NOM

I've been interested in the new standards for creating stakes and ward : https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... _about_to/

Stakes are required to have 150 full-tithe paying priesthood holders. There could be a problem as more people check out. "Ministering" assignments will get longer and longer in many areas as the number of people willing to accept their assigned "friends" decreases. I have lived in an area where our assignments got bigger and bigger without any help, just guilt when visiting authorities told us we weren't doing enough to get people to church. It's miserable. Of course, the misery sends more people to the doors.

The requirements don't include anything direct about women. I think leaders assume that women will always be more active than men. Maybe they're right, but it leads to taking an important set of the workers for granted. That's not new.

Finally, it was pointed out by Nemo and friends that the definition of a participating member does not have anything about following Christ. It's all about what the people are doing for the church, not what they are doing to develop Godly attributes.

What are your thoughts?

blazerb wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 2:01 pm I've been interested in the new standards for creating stakes and ward : https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... _about_to/

Stakes are required to have 150 full-tithe paying priesthood holders. There could be a problem as more people check out. "Ministering" assignments will get longer and longer in many areas as the number of people willing to accept their assigned "friends" decreases. I have lived in an area where our assignments got bigger and bigger without any help, just guilt when visiting authorities told us we weren't doing enough to get people to church. It's miserable. Of course, the misery sends more people to the doors.

The requirements don't include anything direct about women. I think leaders assume that women will always be more active than men. Maybe they're right, but it leads to taking an important set of the workers for granted. That's not new.

Finally, it was pointed out by Nemo and friends that the definition of a participating member does not have anything about following Christ. It's all about what the people are doing for the church, not what they are doing to develop Godly attributes.

What are your thoughts?

I have been part of the planning of a stake, a ward, and a mission. It is fascinating. In my experience, all those rules are flexible. We stacked sacrament meetings to get numbers up. We moved boundaries to help. Tithing is a factor, but that one was easy to work with. It never prevented a decision that was already made from happening.

Grain of salt provided. Its been a long time since I was in that process.

blazerb wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 2:01 pm I think leaders assume that women will always be more active than men.

I think leaders will be just fine with this increased participation, as long as those women do not crowd the dais.

moksha wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 11:52 pm

blazerb wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 2:01 pm I think leaders assume that women will always be more active than men.

I think leaders will be just fine with this increased participation, as long as those women do not crowd the dais.

It appears they think that women will just accept their non-pulpit status.

blazerb wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2023 4:24 pm It appears they think that women will just accept their non-pulpit status.

If these women had only been more valiant during the Heaven War, they would have been given a penis making them eligible for the priesthood and able to sit on the stand without a specific task. Bet they even refused to make sammiches for the righteous heavenly warriors who stormed the Morning Star's fortifications. Authorities have declared there shall be no stands for them!!!

The unified requirements used to create a stake will now include the need for each stake to have 2,000 total members in the stake. Stakes in the U.S. and Canada previously needed to have 3,000 members. Those outside these two countries needed 1,900.

Stakes will need 150 active, full-tithe-paying Melchizedek Priesthood holders capable of serving in leadership positions. They will also need a total of 500 participating adults.

The new requirements also mean wards will need 250 members and 20 active, full-tithe-paying Melchizedek Priesthood holders capable of serving in leadership positions. Each will need 100 participating adults, as well.

Stake Leadership: 23
Presidency - 5
Council - 12
Youth Leaders - 3
Other (Patriarch, etc.) - 3

Ward Leadership: 20
Bishopric - 5
Youth - 6
HP/Elders - 4
Other (SS, Janitor, etc.) - 5

Other: Missionaries count, some dudes teach primary and help in the nursery, imagine that. Some folks are busy.

The math says - there is a problem with this model. Basically, the minimum required to create a ward is less than the minimum required to staff a ward. It is hard to fathom what has happened to lower the standard to this level.

From what I am seeing, they just renamed branches as wards and districts as stakes. From a management standpoint, this actually makes sense. By management, I mean, corporation. It makes a hell of a lot of sense.

ETA: the more I think about this and the more I write about it - I think this was a Real Estate decision, again. Hear me out, here. If every ward that fell below the previous benchmark was downgraded or consolidated, how many brick and fake-steeple buildings would no longer have a ward? While this may not be an issue in the greater Daybreak and Eagle Mountain stakes, it is a massive issue in Danville, Walnut Creek, San Jose and other areas.

Lower the mission age, didn't help. Cut meetings by an hour, made it worse. Cut half the RS/Priesthood meetings, no difference, nobody was going anyways. Canceled scouts, youth activities, oops... didn't make a difference. Tried being woke in a pandemic, didn't help. Attendance is still going down. How bout this.... just lower the bar. Done. People are more likely to attend a ward and do bishop things than they are to attend a branch and do branch president things. And the buildings are worth less if nobody is there to manage them.

Mayan_Elephant wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2023 1:00 pm The math says - there is a problem with this model. Basically, the minimum required to create a ward is less than the minimum required to staff a ward. It is hard to fathom what has happened to lower the standard to this level.

Wards in the midwest will go without executive secretaries or SS presidencies. Stakes will survive without a full high council or counselors in the stake YM presidency.

I think there are a lot of reasons for the change. They want to hide the decline, adjust their building use, make everything uniform, etc. Things in Utah will look fine. Outside Mordor, wards will struggle. Every member willing to hold a calling will have 5. Visiting authorities will give conflicting advice. One year, they'll tell everyone to do what they can. The next year, they'll demand that they do everything that a fully staffed ward does. The next year, they'll say both at the same time.

blazerb wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2023 6:23 pm

Mayan_Elephant wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2023 1:00 pm The math says - there is a problem with this model. Basically, the minimum required to create a ward is less than the minimum required to staff a ward. It is hard to fathom what has happened to lower the standard to this level.

Wards in the midwest will go without executive secretaries or SS presidencies. Stakes will survive without a full high council or counselors in the stake YM presidency.

I think there are a lot of reasons for the change. They want to hide the decline, adjust their building use, make everything uniform, etc. Things in Utah will look fine. Outside Mordor, wards will struggle. Every member willing to hold a calling will have 5. Visiting authorities will give conflicting advice. One year, they'll tell everyone to do what they can. The next year, they'll demand that they do everything that a fully staffed ward does. The next year, they'll say both at the same time.

The numbers may confirm your hypotheses. It is very plausible.

If every chapel outside of Draper had one ward per chapel, I think things would be fine and nobody would notice that a damn thing had changed.

blazerb wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2023 6:23 pm

Mayan_Elephant wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2023 1:00 pm The math says - there is a problem with this model. Basically, the minimum required to create a ward is less than the minimum required to staff a ward. It is hard to fathom what has happened to lower the standard to this level.

Wards in the midwest will go without executive secretaries or SS presidencies. Stakes will survive without a full high council or counselors in the stake YM presidency.

In the Mid-Atlantic, they will just stack more and more callings onto the few people who do go. Everyone can put more shoulder to the wheel, right?

I had 6 callings at one point, that is on top of the standard ones everyone has like home teaching/ministering. 3 ward level and 3 stake level callings. Even though I would argue some were completely useless. Secretary of stake Sunday school. I never did anything other than just go to meetings where they would ignore my input. But by god, they had a full leadership bracket. It got to the point where I was just burnt out. Too much in life and church was the easiest thing to drop, so I went inactive. Still a believer, just overworked. It was several years before I stopped believing.

Where I am, there are several empty ward building. Various wards and branches got small enough they had to be consolidated and the ended with fewer wards than building. LDSinc. still owns the building. I wonder how they feel about having to maintain buildings that no one uses.

Just This Guy wrote: ↑Tue Dec 05, 2023 5:39 am Where I am, there are several empty ward building. Various wards and branches got small enough they had to be consolidated and the ended with fewer wards than building. LDSinc. still owns the building. I wonder how they feel about having to maintain buildings that no one uses.

I think this is a bigger issue than we know.

The boundaries are going to start being moved to keep these buildings occupied.

Just This Guy wrote: ↑Tue Dec 05, 2023 5:39 am In the Mid-Atlantic, they will just stack more and more callings onto the few people who do go. Everyone can put more shoulder to the wheel, right?

I had 6 callings at one point, that is on top of the standard ones everyone has like home teaching/ministering. 3 ward level and 3 stake level callings. Even though I would argue some were completely useless. Secretary of stake Sunday school. I never did anything other than just go to meetings where they would ignore my input. But by god, they had a full leadership bracket. It got to the point where I was just burnt out. Too much in life and church was the easiest thing to drop, so I went inactive. Still a believer, just overworked. It was several years before I stopped believing.

Where I am, there are several empty ward building. Various wards and branches got small enough they had to be consolidated and the ended with fewer wards than building. LDSinc. still owns the building. I wonder how they feel about having to maintain buildings that no one uses.

I was in a similar situation. The work just grinds on you, at least it did on me. If I hadn't stopped believing, I'd be miserable. I'd been taught not to turn down callings. The Spirit knows what you are capable of. Whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies, and all that. My blessing was an alienated wife and kids with emotional damage. My own mental state was in shambles. The Q15 with their offices the size of my house have no idea what we endured.