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A close friend of mine is in the EQP and we talk often. Although he is generally quick to jump in and help people, of late he has been complaining quite a bit about people who ask for “service” for things they could do themselves or pay to have done. For example, the single mother with teenage children who ask the EQ to trim her bushes (something she or the boys are quite capable of doing themselves). Or the guy finishing his basement and asks the quorum for help putting up wallboard, but doesn’t help himself (he “doesn’t know how” and could afford to pay a contractor). One other example is the older who moved out of the ward and are selling their house but asked for the EQ to come over and do painting and repairs the realtor said were needed (they live far enough away that they weren’t there but a son from yet another ward did “supervise” and help). This last one turned into a multi-day project and the EQP did put his foot down and would not commit after the second day. On the other hand there are people who really do need service, and even if we do provide “free labor” some people will feel “blessed” by doing so.
So what are your thoughts? Is there a difference? Where’s the line? And how do you say no?
I have had such help, but I sincerely believe it should not be a one way service so I try and help other people as well. I live on my own, so there are certain tasks which are difficult for me occasionally e.g. moving large furniture. Sometimes certain tasks require community. I see it a bit like an Amish barn raising.
Service through the Elders Quorum is also a way to create a “bonding” experience. Everyone helps to complete a common goal. We live in a ward where there are a lot of members moving in & out during the school year. It gives everyone the
opportunity to meet & work on a common goal. ie loading & unloading a moving van. At some point, everyone
will need similar help. The work or project helps people draw closer together & “bond”. (Or not)
Here’s what I don’t like: I don’t like being “volunteered”. That being said, and with some of your examples… I don’t think the service asked for has to be necessary, and I don’t think asking for it has to be a last resort. If the EQ wasn’t there, they would find another way. BUT it sure is nice and helpful. The times I’ve been “served”, such as when my wife got into a wreck, and a Church friend helped me install a new bumper (saving me $1000s), it was SUPER nice and very appreciated. I could’ve made do with a busted bumper. We could’ve afforded to pay out $1000s (it would’ve hurt). But it was an enourmous blessing that this brother went out of his way to help us.
I’ve also moved plenty of people who could afford to hire help. I’ve done yard work, electrical work, helped with building/extending homes, fixed computers, built websites, etc, absolutely free. For me, it’s not about need, and it’s not about “blessings” either (what does that even mean?). It’s, “I like you. I have the skills. You could use the help.”
Where I draw the line is usually based on a few factors:
-My own physical/emotional state
-How much I like you
-How much I like the other people willing to help you
-How capable I am of performing the work
-How much support you or the group have shown me
-How nicely I am asked
This might go without saying: I don’t clean the Church.
Quote:Where I draw the line is usually based on a few factors:
-My own physical/emotional state
-How much I like you
-How much I like the other people willing to help you
–
How capable I am of performing the work-How much support you or the group have shown me
-How nicely I am asked
I don’t mind providing service but it sure gets challenging at times.
See bolded. This is where I have to draw the line and the problem is that to do the things that people need help with often require skills I don’t have. One of the worst service experiences I have had was helping reshingle an elderly widow’s roof. Now, she truly needed the help so I didn’t have any problem with it in theory. However, I really can’t work a nail gun and I have to have constant and direct supervision as to what to do with the shingles. Plus I am bothered by heights (even roof level heights). Frankly, I think I hinder more than help. Ironically, I have assisted shingling four roofs total and have hated it each time. One roof in particular was done to make a member’s house more salable (which irked me a bit). The last time such a project came up, I just stayed away. I can move furniture of course but I’m getting too old to be helpful with that as well. So I am constantly conflicted when service projects involve significant physical labor that is either incommensurate with my age OR beyond my skill set.
My favorite story about service, freely offered & given. My first job out of college, I moved to a new city & new ward.
I was assigned as a Home Teacher with another Brother.
We went to visit a single Sister & her non-member Mother.
We gave the lesson & asked the usual question: Is there anything we can do for you?
She said the kitchen sink is clogged, as a joke. I had a tool kit in my truck & fixed the sink.
It was no big deal or job. For about a year after that the Sister said:
Quote:Do you remember the time you came over to our
apartment & fixed my kitchen sink?
She never remembered the lesson we delivered, but she remember the unclogged sink.
I have always remembered that experience. It wasn’t planned. Help was asked for as a joke. It was easy to fix.
And to my surprise, we fixed something. (I’m not very good with mechanical or physical things.)
dande48 wrote:
This might go without saying: I don’t clean the Church.
I rarely do, but I try and keep it tidy and have been knowm to move furniture. I wish we’d kept paid cleaners.
1 – I know us women like to have our modern-day version of quilting bees. We could easily make our own quilts, but it’s so much more fun when we have others to help. In my family, and since we live close to each other, we take turns tackling big projects together. We may help my mom organize her garage one Saturday and then the next month, we all go over to my sisters and help cut down dying trees. The hosting family provides pizza and sodas. 
So…maybe the thought could be shifted to be something like the above?
2 – my mom served a mission in SLC where she worked in an office. I had a really hard time with that one. She was providing free labor for The Church..and she PAID her meager savings to do it! So, her “service” would definitely fall in the definition of free labor.
When we see members abusing the “service” system, we have to tread lightly sometimes. Likely, if someone is asking for help like that, they will also complain when help is denied…possibly be offended…and go inactive as they pout. It’s not a fun game to play.
Service: Was asked if i could round up the scouts for a service project to do some yard work. Long story short, 3 leaders and half a dozen youth cleaning the yard of an older single woman who could not do it on her own nor pay for services. Free Labor: Was asked if I could round up the scouts for a service project to do some yard work. LSS, 3 leaders and half a dozen youth doing yard work while the familys two teenage boys stayed inside playing video games.
TL,DR: Thanks, but I’m still struggling with this. Long version: I have appreciated your comments. I obviously struggle with where the line is. I don’t mind providing service sometimes, and I usually “feel good” after doing something nice for somebody and I think that’s “normal.” From that point of view I don’t think it matters if it’s service or free labor. But I also think a big part of that is my exercise of agency. If I’m choosing to do free labor on my own because it’s something I can do and want to do (and frankly at least somewhat like the person/family) it’s different than if it’s “There’s a service project Saturday at 9 am stacking firewood for Br. Smith” (with the unsaid “while his teenage boys sleep in” and “even though we’ve done yard work for him all year and he’s capable of doing it himself.” If Br. Smith was my friend and it was something I wanted to do to be nice to him and it was more about me being nice to him – person to person – it would feel different to me.
This is something I struggle with, and my friend from the OP obviously struggles with (although he does need to learn how to say no).
Church wasn’t bad yesterday except for about 5 minutes in PH opening. The conversation started with a reminder from the bishop’s counselor conducting that Saturday is the world day of service associated with the “Light the World” thing (which he had already touched on). While in the midst of encouraging us to find some meaningful way to serve our community as families, a hand shot up from a member of the venerable old guard who had the perfect thing. A long term (decades) inactive family that we do stuff for all the time (I mean that, among other things we’ve been bringing them meals twice a week for the last 3 months with no end in sight) needs some furniture moved from their house to a barn for storage. I get it, they’re older, the husband was just diagnosed with cancer (on top of his long term questionable “disability”) and the wife is also disabled, neither have worked in many years, etc. It’s not that they don’t have a need, but I also recognize they have worn out their welcome at other churches and agencies including government social services. They’ve been getting the food truck since I can remember (and never coming to get it, someone has to deliver it although they can drive and don’t live far away), and in the 30+ years in this ward I have never seen them at church. So, a few things come to mind in this case:
1) I get “…when you’re in the service of your fellow beings…” and “…give them your coat also…” and “…when saw we thee…when ye have done it unto the least of these…” etc. That’s why I struggle because sometimes I need my coat more than they do and often I need my Saturday morning more than they do (I did not get my own leaves raked before the early nor’easter and they are now still covered in snow). So where does it end? I am not asking nor is anybody offering to come do my leaves – I can do it myself if I have a free Saturday. (Side note, this coming Saturday, the same day as the above service, there’s a 2019 curriculum training thing for 4 hours in the afternoon.) I am very resistant to the Jedi mind trick of guilt (I don’t clean the church either and it turns out this is my week) but I do see the value in service and I like to feel good too.
2) Related, I honestly think this old guard is missing the mark. This is “Light the World” not “Light the Ward” (and my ward has a serious problem with looking outside itself and doing stuff in the community – like the SP/HC talk about it serious – there’s another story along the same line from yesterday that I’ll spare you). The think the “Light the World” thing emphasizes
community service. Anyway, I think my understanding of “ye are the light of the world” is probably different from his and different from many others in my ward (but not necessarily my stake). 3) In this particular case it’s probably not actually free labor and it is indeed service – but is it also taking advantage of good will?
And finally, back to this sort of underlying thing. I think much of it has to do with choice/agency. I like to pick who, when, and how I serve (although spontaneous service is not out of the question). I am fortunate to be pretty unskilled and not very handy so people don’t ask me to do things often other than the things like stacking firewood when it comes up as a group thing. But I am willing to do what I can when I can. And I honestly prefer not being “seen of men” (that’s the story I spared you earlier). TSM often talked about small acts of service, it is those I tend to prefer.
One last little anecdote. During church there are a few people I text, usually when I find something funny or odd or “Can you believe he just said that?” During this conversation yesterday I texted my like minded and also very busy friend “Is this service of free labor?” He texted back “In the church it’s all the same.”
DarkJedi wrote:
1) I get “…when you’re in the service of your fellow beings…” and “…give them your coat also…” and “…when saw we thee…when ye have done it unto the least of these…” etc. That’s why I struggle because sometimes I need my coat more than they do and often I need my Saturday morning more than they doI totally get this. I have gone on service projects for years to others that have it (in my opinion) way easier than I do, live in a better, bigger house, make more income, the list goes on…
I’d like to think that it was for my betterment, that I taught my children about service, and the value in helping others.
A question for clarification, would ‘free labor’ be akin to ‘being used’ because it is known that the EQ does a lot of service so we can be asked to do just about anything?
I think that whether service is or is not free labor is really up to the one serving. I have a really hard time helping people save a few hundred bucks on movers when they just spent $200k, $300k, $400k or more on a new home. For me, in that scenario, I am free labor and I am reticent to “serve.” We live along the southern coast and every few years a hurricane will strike and the PH bodies will organize and spend weekends on the road cleaning houses, cutting trees, removing debris, etc. I love this sort of service but one wrinkle for me is that I have pretty severe social anxiety and the idea of spending the night with a bunch of dudes from the ward is really a nightmare for me socially. I feel guilty about missing those opportunities to help because of my own shortcomings whereas I don’t feel guilty about not helping a family move into a newly purchased home.
When I was executive secretary I was privy to a lot of the sufferings of ward members. I would regularly come home, share with my wife (when appropriate) and come up with ways to help those individuals. We did this on our own without mentioning a thing to the Bishop. We were doing well financially at the time and considered that a blessing we wanted to share with others so we helped give Christmases to families anonymously, helped pay legal fees for families struggling in some unfortunate circumstances, helped defray funeral expenses for some, etc. I loved helping out and sharing with others what I felt had been a blessing to me and my family. For me, in my mind, that was true service and not free labor. Though I recognize someone else might see things completely opposite from me and act in a completely different way and that’s totally fine.
I think service vs free labor is in the eye of the beholder.
LDS_Scoutmaster wrote:
A question for clarification, would ‘free labor’ be akin to ‘being used’ because it is known that the EQ does a lot of service so we can be asked to do just about anything?
I think it can be. It’s one thing if your buddy from church wants to come help you put up wallboard on a Saturday just because he likes you and wants to help even though you could do it yourself. Or maybe he wants to teach you how so you can do it yourself. I think it’s a different thing if you’re asking the quorum to do something you don’t want to do yourself or don’t want to pay to have done, particularly if you’re doing it all the time. We have a family in our ward that has pretty much remodeled the entire inside of his house with quorum help – and not because he needs it, he can do it himself and he can afford to have it done by someone else. Frankly, he’s laughing all the way to the bank (IOW I’ve heard him brag about it).
There are some things our quorum won’t do nowadays. We won’t do roofs partly because of liability (if it’s a church project and someone falls off or through that roof the church is liable). Our current EQP has actually seriously cut back on all construction type activities, actually, partly because of the liability and partly because it’s always the same few guys who always do them.
For me it’s an artful mashup of a) how much bandwidth I have at the moment b) whether the person can do it themself, or pay someone and c) whether I want to do it d) whether i am good at it. If I’m stretched to the hilt, then I can’t just drop everything and do service. If the person can afford to do it themself, or is capable, then they should do it themself for self-reliance reasons. If I don’t want to do it, then I consider that. And if I am not good at it, it’s often a disservice to try as I can do a crappy job of it and make matters worse (that happened once with a computer I was asked to “fix”).
I developed my own philosophy when one June, when I was HPGL, a guy from a neighboring ward called me and asked if I could get two men and a truck over to a woman in our ward’s house. A baptized member, she hadn’t bothered to tell us she was in our ward for a period of years. She didn’t make the phone call either. If she saved a bit, she could pay for a mover or a truck. The guy calling me was a relative, so he could have done it, from the sound of it, since he was taking care of unloading at the other end of her move.
I had just arranged 3 moves that month. And with how unmotivated our quorum was, I ended up doing the lionshare of everything. And of course, we wore out the same ten people. At that point, I got out of the moving business. I told the guy “no” and has ticked, but I felt right about the decision as it was clearly free labor.
We distributed a checklist to the Ward about moving that included our role with respect to new move-ins and move-outs.
Move-outs
1. Our role — limited to making an announcement in appropriate meetings on behalf of the person.
2. Providing a Ward list so they can phone around and get volunteers.
3. Their responsiblity to find a truck, and be packed up properly.
4. To rely on their home teacher if lacking the wherewithal for some of these things things.
Move-ins
Full Service on the unloading end.
Of course, we left ourselves open for people who were elderly, physically challenged, unable to afford or truck or other limitations that made self-reliance impossible.
People started moving themselves. I once was asked to pick up a piece of stereo equipment from someone who didn’t want it. I was surprised to see the person’s home teacher lugging stuff out of the place alongside the woman’s family members. She was moving and I didn’t even know it. I started hearing about people moving and no calls came to me to arrange it.
It was a success in delegation, self-reliance, and NOT being a moving service — something which, at that point in my life, was making church service one of the most drugerous things on earth for me, and others.
After I left the HPGL position, I had a couple subsequent priesthood leaders call me asking for the list so they could use it themselves.
I’ve never had a problem with most of the service opportunities presented to me. Helping people move was just a given. The only time it was frustrating was when I was in a military ward. I was the EQ secretary and felt like I had to set the example. This particular military ward was where the Defense Language Institute and the Naval Post-Graduate School are located, so moves were even more frequent than other military wards I’d been in. At least two per month, often more. Here’s the thing about military moves though – the military will pay for them. They will have movers come and pack up your house and ship your stuff to the destination. If you elect to do it yourself, they’ll pay you 90% of what they would have paid the movers. So many military members elect to move themselves, and then expect the EQ to load their truck. Sometimes they’ll make a few thousand dollars on the move, but not even buy lunch for the help.
The worst experience I had wasn’t even a military move though, it was a few years later. There was a guy living up in the hills, still technically in the ward boundaries, about 40 minutes from the chapel. He’d never been to church, no one knew him, his records weren’t even in the ward. I don’t know that he was actually a member. His daughter called us from four hours away to ask for assistance moving him and cleaning the house. She was going to show up with a truck.
He was a hoarder and every room was full of junk. The relief society showed up during the day to help clean out the house. She asked the RSP to provide dinner every night. The SP’s wife made countless trips to the landfill with junk. The daughter showed up on day two or three with a U-Haul. The RSP brought dinner from Burger King for the first night and she and her dad complained that the burgers didn’t have cheese on them. When they left toward the end of the week, she told the helpers not to worry about the storage shed or anything in it, as nothing in it was of value and the buyers could just throw it away. Three days after she and her dad drove away, she called the RSP and asked to have the men go back up and empty the storage shed “they can just take everything in it to the dump.” We elected not to go back.
There’s a big difference between service and free labor. I’ve tried never to be that person. It took a long time before I was even willing to ask for help moving, I’d just load and unload the truck myself. That’s not a healthy extreme either.
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