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Our ward split last week. We now have a new bishop, a good guy and a good neighbor. The kind of guy that when a brush fire headed towards our home, he was out there with a hose and a rake helping put out the fires before I even got home to look at our house and if it was in trouble. He reassured me that things were contained. He is a cryer, and a good guy with a big heart. Everyone knows he has a good heart, but now he needs training on how to be a bishop, like all new bishops need. All the leadership positions get shuffled around and revamped. It seems to freshen things up, add a little excitement and chitter-chatter, and back in the last stake when I was in the High Council, we always noticed a short-term bump in activity from a unit splitting to 2 units (not sure about long-term effect). We also saw some situations where people were offended or couldn’t sustain the changes, and never returned. I wanted to get an idea from this group if you’ve experienced this recently, or just have opinions about this topic.
Do you think that the Church does a good job splitting wards so that large congregations are more manageable with 2 smaller congregations, giving more people opportunities to serve and be involved? Or does making smaller congregations just create problems with dividing youth groups and loss of friendship associations or even creating more “less experienced” leaders that make it more difficult?
What do you think?
Ok, here is what I think. When the Ward is so big people are sitting around with nothing to do, AND splitting the Ward leaves enough resources available in each unit to function well after the split, then it can be a positive thing. Small is beautiful. But when splitting the Ward decimates strong programs, creating two weak Wards, and the original Ward didn’t have a lot of bench warmers to staff the resulting two wards at the time of the split, then it’s a bad thing.
It dawned on me after reading Mormon America that the Ward splitting is NOT only driven by “giving more people opportunities to serve”, or creating “a more manageable Ward”. Wards are often split so the Church doesn’t have to fund more buildings. Splitting the Wards allows for smaller Wards that can stagger meeting times within the same building, increasing its utilization and preventing the need for new investment. And often, the members suffer by having to work with understaffed organizations, or weak leaders, etcetera in the newly created Wards.
One thing I notice. We have a building that is bursting at the seams. Three units meet there, and we can’t all fit into it. HP Group has people sitting in front of the door, and sometimes there isn’t space for everyone. This was true for other Wards too. Well, we have been asking for a solution for some time now, but SLC came back saying “you don’t need another building”. After two years of noise, they FINALLY gave in and decided to expand the current building. Rather than rent something close for us to use during the renovation, we are now going to have to drive 45 minutes to another building in another Stake for a year until the renovations are done.
So, when splitting the Ward allows for the financial benefits of avoiding investment in a new building, splitting Wards is often not a difficult thing to see happen. But when membership grows to the point that the building is too small for all the split Wards, it’s hard to get a new building.
A large portion of the decision turns on economics, in my view.
And with my new lens, born out of losing my Church innocence a while ago, I see that members are the financial engine of the Church, yet they tend to “freely used” at times.
SilentDawning wrote:It dawned on me after reading Mormon America that the Ward splitting is NOT only driven by “giving more people opportunities to serve”, or creating “a more manageable Ward”. Wards are often split so the Church doesn’t have to fund more buildings. Splitting the Wards allows for smaller Wards that can stagger meeting times within the same building, increasing its utilization and preventing the need for new investment. And often, the members suffer by having to work with understaffed organizations, or weak leaders, etcetera in the newly created Wards.
…A large portion of the decision turns on economics, in my view.
And with my new lens, born out of losing my Church innocence a while ago, I see that members are the financial engine of the Church, yet they tend to “freely used” at times.
I’ve read Mormon America – more objective than many.Maybe the church is like any other pyramid corporation.
Heber, I’d agree with SD, in that a ward split being good or bad, depends on circumstances.
The good thing that I’ve experienced from it, is getting to know new people & getting to know people better.
The bad thing is being more involved (spread too thin), less resources/talented or skilled members, & lost friendships (ward tends to dictate social life).
Both – totally dependent on the situation. It’s a mixed bag. I guess it depends on who you get stuck with 
There’s some good and bad in it, I think. It shuffles leadership around, so that could be better or worse. It shuffles ward members around too. You might get to know new people. It seems like the hardest part is probably the first year maybe until everything settles back into a routine.
Was discussing this here the other day. I live in a reasonably sized city, but we have a lot of foreigners, transients and students in the ward… so our attendance figures are misleading. Basically, it didn’t work when they tried splitting it. If it was a bigger city and bigger congregation then it might have worked.
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