young people toward marriage. Over the last 30 years, however, other factors and norms have emerged in the greater US and Western culture that has caused young people–for whatever reason–to marry later. Boiling all of the nuances, issues, and facts down to a sentence or two, if the Brethren think that they are going to stave off the trend worldwide for young people in developed nations to wait several years before marrying, I think they are going to be sorely disappointed. Not knowing when to stop, Ballard continues: >>“We hope you’ve got the message: You have no option to bounce around,” he said, referring to a common practice dubbed ward-hopping in which young Mormons shop around for congregations they like. “We know where you are. We’ve got our radar focused on you.”<< This kind of thinking, in my opinion, is what drives people out of the church. If people are not attending church, it would make sense for the leaders to think about what they could do in order to get people to come back to their LDS wards. But instead of doing that, Ballard takes the approach of “We know where you are” and “You have no option to bounce around.” It is hard for me to believe that he would actually say something like this, even if he was being light-hearted about it. The LDS Church is a volunteer organization. Last I checked, people could attend or not attend. With words like this coming from Church HQ, the LDS leaders look far more like cult leaders and control freaks than they do spiritual mentors and leaders. Why on earth would someone attend church in a ward where they do not feel comfortable? Why on earth would someone have the idea that they have to attend church when and where their leaders tell them to? I fully understand the Mormon context that answers those questions in the church’s favor within the LDS culture, but hey, newsflash to Salt Lake City: not everyone in the church today comes from pioneer stock, and if someone could leave their old religion and join the LDS church there is nothing to say that they can’t leave the LDS fold and move on to another religious community that respects their privacy and free agency. It is also kind of scary to think that the church leaders tried out this program in the last twelve months and then determined it to be a success. I don’t know that a year is enough time to really see the kind of change that they are talking about. What happens when the newness of the change wears off? And lastly, from a very personal perspective, I have a big problem with the whole idea of forcing people together so that they can get married. I know that is the reason behind singles wards but I always felt that the church leaders only catered to the horny and socially normal heterosexuals at the expense for the straight people with issues, gay members, or those straight men and women who were divorced. I am in a very different place than I was when I was raised in the church, but even back then I was not comfortable or happy with the pressure to marry. It was that pressure that led me to propose to my girlfriend…over enchiladas in a crowded restaurant in front of two friends of mine. My bad, I know, but I couldn’t really see any reason not to…I mean, my girlfriend was nice and everything, she would have made a great mother to my kids, and on top of all of that, she really, really, really, wanted to get married, too. While I am not against a revamp of the church’s singles program, I am not impressed with what the church leaders are saying. As the saying goes, I think they are rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship. Ben.

From the SLT April 26, 2011—-“Ballard and other speakers acknowledged that the Utah-based faith was worried about massive losses of members in this age group”

Whats going on here? Massive losses of young members?

This is hearsay, but yes, I’ve heard that it’s a problem. The church has always bled at this age group, but my understanding is that in recent years it has become worse than historical trends.

“We hope you’ve got the message: You have no option to bounce around,” [Ballard] said, referring to a common practice dubbed ward-hopping in which young Mormons shop around for congregations they like. “We know where you are. We’ve got our radar focused on you.”

Having listened to Elder Ballard speak for 20 years or so, I’m almost positive that when this comment was delivered, there was some levity in it – a wry smile indicating playfulness. But that does not translate well into print at all. It’s hard not to read this and see it as Orwellian.

My own opinion is that this change won’t do much, if anything, to solve the problem of losing young adults. There are a number of challenges and issues young people face today, which this solution does not do anything to address.

Being a young single adult – even if you want to get married as soon as possible – in the church is really difficult. Our theology and our organization is centered on serving families.

On top of that, there are lots of temptations and sins that are pretty enticing. I understand the church’s position on things like chastity, and largely agree with it, but the way we present repentance may be a barrier to returning. Often, the grace and love available through repentance is neglected, while things like sexual sin being second in seriousness only to murder are emphasized. As one of my favorite bands, Mumford & Sons, says in their song “Roll Away Your Stone,” “it’s not the long walk home that will change this heart / but the welcome I receive with every start.” The prodigal son’s heart wasn’t changed by his lonely walk home. It was changed by the reception of his father, who, aware of his sons sins, embraced him and welcomed him warmly.

Also, there is a lot of economic uncertainty. With financial disputes being a major cause of divorce, is it that bad of an idea for young people to want to develop some economic stability before marrying and having children?

I think when a lot of young people experience the “world,” they find that it’s not as bad a place as they were told and warned about. Most people are decent and want to live good, fulfilling lives (however they define it). Many of these young people have gay friends and family members; it is difficult to reconcile personal experiences of kind, loving, and decent gay friends or family members with the church’s hard-line stance on homosexuality (both in the church and in the culture at large, though the official church stance, Packer excepted, has softened for the better in recent years).

Finally, there is a wealth of information about the church’s history now available. And the actual history of the church is far more complicated and messy than the neat, tidy narrative we were taught in Sunday School and Seminary. That discrepancy can cause trust in and loyalty to the institution to evaporate. Maybe my experience of this was unique, but considering how many friends and acquaintances I know who’ve also experienced this, I think it is a big problem, and church leaders are really struggling to develop a solution to it (and I do believe they are trying with things like the Joseph Smith Papers project and Massacre at Mountain Meadows book. I’m just not sure that these projects at the margin, absent changes in curriculum, do much for the majority of people who experience this shaken-faith syndrome).

It looks like they are trying to change the symptoms they don’t like (inactive members) without really doing much of anything about the real root causes of many members’ fundamental dissatisfaction with the Church.

Fwiw, I think that is way too over-generalized and actually unfair. The top leadership has been trying to address the root causes in multiple ways (Elder Bednar’s plea to local leaders to change “meetings” into “revelatory experiences” comes to mind immediately, as does the elevation of Ward Council over PEC and the counsel to not have both parents of young children serving in time-intensive callings – among many others.), but, as cwald has said more than once, so many of the local leaders and members just aren’t listening and following much of the new counsel that is being given.

There’s NOTHING that they can do about some things, and there’s more that they can do about some things, and there’s nothing more that they can do about some things other than continue to say what they now are saying. I’ve very confident they would do even more if they believed it wouldn’t be too much at once, even as I also am confident there is more that could be done that isn’t on their radar ( 😆 ) yet.

In the case of singles wards, I think eliminating them actually addresses a root cause – not just symptoms.

When SD provided the link to LDS.org on this topic it seemed like a small administrative or organizational change. After the article extolled the virtues of the new program and how everyone was “blessed” from it, the last section included the following:

The reorganization of YSA wards and stakes has been difficult for some who loved the ward they were in but find themselves in a different ward now.

“It’s not something that Church leaders have just decided,” Sister Mellor said. “It has come from the Lord, and we just need to have faith and trust in the Lord that we really can learn and grow and have opportunities to become more Christlike because of this change.”

Along with other units, the YSA 37th Ward in Logan lost some people from its ward who were dearly loved, Brother Powell said.

“But people need to realize that blessings will come through their obedience to the counsel of the Church,” he said. “I know that. We’ve seen the blessings that come from obedience here in Cache Valley.”

I didn’t quite understand why the emphasis on having faith and obedience. I don’t need to have faith when the CHI goes through a revision or they change the name of the homemaking meeting. I now understand that this group will have the choice of two wards, their home ward or a YSA ward. Attending any other ward will be considered a display of lack of faith and disobedience, thus exerting pressure on the YSA to conform and attend one of the two valid wards.

In my mind the principle benefits are traceability. We know where this person should be each Sunday so when the parents etc. want someone to go and check on their child there is someone that can do that. In attempting to classify a YSA as active or not you only need look at the attendance records of two possible wards. This will also enable callings to be given to young people and commit them to attend regularly (I must attend because people are counting on me)

What I see as a drawback on this is that sometimes a YSA ward can become stagnant and everyone starts to see each other more as brothers and sisters (do you really want to date that guy that pulled your hair as a deacon, or that dated 3 of your fellow relief society sisters before you). John Bytheway refers to this as “change the scenery.”