NOM

The lot has fallen on me this week. I'm gearing up for full disengagement and would like to avoid it. So far, I'm ghosting.

Any suggestions?

I mean, I guess I could just do it anyway since I'm about to go inactive.

Despite the fact that I go so rarely now I never get asked to help with anything, I wouldn't mind helping to clean the building. It's used for lots of good purposes that have nothing to do with the dogma of the religion.

If you like most of us need a break from all things mormon, it's ok to retake your power of decision making and just say no. No foul, no hurt no guilt or negativity at all. It's a volunteer org. No one should feel compelled. (although that is definitely not how it's played day to day.)

Some day you may feel differently or have important ties through family, work etc. which benefit from a certain amount of connection with the church. IMO, cleaning the building with fellow saints can ease the stigma of being heretic without having to bear testimony of the truthfulness of horses/tapirs in the new world .

Just say no.

Just don’t go.

Red Ryder wrote: ↑Wed Apr 18, 2018 9:59 amJust say no.

Yep.

"No."

It's a complete sentence!

"No, thank you."

Also works.

Repeat as needed...

Volunteer one of them to come more your lawn.

I struggle with this one. I'm not opposed to helping clean the building since my family uses it. However, I am opposed to the method of assigning my family a week without asking for volunteers or for any input on which week might work, and then announcing it from the pulpit to compel with peer pressure and public shaming.

shadow wrote: ↑Wed Apr 18, 2018 11:46 am I struggle with this one. I'm not opposed to helping clean the building since my family uses it. However, I am opposed to the method of assigning my family a week without asking for volunteers or for any input on which week might work, and then announcing it from the pulpit to compel with peer pressure and public shaming.

Our ward has a rotating list and they put it in the program. It's always four families, and usually two-three of them are inactive. Having been on the other side of it - I can say confidently that asking for volunteers never works. You get the same two or three families getting burned out because they're always doing it and everyone else is 'too busy'. Even when we made assignments, most people would not show up and the EQP member that went to let them in the building always ended up cleaning it himself. Or, if he was smart, he'd drag his family along (my family hated our months of designated church cleaning).

Yeah it sucks, but...it doesn't involve any doctrinal bs and might help show them you didn't stop going because you were lazy.

My problem with cleaning the church is that its ridiculous nonsense. I happen to know for fact that they could pay for premium cleaning every single day on the building we are in, with just the tithing paid by our Sunday School president alone. The entire reason they do it, and this came directly from the top "Is to instill a love of the church building in the hearts of the members through service." Its not like the church can't scrape up the pennies to pay someone (and create jobs in the process) to vacuum the floors and wipe out the sinks. Cleaning the building is just another psychological hack on the brains of members. You love what you serve, and when you serve the church you will love it.

My kids use their school building, but I don't feel the need to mop the floor when I pay property and other taxes that hire someone to do it. Safeway has never asked me to buff the floors of the dairy aisle because I sometime buy my milk there!

I clean the building for one reason, I am afraid of the fight with loved ones I would have if I didn't.

As an aside I am not opposed to cleaning stuff, I do it all the time, I am opposed to being manipulated in this way.

Perfigliano wrote: ↑Tue Apr 17, 2018 9:22 pm The lot has fallen on me this week. I'm gearing up for full disengagement and would like to avoid it. So far, I'm ghosting.

Any suggestions?

I mean, I guess I could just do it anyway since I'm about to go inactive.

My vote is to just not show up. If asked about it, say you forgot.

In my old ward the guy in charge of getting people out to clean was one of those annoying eager beaver types that had nothing to do all day but get people to clean the church. I used to always do my turn until I had had enough. About that time I got an email from the guy reminding me of my assignment. I emailed back politely declining which esclated into a big email battle over my cleaning assignment. He resorted to telling me I was breaking a commandment to clean Gods house if I didn't show up and he would have to report me to the bishop. Geez. I didn't show for my day to clean. Bishop was never called. He never asked me to clean the church again. Mission accomplished. Remember they have no power over you. They are volunteers. You did not sign any contract to be a janitor and are under no obligation to do so. Period.

Simply not showing up seems to a good tactic. You do not want to acquire the reputation of being good at this kind of activity.

My 2 cents on this...

Growing up, I lived up the street from a couple whose job was custodian of several church buildings. He was a good man who was severely injured in a car accident when he was in his 20's. The custodial job didn't make him rich. But the job helped him to afford a modest home and dignity. He was a working man that took pride in the way the buildings looked and functioned. And he did a d**n fine job.

When the church ended all of that, I thought about that man. I have to believe he was retired before the church ended the custodial positions, but there would have been others of a similar vein who could have benefited from such a position.

I have a hard time with an organization supposedly run by God himself that builds a billion dollar mall, has land holdings up the wazoo but aces out people who could use the work that needs to be done. I don't no show. When asked, I have told the local leaders point blank how I feel and why I won't bother to help.

They don't ask anymore. But I wonder, do any of them even see the hypocrisy of all of this???

I concur with slavereeno and oliver. As a teenager, I lived in a ward where there were two church employees who were custodians in our stake. They were both good men and had experienced challenges in their lives. They took great pride in their work and in providing for their families. I think as a result we were more respectful of the building as we didn't want to create issues for Brother S or Brother P. The other benefit was that if there was a question about the building or if there was an issue, everyone knew who to contact.

When the church moved to this "crowd-sourced" janitorial model, the first thing I thought of was how they were eliminating employment opportunities for faithful members. As others have said, I felt that if the church could afford shopping malls, they could afford a paid staff. Besides, I think it is short sighted to leave the care of the building in the hands of the volun-told.

I only cleaned the building once - I figured since I hadn't signed up for it I didn't have a commitment to do it on a date assigned to me and only communicated to me in the weekly ward bulletin. So DH and I just passive-aggressively ignored the reminder phone calls. It didn't matter how much I liked the person who left the reminder message - I figured if enough people refused to do it they would see the flaw in their model.

I told my TBM mother how I felt and she very sheepishly agreed with me and told me how relieved she was that she wouldn't be called upon to do it since she was a senior citizen.

Can of Worms wrote: ↑Wed Apr 18, 2018 5:44 pm I think as a result we were more respectful of the building as we didn't want to create issues for Brother S or Brother P. The other benefit was that if there was a question about the building or if there was an issue, everyone knew who to contact.

It's the tragedy of the commons hard at work. I also have minor objections to the practice of members cleaning the church. It's borderline exploitative. (It's still not as bad as underpaying church software engineers because they "work for God" or some crap like that)

I figure it would probably be easier to just clean the church so that they can't use it as an excuse as easily to get me to come back to church. I like the point on making it clear that I'm not leaving the church out of laziness. I'm probably just going to say I'm going to be late because they want me there at 9 AM. It's a 30 minute drive for me and I'm not a morning person, especially on weekends. It's double lame since my ward only uses the building on Sunday. FHE and other activities are held in another building.

My wife and I use to be volen-told to clean the chapel on a regular basis, but got it stopped while we were still active.
See, at the time we both worked Saturday mornings making it impossible to go clean the chapel with a few other families when it was "our turn". Every month we did the same song and dance of being told we'd been "volenteered" and I'd firmly inisit we wouldnt be there.
Then they started trying to make it MY job to find someone who could "trade" turns with us. Umm...no? It had been a bad day, and i kind of lost of it on the guy.
Its not something i agreed to be responsible for, and i work EVERY SATURDAY!!! who would trade me? After that, we stopped being added to the rotation.
Until last month, when a gentleman showed up at my front door from the ward. Despite me not stepping foot in the chapel for 3 years, he politely invited me to come clean the chapel saturday because it was my turn!

Fun fact i learned on cleaning the chapels. Turns out,.if youre a legit janitor for the church (cleaning temple square, the COB and confrence center, ect) you cant be put in charge of cleaning the chapels. Seems they feel the standard they hold them to is too high to be reasonably reached by volenteers. (Which, if you've ever talked to these guys is as insanely high bar of dust free, streakfree perfection) On one hand, i get it- one side is being paid, the other is volenteers and you can only expect so much from them. On the other...
.. we use volenteers to clean the chapels and temples. The LORDS house and where Jebus lives right? Yet the COB is expected to be keep cleaner and in better shape than them, so much so we pay for that perfection..... but the lords house can be done when you have a minute to spare. Shows whats important i guess..

mooseman wrote: ↑Thu Apr 19, 2018 6:40 am we use volenteers to clean the chapels and temples. The LORDS house and where Jebus lives right? Yet the COB is expected to be keep cleaner and in better shape than them, so much so we pay for that perfection..... but the lords house can be done when you have a minute to spare. Shows whats important i guess..

Never thought about it that way, the Q15 have subconsciously placed themselves above God/Jesus on the priority list.

That kinda reminds me of all those memes on r/exmormon around the march about not touching the building.

The laws of how cognitive dissonance works, is when you voluntarily serve something, your love for it increases. When you are voluntold, it is a crap shoot whether it will make you love it more, or resent the heck out of it, or break even. When you are voluntold, if it is fairly easy, you will love it more. But when you arrive at the building and can't get in, because the person with the keys didn't show, when, after an hour of chasing down a key, you find there are no cleaning supplies and you have to run home for window cleaner, for toilet cleaner, paper towels, then you find the vac doesn't work and you have to run 45 minutes home to get your own vac, and do the whole building with a home vac....in about one cleaning session you are going to start resenting the church. And then when your kid has Cheerios, and starts throwing them, well some other sucker is going to clean up after your kid cause you spent the whole day Saturday cleaning and it not your week.

In the long run, this bit of cheapskate behavior is going to backfire badly. The leaders think by making the member do it they will save money and make the members appreciate the buildings, but they are off on their psychology. Ownership of the buildings is not produced by slave labor. Ownership is produced by having the members gather funds for a new building as a community, then having local control over the building. The way the church did it 60+ years ago, or even going further back to when the community got together to build the building and it was locally owned by the ward and built according to local need, design, and even materials. The ward RS owned a little building off to the side, that was paid for with RS funds, and the RS got soft chairs because they paid for them themselves. Or have the men ever figured out why traditionally the RS always has cushioned chairs? Because they were not purchased with tithing money, but by RS funds. It is called local ownership, not correlated corporation. People take pride in and love what they serve only when they are free agents with pride of ownership. The church has done away with the things that psychologically made the people take good care of their buildings.

The example above that "I don't mop the floors of the local Walmart even though I shop there," is telling. Walmart is a corporation and although I may use their services, I feel no loyality to them, nor do I feel any responsibility for how the place looks. The church has turned into a corporation selling a product that is really not that different than your local Walmart. If the building is too gross, rather than volunteering to clean it, I will simply find a different place to shop. Service cannot be slave labor and increase the love for the thing being served, otherwise slaves would never want freedom.

The church needs a few psychologists in the 12 so that they can get these manipulation things right. 1st off, for a community to feel pride of ownership, there has to be a community and most wards are now failing at that sense of community. 2nd, there needs to be some ownership by the community and cleaning does not give the feel of ownership when you are told to clean. 3rd, it has to be a doable bit f service. Expecting service to provide supplies and be done at inconvienent times, with the one or two people who show up, is not conductive to community pride. A ward wide clean up project does a better job, where there are enough people working to keep it down to a couple of hours, and most importantly it is *community* working on a community project.

But then who am I to tell the church they are doing their manipulation wrong? But gee, if they are going to manipulate people, they need to get the formulat correct.

Ownership .. In the Church .. Forget it.

Try to get any sort of picture put up on a wall. No dice.
Try to get any sort of plant in a flower bed, forget it. No dice.

You can't do anything to a church building to make it feel like it is yours. Absolutely nothing.
In fact, most church buildings don't really feel like Church buildings. They are just so sterile.

Alas is right about need some psychologists types in the Q12, there needs to also be some theologians.
But, since the Q12 to me, is basically a Board of Directors, with little to no theology training whatsoever.
I never seen the need to have a guy with an MBA, or Economics Degree or similar to be necessary for a church position.
Sure, if the Church wants a Board of Directors for its business side so be it. But there needs to be more theology involved than there is now.

As to cleaning, I just dont do it. I may be a member, but I am not a Janitor.