Kindness in my home ward

About four years ago, our SP called a man to our Bishop. He wasn’t very well liked. People would move out of the Ward, and vow never to return — on a fairly large scale. Sacrament meeting went from over 100 to about 40 on average, And they proved it when they took up new residence, or moved back to this particular city by not living in our Ward boundaries. it didn’t help that SLC also had us leave our building for renovations, and for some reason, stopped work on it. We have been without a building, driving a long distance to a different chapel, for almost 3 years now.

I could tell stories, but won’t; suffice to say, there was a lot of suffering, the SP who called the old BP, when he was approached about the problems, told four different people on four different occasions that “he [the SP] wasn’t aware of the problems”. It was clear that the SP wasn’t planning to do anything about the problems. In my view, it also created mistrust about this SP’s integrity. I felt it was because he couldn’t admit the call of the old bishop wasn’t inspired, as a release for earnest but destructive performance might imply.

People in the ward started saying they felt the SP didn’t care about our Ward. I heard it over and over again. And when three stake boundaries were changed, creating a new stake, all of the wards that are low-achieving (including my home ward) ended up as their own stake with a new presidency. This confirmed the belief among members that rightly or wrongly, our old SP didn’t want much to do with these high maintenance, under achieving Wards, and that he didn’t care…a belief I’ve long held about many leaders when it comes to my own situation.

A new SP took over, and within 2 months he replaced the our destructive Bishop. I wasn’t present, but texts and phone messages sent local wireless networks buzzing. I lay in my bed resting, and got regular reports from my family about texts and phone calls they were receiving from members wanting to discuss the change. Some people were actually crying with the feeling of a burden being released. The new Bishop they called is someone I really respect, and his counselors are good people as well.

Within 2 hours of the meeting being over, I got a call from one of the Bishopric members, asking my family to come back to the Ward given the change. He’s unorthodox, this counselor — when I was HPGL, he was actually not active due to personal problems in his life. So, we understood each other — as we have both been on opposite sides of the fence, helping the other person be more churchy at different times. And then, not long afterwards, a new member of the Stake Presidency, a friend who I see regularly in a part-time business we run together, called me and asked if he could come over and be our home teacher. He’s a friend so it’s not a real big change. I said fine. All in the same day.

But guess what. I’ve lost my closet unorthodoxy. I told both of them some of the concerns I had surrounding treatment of volunteers, bullying at church, and my daughter’s refusal to attend that Ward as a result. Not out of any bitterness on her part, but due to finding a much more spiritual, upflifting experience in a different Ward. I also mentioned that my service is currently to the community for professional development, and personal development reasons. I said I would actually like to be in our own Ward, rather than drive all the way to our bootleg ward, but my daughter refuses to go back to our home ward. She told me that if we insist she goes back to that Ward, she’s going in active — no negotiation. (I had to actually pay for counseling for her as she had night terrors and low self-esteem from one particularly disturbing incident involving group, physical violence against her).

I thought I would share. My wife had tears or relief, and I actually felt quite a bit of softened emotion when I reflected on how this new Stake President saw the problems immediately, acted immediately. And also how these leaders FINALLY addressed the problem of leadership abuse and incompetence. It was also clear that when this new SP’s own reputation or perceived “inspired leadership” is no longer in question if he gives a Bishop an early release, he was free to act immediately. But in spite of this, even now, all those negative attitudes I have about the church — egocentrism, taking the most committed people for granted, etcetera, don’t seem to matter…in fact I started feeling like I wanted to reengage again.

I’m wondering how much of my dissafection four years ago was related to the uncaring leaders we had…I just want to say the swift action, followed by the outpouring of caring from the local leaders about a matter dear to me heart, means something to me.