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The Camarillo Ca Stake went from 11 wards to 8 this afternoon. In Oxnard, they combined the two Spanish speaking wards into one ward. They also combined the three English speaking wards into two. Just 3 years ago Oxnard had six wards. Today three. In Camarillo (town next door and seat of the Stake) they went from five to four wards today. Also, last year the YSA ward combined with the Ventura Stake (just West of Camarillo) to form one multi stake ward, from two previous wards, all this with the new Cal State Channel Islands opening in Camarillo in the last few years. There are now less members in Oxnard that when I moved here 35 years ago, and the population of Oxnard has gone from 120K to 210K in that same time.
I was going to ask whether you could chalk that up to population shift resulting from more affordable housing in other areas or with industry moving elsewhere but it doesn’t sound like your area is losing people. FWIW they recently created a stake in my area. Growing/shrinking, it’s one of those “who knows?” deals. Well above my paygrade.
I’m all for “right-sizing” the units. While the church has grown in my area my actual unit has shrunk. People are heading for the hills because there’s more affordable housing. The result is a few shrinking wards and a few wards that are busting at the seams. I wonder how long it will be before they redraw the ward boundaries or form a new ward or two.
Maybe your area is shrinking because they’re all coming here… to go door to door selling pesticides (we always get a big influx of members during the insect months).
Looks like Oxnard housing values are going up, and sales are down. Wonder if that is another factor, and less people are moving in. I hope collapsing units is helping to strengthen the youth programs.
My first impression was — California — very socialist in their thinking, one of the epicenters of gay advocacy, church right wing values, stance on women and gasy and Prop 8 has probably been very hard on the membership and the missionary effort. There is a STRONG anti-Mormon movement in that state, if things are like they were when I served a mission there. I’ve seen Wards collapse into fewer wards before, but never on this scale. In my area, it is relatively stable with some instablity in our Spanish wards, and a few boundary changes, mostly stake boundary changes, not any Ward dissolutions. I also found in my home country, which is very socialist, missionary work and church growth was VERY hard. Our espoused church values don’t seem to mesh well with liberal movements. This could be another potential cause of the decline in membership.
I remember once, I lived in a Ward that was growing in leaps and bounds. In Sacrament meeting everyone was talking about how the Lord was blessing the area, and its members with membership growth (mostly new move-ins). I knew the real reason — that area had much lower property values with decent infrastructure, safety and schools. Meanwhile, the closest metropolitan area had sky high property values so it was worth it to commute.
Funny, how the Lord stopped blessing the area with new move-ins when the property values equalized with the neighboring urban area. To modify a statement Napoleon made “God favors the side with the heaviest artillery”….”God favors the town with the lowest property values and commutable access to jobs”.
Perhaps there is some of that going on in the declining membership in California. At least its’ going to be easier to book the chapel now
SilentDawning wrote:Perhaps there is some of that going on in the declining membership in California. At least its’ going to be easier to book the chapel now
Here is the interesting thing about chapels. We have 3 in Oxnard. One is a Stake center size building, complete with HC room and SP offices. It was build in the 80’s when they thought Oxnard would become it’s own stake. It now how two wards in it. We have an old building built in 1959, dedicated by apostle SWK. It has stained glass windows and it a gem. No wards meet there, but the church will keep it and use it for youth weekly activities. Then we have a 3rd building that is 10 years old. The Ventura mission came in 2 years ago and took over a wing making it the mission headquarters, kicking our bishop out of his office. Oxnard California mission anyone? There is one Oxnard ward, and one bi-stake YSA ward that meets there. Camarillo has two building for 4 wards, one the Stake Center. SO space is now not an issue!
Our stake has not had such a dramatic change, but over the time I have lived here (since mid 80s) we have lost units and most remaining units are much smaller. My own ward is the only ward in the stake center, which was built to house 4 wards. Back in the late 80s when it was built, there was talk about how this stake center was going to fill up and we’d be using all four of those bishops offices, etc., etc. Each office has self contained independent heat/AC – one is the nursery, one is the seminary room, and the other is used as a Sunday classroom (as is the spare clerk’s office). My ward once had an average attendance of around 174. Average attendance now is about 100 less and we are the smallest ward in a stake that has only 4 wards and 4 branches. We have a good reason though – if it can be taxed and regulated in this state it is, so jobs have left in droves. I only wish we could see something like that in my stake. I am in Northern California in a rather conservative area. Our ward has shrunk to have average attendance around 100-110. Many Sundays I count about 75-80 people. Our YW program has 6 girls in it. There are probably 5 YM total. There are a few other wards in the stake that are very large, bursting at the seams with nowhere to sit. I attended my son’s ward last week and the youth leaders told of having 24 youth at the recent temple baptisms. And that is the number that attended–I’m sure there are more that didn’t attend. I find this to be a difficult problem. I have a 15 year old who dislikes church mostly because there is no one there she considers a friend. She has nothing in common with the other girls and with such a small group it is unlikely she will find someone. I have asked for years why they don’t realign the boundaries. The answer I was given by the Stake ES was that “it’s a lot of work”. It was pointless to share my philosophy that things worth having are generally a lot of work to get. Try convincing your teenager to go to the activity night when there may be one other girl there and maybe 2 boys. Wards and stakes should be realigned as the population shifts. In fact it seems that a review at least every 5-10 years would be appropriate. There really is no reason to have such an imbalance in the membership boundaries because it puts a stress on everyone–especially the small ward where it is difficult to find members to fill callings. In my ward it is also leading to losing our youth. If they don’t have good friends that are LDS they are less inclined to attend those “uplifting activities” that are planned for them like youth conference and even the monthly dances. If we are going to enforce the geographic rule of where we can attend church, the leadership should do their best to make sure each ward and ward member have similar opportunities. (I am aware that small wards can be a blessing, but tell that to a teenager. In fact our Bishop at ward conference gave a talk on the subject of not complaining about being in a small ward. Seriously.) Eternity4me, If you didn’t say you were in northern California I’d think you were in my ward. Same situation here locally.
Quote:I have asked for years why they don’t realign the boundaries. The answer I was given by the Stake ES was that “it’s a lot of work”. It was pointless to share my philosophy that things worth having are generally a lot of work to get.
I’m sorry your wards are so lopsided and making life hard for your daughter. Have you actually talked with the SP? Is your daughter old enough to reasonably start focusing on life after high school, like discussing where she’d go to school to get the kind of LDS experience she wants, etc. Sometimes distracting myself with thoughts of the future is the only way through present problems.
As newlyweds, we lived in an area that kept trying to grow the Church. The ward would split into two .. And then go back into one. It was then made into a ward and a branch .. And then back into a single ward. Youth grew up and moved away. 30 years later, they have a ward and a branch at present. Since then, we have never lived in a ward that split. Ever. Our local stake had been stagnant in growth for at least 18 years. We keep hearing about how the church continues to grow, but we see merely the shifting of the LDS population into newer (cheaper) housing areas, but no real growth.
I had a SP when I was Stake Exec Sec who kept splitting WArds over and over again. He demoralized two different Wards with it, and eventually, had to put them back together again. I see a primary, practical motive in splitting Wards is to make effective use of the buildings. If the Ward gets too big for the building, then you can split the Ward and stagger the meeting times. This way, both Wards fit in the building and you don’t have to make an investment in a new chapel.
Another other motivation they always give is to “give people a chance to serve”. This was always frustrating to me because we were ALWAYS at half-implementation of programs. A president and 1 counselor instead of 3, not enough people to do home teaching, not enough youth to have a vibrant activity, etcetera. And you wear everyone out.
A third motivation was the ‘pride’ of the SP. He seemed to think that splitting Wards was a sign of growth and progress. The rest of us — the two counselors and myself — always questioned it. It was really hard on the wards he split.
I bet that if they had to pay management salaries for the various leadership positions, you’d see very large wards . As soon as it doesn’t cost anything, it gets convenient to split the wards and make it hard on the members. I also think splitting Wards when there isn’t a facility-reason for doing it is grossly inefficient.
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