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I’m glad your rant has helped you feel better. The signup sheet for cleaning the building has been going around in elder’s quorum. I just pass it on to the next guy. I don’t try to hide the fact that I simply don’t want to do it – I once said, “Meh, I don’t feel like doing this” as I passed it along. So, I have a bad attitude. I can see that now after reading what I just wrote.
My family (me, wife, and four kids) has had a good time cleaning the church before, but I just totally don’t want to do it now, so I won’t.
My issue isn’t so much with cleaning the building but in our ward they want you to show up at 6:30 am on Saturday. I thought it was just the one guy giving assignments but it has been going on for several guys now. They assign the weeks as well. Two of our leaderships favorite words are “coerce” and “guilt”. That was not an exaggeration. I have heard several times in meetings. I will go one farther…….why do we have to clean the building at all? The Church used to employ janitors…..why don’t we have them anymore? I get it that they want us to take responsibility etc etc, but we are busy and people need employment and I am too often in the cleaning group of three and am really sick of it! Old-Timer wrote:I absolutely do NOT want to return to the time when the members had to pay to help build and maintain the meetinghouses – or the time when individual wards had their own budgets based on member contributions. I saw SO much inequity among the wards and branches in the same stakes, with the rich wards doing all kinds of things and the poor wards having no way to do much of anything. I also understand the need to channel funds to units in third-world areas where donations are next to impossible outside of fast offerings.
I understand the desire to return to paid custodians, but I prefer having those on assistance carry the bulk of that responsibility, with members who want to help being able to do so. I don’t like pressure or assignments for this, but I understand why it happens so often. It’s easier, and people tend to gravitate toward that which is easiest.
The only difference now is that every ward pretty much does nothing. The fun days of the church are gone. It is boredom bordering on naseum. Nothing to get you energized.I disagree completely with your assessment. So what if some wards do stuff and others do not. Members are never going to feel vested in their ward until they own it. The current system breeds apathy. It may be more efficient but it lakes the ability to motivate.
I remember the days of ward budgets and building funds. You participated and you felt like you made a difference.
The custodian was the cool old man that had all those keys on his belt. He had a job. The members liked him. It was way better than this guilt ridden cleaning assignment practice the church employs now
The real answer is leave it up to the members. If they want to clean themselves OK. It they want to hire a custodian then that is OK to. Of course then they have to have control of the funds to some degree, and that is never going to happen.
It is becoming a quit the hot topic in our ward. We share our building with a ward and a branch in a different stake and there is a lot of finger pointing of which unit is showing up and who isn’t. I go when I am assigned but I hate it because I pay tithing and think that they should hire it out. I would like to hire someone to come and deep clean my house but I don’t even though I could maybe afford it. I don’t expect it to be done for free. I agree that church use to be fun but now most of the activities are pretty lame. We have a few dinners a year and that is about it. I don’t know if it is because of lack of funds which I know a tight or just lack of enthusiasm on the part of the ward members. Old-Timer wrote:SilentDawning, do you want to respond to this one?
😆 
(Inside joke)
😆 😆 😆 Ray knows me very well. I went like a heat-seeking missile to this post as its definitely one of my pet peeves. That as members, we are expected to pay large sums of money to be in total good standing (ie, with a TR), and then, as some of the most committed folks in the Ward, we must then clean the chapel.
I don’t do it anymore. Don’t clean, don’t move, and don’t do much lately– it’s all community service stuff I do now.
I hear ya on this one. I also feel for those poor facilities people (custodians) who got laid off so the Same Ten People have something else to do with their Saturdays. …
End Rant. Hope I met expectations Ray!
Apparently there are different iterations of how the cleaning is assigned and accomplished. Shawn mentioned a sign up sheet – our ward did that in the beginning and it turned out the same few people always signed up and nobody else did. Then they began to assign by where people lived – I live in a rural area, so it was actually towns. In that plan the rotation meant your town was assigned about once every 6 weeks. Now we’re all assigned to teams and each team has a leader (I’m not sure how the leaders are appointed, it’s a mix of women and men). There are 8 teams, so each team only has to do it every other month, the teams are clearly posted on the bulletin board along with a calendar for the whole year. Team numbers are announced each week and the team leader gives reminder calls. This one actually seems to work best, although I am sure that some don’t participate and the “same few” who do everything issue still exists. Our cleaning is done on Thursday evenings. All that said, it would just be so much easier and so much less frustrating to those involved if the church just had custodians. It’s not like they can’t afford it.
“Oh, you want to get baptized? Great! In addition to the at least three hours of meetings on Sunday and anything else we might assign you, you have to come a clean the building, too (and we won’t be going out for a beer after). And don’t forget to pay your tithing.”
😯 We have three wards in our chapel. Each ward takes a year to be responsible for cleaning. Our family cleans the church maybe twice a year every three years. I don’t find it a problem. A bigger issue is that very poor cleaning supplies are made available to the volunteers that clean. We work with what is essentially a mild detergent diluted by water. Try cleaning a toilet with that! My wife and I brought our own cleaning supplies the last time we did it (not supposed to I guess but it just seemed like ill-placed effort without them). We also get temple cleaning assignments every once in a rare while. These I do NOT do. You have to clean from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. I’ll help in the laundry or other parts of the temple (and have done so) but I’m not staying up past midnight to clean it.
As I said above, it really does depend on what kind of work you’re doing the rest of the time as well I think a lot of the mentality driving this type of work in the church is Joseph Smith’s teaching that: “A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.” We also make a covenant in the temple to give everything to the church, including our own lives if necessary. I mean, that expectation pretty much leaves nothing out for what the church can expect of us. No amount of time, money, service, or mental burden is too much within those parameters.
That quote by Joseph Smith has always been difficult for me. It makes me feel guilty for not being willing to do more. It makes me worry that the only way to receive the highest glory in heaven is to be willing to serve whenever asked, no matter the cost. I mean, if you are expected to give your life if you were called upon to do that, then it would stand to reason that you must also be willing to give up your mental health.
Yet, the church has made movements to relieve burdens, such as encouraging the reduction of unnecessary meetings or other such things. So, how do you decide which sacrifices are worthy and which ones are excessive? How do you discern between “sacrifice all things” and sacrificing in unhealthy ways? How do you feel about that quote by Joseph Smith? How much is his quote related to what the Savior said about being willing to take up our cross to follow him?
I guess I just don’t really understand or feel comfortable about the relationship between sacrifice and heavenly blessings/faith. On the one hand, we admire people that make great sacrifices, the Savior’s sacrifice being the greatest one of all. Yet, we also get up in arms about being asked to make burdensome sacrifices, such as cleaning the building or home teaching or too many meetings or being a bishop who rarely sees his family, etc. What is the difference?
My own best response to these questions is that sacrifice is only useful when you offer it willingly, out of love, with your own free will, and not because you have been guilted or feel pressured or obligated or like your eternal salvation is at stake.
My personal speculation on the custodian issue is that the employment laws (OSHA, MSDS, workman’s comp, etc.) became too unwieldy. Many of these people worked very independently and could file injury claims if so inclined.
Anonymous tips about improperly labeled chemicals and missing MSDS sheets could bring thousands of dollars in fines from OSHA.
All of that goes away if you switch from paid staffers to volunteers.
thalmar wrote:I think a lot of the mentality driving this type of work in the church is Joseph Smith’s teaching that: “A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.”
…That quote by Joseph Smith has always been difficult for me. It makes me feel guilty for not being willing to do more. It makes me worry that the only way to receive the highest glory in heaven is to be willing to serve whenever asked, no matter the cost.
Does sacrificing necessarily mean doing whatever you are asked to do?Quote:Does sacrificing necessarily mean doing whatever you are asked to do?
No.
I like your answer, Ray, and I agree. I don’t believe the Lord taught that we must constantly be serving, wearing ourselves thin, or knocking until our knuckles bleed. There are many instances of Him seeking solitude recorded in the four gospels. I reckon there are many more times that were not recorded.
I love the story of Alma and Amulek. Alma was rejected in Ammonihah and was travelling to another city when an angel told him to return. We are told that “he returned
speedilyto the land of Ammonihah.” That’s not the part I love, though. It is written that “Alma tarried many dayswith Amulek before he began to preach unto the people.” (See Alma 8 – I added emphasis.) My YSA ward was assigned to clean the church building the first 3 months of this year. The first month I never went because I honestly would forget and I think everyone else did too. My bishop was kind of looking for a calling to give Green ApplesWe didn’t clean on Saturday because no YSA would want to give up their Saturday. We would do it on Thursday. Unfortunately this was also the same day that other members of the stake would use our building for leadership meetings. Some rooms would not get vacuumed and trash emptied. I noticed that the other wards will pass the buck to the Young Men. Young Deacons Teachers and Priests would collect the trash on Sunday.
(FORCING THE CHILDREN TO WORK ON SUNDAY SHAME SHAME SHAME! WHAT ARE WE TEACHING THOSE CHILDREN
My pet peeve isn’t so much the ward members being assigned to clean. I am slightly annoyed when only a small few show up. My big issue is when people don’t clean up after themselves. If one group needs to use the kitchen CLEAN IT UP AFTER THE ACTIVITY IS OVER!! DON’T SAVE IT FOR THE ASSIGNED CLEANING CREW! TAKE THE TRASH OUTSIDE TO THE DUMPSTER! IT ISN’T HARD TO DO!
If everyone were to do their part to keep the buildings clean then there wouldn’t need to have an assigned cleaning crew. If it became proper protocol to clean after activities the church would already be clean.
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