Regarding The New Ysa Wards And Stakes

[Acris Venator]

I don't understand how the new arrangement will prevent ward hopping, can't they go ward hopping but now in their new stake or another stake of YSA's? In my mind preventing ward hopping I owuld just have the one ward or two wards so you know where they are going, but no one listens to me!

Along with the new wards/stakes is a renewed emphasis on encouraging YSAs to attend their ward of record. The units will be smaller, and thus it will be easier (at the beginning) to keep track of individuals. I have little faith that the system will work for long, however. YSAs are, by and large, too transient for any of these membership clerks to keep up with without all the investigation becoming a second full-time job. They have to account for move ins, move outs, marriages, 31+ "graduates", regular ward hoppers who just visit other wards occasionally, and also a contingent who will continue to confuse the process by faking entry into multiple YSA wards a la this gentleman.

I also think that some of the new bishops will at some point begin bending the rules again for certain individuals who turn 31. My friend's ward here in SLC had over 25 of these individuals, and they were gathered up this last Sunday to be gently prodded into their family wards because the two midsingles wards in the valley are already filled to capacity. There will be no additional midsingles wards created. The transition is rough, and even obedient Bishops recognize how lethal to activity it can be. Eventually some bishop is gong to bend. Then another bishop will see it happen in another ward, and try it himself to avoid losing a no-longer-YSA that they love. How many stake presidents will even recognize when this begins happening? And when they eventually see it, how many will let it happen? Plenty.

As long as there are YSA wards, ward hopping can only be discouraged. It can't be eliminated.

[silvermoon383]

As long as there are YSA wards, ward hopping can only be discouraged. It can't be eliminated.

As long as the Church exists ward hopping can only be discouraged. It can't be eliminated.

[Acris Venator]

As long as the Church exists ward hopping can only be discouraged. It can't be eliminated.

I think it would be practically eliminated if YSAs were absorbed into local wards. Ward hopping is facilitated by the fact that the other demographics aren't present at sacrament. The last thing a male, for instance, wants to deal with is the possibility that a woman he scopes during the meeting could be married.

The main draw for ward hoppers is the twenty minute social session that takes place immediately after sacrament meeting. With singles diffused into smaller groups into their local wards, these sessions would be greatly diminished, complicated by the presence of old folk and married people, and in general far less of a draw than they are currently.

As a social investigation, I invite anyone following the thread to ask a few members of the older generation if they remember many ward hoppers seeking mates from back in the day when they had the previous program. Please report back your findings.

[Duncan]

I think it would be practically eliminated if YSAs were absorbed into local wards. Ward hopping is facilitated by the fact that the other demographics aren't present at sacrament. The last thing a male, for instance, wants to deal with is the possibility that a woman he scopes during the meeting could be married.

The main draw for ward hoppers is the twenty minute social session that takes place immediately after sacrament meeting. With singles diffused into smaller groups into their local wards, these sessions would be greatly diminished, complicated by the presence of old folk and married people, and in general far less of a draw than they are currently.

As a social investigation, I invite anyone following the thread to ask a few members of the older generation if they remember many ward hoppers seeking mates from back in the day when they had the previous program. Please report back your findings.

My older sister was a YSA from 1987-1995 when she got married but our stake only had a YSA branch starting in 1993, later it was a ward. She said that previous to the YSA Branch here there were less marriages but more activity, so less people going inactive but in '93 when the branch started there were more marriages but more inactivity.

[GingerRed]

I'm 53 and single LDS. I hate the fact we are totally out of the equation when they began cutting off the age group of the mid singles to 45. As if us 46 's and older want to go hang around 60, 70 and 80 year olds!! Get real!

I've been going to a family ward for the last several years now....and I still dislike it. I go to church alone, I sit alone. The handful of singles in my age group don't mingle with each other....I've tried. I have a calling in the Relief Society in the RS activities committee, but they have stopped letting me know when they meet to plan the activities. I feel kind of ignored. I've been in many family wards through the years and only 2 have I felt like I belonged. It usually starts out good, but then the bishopric just doesn't really know how to meet our needs or what to do with us. I'd give ANYTHING to go back to a singles ward of 31 and older!

At least you have the bonding and the feeling like you belong.

I understand the need to cater to the young singles. They need to meet and get married and start families. But us older singles are left by the way side. It's not so important that we marry or remarry ( sometimes over and over). Most of us had our children and had our chance at marriage. If we screw it all up, that's not the churchs fault. ( Although a LOT of bitter older singles I've met try to put the blame there) Luckily, I do live in Utah County so at LEAST there are lots of singles activities to go to! And I do enjoy going to dances and firesides. I just wish I had someone to share going to my ward with. That part is very lonely.

Red

[Messenger]

I’m moving to Idaho Falls and I noticed that there is a Single Adult ward there. I talked to the Bishop of the regular ward and he said it was for all age groups that are single. To be honest, I really didn’t want to go to it. I've always done fine (most of the time) in family wards. Although the callings are always slim for me even though I am very worthy and a High Priest. I don’t know why I don’t get that many callings in a family ward, but perhaps that’s a subject for another post and another day! LOL .

After doing a little research, I found out that the Single Adult ward meets in a local school house with regular school chairs and no pews or anything. At first this seemed a little silly to me, and I'll even admit a bit shallow. I didn’t even consider this might be a place that I would want to go to church. Then I had a conversation with a good friend of mine that used to be a Bishop of the ward I was in a few years ago. The guy is always inspired. I got inspired to call him. He said he was wondering how I was doing and said that the call to him seemed a little too coincidental ; and said he had been wondering how I was doing for a few days. So that got my attention. I mentioned I was moving to a new area and he said I should look up the local Single Adult ward.

After thinking about it, I will try the Single Adult ward I think. Right now I am feeling inspired to do so. Its funny how these things work - I thought I knew what was right for me, where to attend church and then the Lord helps me to realize other options I simply brushed aside and didn’t fully consider. And, even though I am now an older guy now 47, its just possible that I might be able to help other single adults my age or older in some way. It also might be a new experience in Home Teaching as well.

I will admit that most family wards treat me a bit like an alien from Mars because I am single and older; I've gotten used to it and simply accepted this. Further, when I look at my current family ward picture directory, it’s full of single adult men and women - nearly all of them inactive. And I certainly know why they could be. Perhaps these single adult wards are the answer to some of the problems and concerns.

The move is in 30 days.

[Acris Venator]

Have spoken with three participants of the old M-Men and Gleaners program from the pre-'70s singles system in the last week or so. One said that occasionally they would see visiting YSAs in a "ward hopper" capacity, but not very often. The other two gave me a flat "no" when I asked them if they remembered any ward hoppers during that period.

[Hayds]

If they think these YSA Wards are the magic pill to spur on the marrying, they are sorely mistaken. There is a huge socio-economic shift going on here that is delaying marriage.

1. Bachelors degrees don't cut it anymore. I think the avg person who graduates with a BA starts out around $12. Nowhere near enough money to support a family. YSA's are going to school longer to get advanced degrees or specialized certifications to ensure they make enough to "keep the lights on" so to speak.

2. Women are no longer submissive. They are going to college as well and point #1 above applies to them as well. They also realize that the cost of living is higher and know the chances of being a homemaking June Cleaver are just not possible anymore with all of the economic demands and high cost of living.

3. There are a gazillion baby boomers who have lost their savings in the 2001 crash and again in the 2008 crash. They have no intention of retiring anytime soon. They are creating a bottleneck where new blood cannot get in and have a chance at the upper level jobs that pay the kind of wage where a guy can buy a home and start a family.

4. Everything is going up in price except wages. The cos of everything is getting super expensive from taxes, gas, insurance, groceries, school, healthcare, and etc. Young couple can't just make it on love any more. It requires money. Rent is even ridiculous. $800 dollars a month and you still live in an unsafe "crack alley".

5. This is a terrible bleak recession and its not really getting better. With 9% unemployment good like finding a decent job. So much for moving out of the parents house at graduation.

6. Close to 50% of these YSA's grew up in a split home as a victim of divorce. They have no faith in marriage and have not seen it successfully play out in their lives. They would just as soon kick a hornets nest than get married.

As long as they are taking a 1950's approach to a 21st century problem they will continue to be perplexed and misunderstand why YSA's are not getting married in their early 20's.

[BCSpace]

Societal pressure seems like a useful refiners fire that is relatively absent from YSA wards.

That is refreshing to hear. There are many who don't understand this principle and then wonder why their lives or the lives of their friends or family are shot. People need to be allowed to fail. More of them are saved that way.

[oremites]

If they think these YSA Wards are the magic pill to spur on the marrying, they are sorely mistaken. There is a huge socio-economic shift going on here that is delaying marriage.

So, if understand your point correctly, instead of making changes in things that that they actually have control over, the brethren should concentrate their efforts on fixing the economy?

[Acris Venator]

As long as they are taking a 1950's approach to a 21st century problem they will continue to be perplexed and misunderstand why YSA's are not getting married in their early 20's.

I agree that many of the things that you pointed out are barriers to marriage. But YSA wards are hardly a 1950s approach. The 1950s approach included all singles in traditional wards and emphasized singles activities outside of church.

Student wards appeared at BYU in the mid '50s, but YSA wards weren't utilized extensively throughout the United States until the early '70s. The fracture of our communities into singles & married congregations is a relatively new solution.

[katherine the great]

Question: Does treating the rest of the country like it is BYU unintentionally cause a fragmentation of our religious communities?

No.

[Acris Venator]

That is refreshing to hear. There are many who don't understand this principle and then wonder why their lives or the lives of their friends or family are shot. People need to be allowed to fail. More of them are saved that way.

The admission of failure is itself an unbearable burden in our culture. Which is probably a part of why so many midsingles fail to stay active once they are forced to go to a traditional ward. How can such a system not communicate to them on multiple levels that they are failures?

[Steadfast]

Although I can understand why 18-year-old young women ought to leave their family wards and go to a YSA ward, it never really made sense to me that any males under 21 ought to do so. Males under 21 should be preparing for, or serving, missions, and I think that a family ward does a better job of that than a singles ward does. Plus, YSA wards with marriageable young women just provide a distraction to these mission-bound young men.

[Duncan]

The admission of failure is itself an unbearable burden in our culture. Which is probably a part of why so many midsingles fail to stay active once they are forced to go to a traditional ward. How can such a system not communicate to them on multiple levels that they are failures?

Are you saying that 30 plus singles are failures?

[Acris Venator]

Are you saying that 30 plus singles are failures?

Certainly not. But the YSA system sends that message to them unintentionally by forcing them to leave the system that they were in for over a decade.

If there were no YSA wards, there would be no age barriers to enforce. Midsingles would simply continue to attend their same wards and maintain long-established friendships and roots in therein. Just like all the other demographics you find at church. The current system creates unnecessary transitions that cater to the strong and let the weak fall through the cracks. For some reason, some in our culture take a social Darwinist view of these losses.

But it's not just the midsingles who get uprooted. Young married couples are also forced to go to new wards and establish new roots. Many of them loath the idea of going to a "family" ward and leaving their friends behind, and some of them go inactive over it. The YSA system is an unnecessary fragmentation. As far as I know, we are the only religious culture that cordons off young singles from the rest of the herd at the most critical time of their lives.

[BCSpace]

Are you saying that 30 plus singles are failures?

Can we / should we broaden the context of "No other success can compensate for failure in the home" to include failure to create a home?

Clement of Alexandria taught that family life is a more faithful reflection of God's "providential care" than the celibate (or single) life and I think that is the gist of LDS doctrine. So they might have failed in mortality, but the question remains it is their own fault and what opportunities, if any, will they be afforded in the afterlife?

[Calm]

I do not think one should apply the term "failure" to something that is a work in progress. Only when the individual has given up working toward a particular goal without having achieved that goal or when all opportunity to achieve that goal has passed can it be accurately described as a failure. Since the change to have a nuclear family exists in the next life, only the first case applies in this instance.

That does not mean that people don't feel failures even if they haven't given up, emotions being a result of both logical and illogical thoughts; it is very unfortunate when people allow those feelings to actually drive them to give up and thus become failures in reality.

PS: I am not saying those that have reached a point in their lives where they feel they must leave this problem in the lap of the Lord rather than actively pursue its solution themselves are automatically failures, they are not as long as they do not stop preparing themselves to act when the Lord provides their solution or at least the next step in the process.

[Duncan]

Can we / should we broaden the context of "No other success can compensate for failure in the home" to include failure to create a home?

Clement of Alexandria taught that family life is a more faithful reflection of God's "providential care" than the celibate (or single) life and I think that is the gist of LDS doctrine. So they might have failed in mortality, but the question remains it is their own fault and what opportunities, if any, will they be afforded in the afterlife?

Some singles don't live in areas with a whole bunch of other singles, some people don't want to get married out of obedience, some singles have been married and are now divorced, some singles shouldn't get married-as some marrieds shouldn't have gotten married, some singles maybe don't want to get married. I would LOVE to get married but I just don't live in an area with many other singles. There is ONE woman here my age and I will say this, I dated her a bit when we were 16 and barked up that tree and all I got was nuts coming down.I am not interested in her and she isn't in me, which is fine. I did the "get married to anyone, today" "counsel" thing from my lunatic Bishop, my SP and MP-been there done that bought the t-shirt.

[frankenstein]

Can we / should we broaden the context of "No other success can compensate for failure in the home" to include failure to create a home?

this has got to take the cake for the absurd personal philosophies you post.

how much of a failure is Sherry Dew?

[BCSpace]

Can we / should we broaden the context of "No other success can compensate for failure in the home" to include failure to create a home?

this has got to take the cake for the absurd personal philosophies you post.

Since I can show every one of mine to be in harmony with LDS doctrine, what shall we say of yours? You're just producing noise here with your outburst.

how much of a failure is Sherry Dew?

Let's take it in context. If a woman or man remains single, will he or she inherit the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom? Is not eternal life the goal of the Church? If a goal is not attained, is that not a failure?

[Duncan]

Since I can show every one of mine to be in harmony with LDS doctrine, what shall we say of yours? You're just producing noise here with your outburst.

Let's take it in context. If a woman or man remains single, will he or she inherit the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom? Is not eternal life the goal of the Church? If a goal is not attained, is that not a failure?

And we wonder why out of 4600 visited YSA in this new arrangement only 1100 came back. Why would you want to go to a Church where marriage seems to be the end all be all of existence and Christ seems to take a back seat. Read Elder Nelson's words,

"Elder Nelson: As I go around to visit the members of the Church in stake conferences and regional conferences, often I ask them what they know about the life of the Savior. How can you describe what you know about the Savior in a word or two? And maybe I don’t phrase the question very well, but quite often their answers are rather nebulous. I’ve learned that generally people in the world do not understand who the Lord is, what His mission was, or what His ministry meant. The Lord’s mission in mortality was to accomplish the Atonement, which is a gift of immortality to every individual who has ever lived. That is an incredible gift. Part of that mission was to make eternal life a possibility for anyone who would qualify for it. That is a gift conditioned upon obedience to the laws and temple ordinances and covenants. What was His ministry? His ministry was everything else that He did—His miracles, His teachings, His love, His focus on ordinances, His teaching us how to pray. His mission—the Atonement—was uniquely His. Only one was required to do that. He did it once for all. On the other hand, His ministry was to be an example for us. There is no limit to the number of people who can learn to love as He loved, to serve, obey, pray, and endure to the end as He did. We can all emulate that example. We need to make a clear distinction between the things we can do that the Lord did and the things we need not worry about that the Lord did once for all. If we can understand that, then we can really emulate the Lord in our own lives and follow the example He set for us."

http://lds.org/ensign/2005/06/the-mission-and-ministry-of-the-savior-a-discussion-with-elder-russell-m-nelson?lang=eng

Maybe those 3500 people are onto something

[BCSpace]

Some singles don't live in areas with a whole bunch of other singles, some people don't want to get married out of obedience, some singles have been married and are now divorced, some singles shouldn't get married-as some marrieds shouldn't have gotten married, some singles maybe don't want to get married.

True enough. No one should get married out of obedience imo. But they should obediently seek marriage as they can.

However in the area where I live, I just got an unofficial figure showing 9000 single members and only 200 active. I'm going to try to firm that up because I don't know if it means all singles or just young adults. We are a very densely populated LDS area.

I would LOVE to get married but I just don't live in an area with many other singles. There is ONE woman here my age and I will say this, I dated her a bit when we were 16 and barked up that tree and all I got was nuts coming down.I am not interested in her and she isn't in me, which is fine. I did the "get married to anyone, today" "counsel" thing from my lunatic Bishop, my SP and MP-been there done that bought the t-shirt.

They're just making sure you're still trying. I don't envy your situation and I do believe the opportunity will come in this life or the next. One could try the LDS singles sites, but I've heard it's not all it's cracked up to be.

One of the disturbing trends I've found among reasonably eligible female LDS singles is the older they get the more picky they get as in temple every week and grooming for a mission presidency if not already in some sort of presidency or some such thing. Basically, almost too churchy even for the Church. But how can one gainsay one's ingrained expectations without inappropriately lowering those expectations?

[frankenstein]

Since I can show every one of mine to be in harmony with LDS doctrine, what shall we say of yours? You're just producing noise here with your outburst.

Let's take it in context. If a woman or man remains single, will he or she inherit the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom? Is not eternal life the goal of the Church? If a goal is not attained, is that not a failure?

firstly, yes, Bcspace please keep teaching us your philosophy of man mingled with scripture. As someone who is such a pendant concerning "doctrine" you surely do conjure up some doozies.

Second and more importantly you are moving the goal posts as it were. Your first ridiculous comment was to label single people as failures because they have not "created a home", which I assume you mean are not married and do not have children. But now, you move the goal to a realm that we know very little about, that being post judgment earth life.

that you can mingle your personal philosophy with scriptures, makes your personal philosophy no more in harmony with the gospel than the Nicean Creed.

[BCSpace]

Why would you want to go to a Church where marriage seems to be the end all be all of existence and Christ seems to take a back seat.

Well, I don't see how Christ takes a back seat in the example you gave, but to be brutally honest, sex is what brings males and females together. That attraction overcomes many a stumbling block to marriage. While always strong, sex drive in males, which peaks in the late teens early twenties iirc, becomes less of an imperitive as a male gets older. Thus, perceived stumbling blocks in females become more evident or important to males as they age.

Just a theory of mine and not intended to address the entire problem, just a large part of it. But it may be, if one has missed the boat, one has really missed the boat and may have to wait indeed.