New bishopric

I don’t really have a goal with this post, just wanted to share this recent development and my thoughts on it.

Last month the bishopric of my YSA ward was released and replaced with a new set. Unlike regular wards where bishops are called from the congregation, the bishopric getting released means we won’t see them at our church meetings at all anymore. It was a difficult week for the ward; our bishop was fantastic and a lot of us, including me, have developed a close connection with him. He is, so far, the best bishop I’ve ever had.

Some qualities were what I expect from any decent YSA bishop, like being more focused on helping us find our unique paths rather than pushing us to get married and join “real” adulthood. Some were, I think, a result of his training as a professional psychologist; for example, he was good at identifying which issues were spiritual and which were mental health related, and where to get help for each of them. And above all he was so compassionate and understanding. About a year ago there were no church meetings and the stake had authorized all worthy priesthood holders in the ward to administer the sacrament in their own homes, but provincial restrictions prevented them at times from administering it to other households. As a single woman, every single Sunday that spring was a reminder that I was completely unnecessary in the structure of the church. I talked to my bishop about it – about the sacrament specifically, about my broader concerns about the value of women in the church, and about how these concerns are so often invalidated. And he listened. He didn’t have an answer for why the structure of the church is so patriarchal, and he didn’t try to make one up. The next time we had a lockdown in the fall, the stake decided not to authorize home sacrament for anyone, and the bishop apologized to me personally that they had ever made a decision regarding the sacrament that caused pain for the women (and probably others) in the stake.

I’m going to try to be open to this new bishop. I’ll be chatting with him a bit tomorrow over Zoom – he’s been reaching out to the ward members to start to get to know us. Still, I feel a great loss with the last bishop gone. I think he played a big part in why I’ve continued attending church through my major faith transitions over the past couple years.