Agency Smagency - Why You Don't Get to Choose Your Ward

[Five Solas]

Okay, I'm not a huge fan of watching videos - but having gone through the YSA program back in the day, this caught my eye & I yielded to temptation (appreciation to Valentinus for his thread containing the link).  Kind of funny, kind of sad, and to tell the truth, I was multi-tasking through some of it.  But at about 26:16, it caught my attention: The speaker was talking about overlapping geographic jurisdictions between LDS stakes associated with different colleges/universities.  These overlapping jurisdictions "increase choices for young single adults"--leading to "ward shopping" and other "conflicts."

His recommendation to address the LDS Church's declining retention of the Millennial generation is to eliminate ambiguity that might result in choice of ward.  Choice is a bad thing--and where it exists it should be taken away.  

Isn't that a bit ironic for a church that talks so much about "agency" (by which they mean free will)? 

--Erik

 

 

[BCSpace]

Quote

Isn't that a bit ironic for a church that talks so much about "agency" (by which they mean free will)? 

Not at all.  To allow ward hopping is to introduce charisma and individual popularity into ward and stake leadership where none should exist.  There is no reason to scratch itching ears.

Edited October 2, 2016 by BCSpace

[Five Solas]

Just now, BCSpace said:

Not at all.  To allow ward hopping is to introduce charisma and individual popularity into ward and stake leadership where none should exist.

Are you suggesting LDS would make the wrong choice and choose to be influenced by such things?  And so better not to let them have the choice?!?  Forgive me for saying it, BCSpace, but that sounds a little like Satan's plan: https://www.lds.org/ensign/2015/03/satans-rebellion?lang=eng

--Erik

[bluebell]

Agency doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with no consequences.  The presence of rules and policies does not negate agency.

[Avatar4321]

i dont think you really understand agency if you think building cohesive local wards somehow violates it.

[Okrahomer]

The LDS Church takes a kind of Calvinistic approach to Eclesiastical boundaries:   Predestined and Irristitible.

[notHagoth7]

1 minute ago, Okrahomer said:

The LDS Church takes a kind of Calvinistic approach to Eclesiastical boundaries:   Predestined and Irristitible.

<----Arminian  ;0)

[BCSpace]

5 minutes ago, Five Solas said:

Are you suggesting LDS would make the wrong choice and choose to be influenced by such things?  And so better not to let them have the choice?!?  Forgive me for saying it, BCSpace, but that sounds a little like Satan's plan: https://www.lds.org/ensign/2015/03/satans-rebellion?lang=eng

--Erik

I think it sounds more like "train up a child in the way he should go...."  But if it's any comfort to you, I am completely opposed to the Student Life organizations at BYU and BYU-I as they existed when I was in school.  Don't know how they are now.....

[Okrahomer]

Just now, notHagoth7 said:

<----Arminian  ;0)

Oops!

[mfbukowski]

48 minutes ago, Five Solas said:

Okay, I'm not a huge fan of watching videos - but having gone through the YSA program back in the day, this caught my eye & I yielded to temptation (appreciation to Valentinus for his thread containing the link).  Kind of funny, kind of sad, and to tell the truth, I was multi-tasking through some of it.  But at about 26:16, it caught my attention: The speaker was talking about overlapping geographic jurisdictions between LDS stakes associated with different colleges/universities.  These overlapping jurisdictions "increase choices for young single adults"--leading to "ward shopping" and other "conflicts."

His recommendation to address the LDS Church's declining retention of the Millennial generation is to eliminate ambiguity that might result in choice of ward.  Choice is a bad thing--and where it exists it should be taken away.  

Isn't that a bit ironic for a church that talks so much about "agency" (by which they mean free will)? 

--Erik

 

Nah not really

The big problem is with people with ill intent who "ward hop" to avoid church discipline and similar problems which especially occur in young single adult wards.  It is a matter of hormones and not allowing the left hand know what the right hand is doing.

It is also a good way to avoid holding callings and doing home teaching, or ministering to others.  That is a crucial part of our church as you know.   If no one knows who you are, no one knows what ward you belong to, no one knows if you have a temple recommend or not, or should be called to teach a class, if you have been arrested for rape (an extreme example) etc.

It is very important that one bishop know his people and their strengths and weaknesses and proclivities within our church because we have a lay ministry.  That separates us from Protestants and Catholics.  We are all supposed to chip in and help out in our own wards, and you can't have random people who have perhaps been in prison for stealing handling money (another extreme example, but it happens)

Without a bishop having a members records, it is chaos.

Agency is one thing but order is another.  Imagine having no license plates on cars with everyone having "agency" to drive the way they like whatever the consequences!

Not good!

Edited October 3, 2016 by mfbukowski

[Five Solas]

14 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Nah not really

The big problem is with people with ill intent who "ward hop" to avoid church discipline and similar problems which especially occur in young single adult wards.  It is a matter of hormones and not allowing the left hand know what the right hand is doing.

It is also a good way to avoid holding callings and doing home teaching, or ministering to others.  That is a crucial part of our church as you know.   If no one knows who you are, no one knows what ward you belong to, no one knows if you have a temple recommend or not, or should be called to teach a class, if you have been arrested for rape (an extreme example) etc.

It is very important that one bishop know his people and their strengths and weaknesses and proclivities within our church because we have a lay ministry.  That separates us from Protestants and Catholics.  We are all supposed to chip in and help out in our own wards, and you can't have random people who have perhaps been in prison for stealing handling money (another extreme example, but it happens)

Without a bishop having a members records, it is chaos.

Agency is one thing but order is another.  Imagine having no license plates on cars with everyone having "agency" to drive the way they like whatever the consequences!

Not good!

This seems like an expansion of BCSpace's initial view.  Do you really see Agency (Jesus's plan--see previous link in response to BCSpace) in tension with Order?  And in the case of Ward membership, the latter (order) is to be prioritized over the former (agency), for all the reasons you give?  

--Erik 

[morgan.deane]

1 hour ago, Five Solas said:

Okay, I'm not a huge fan of watching videos - but having gone through the YSA program back in the day, this caught my eye & I yielded to temptation (appreciation to Valentinus for his thread containing the link).  Kind of funny, kind of sad, and to tell the truth, I was multi-tasking through some of it.  But at about 26:16, it caught my attention: The speaker was talking about overlapping geographic jurisdictions between LDS stakes associated with different colleges/universities.  These overlapping jurisdictions "increase choices for young single adults"--leading to "ward shopping" and other "conflicts."

His recommendation to address the LDS Church's declining retention of the Millennial generation is to eliminate ambiguity that might result in choice of ward.  Choice is a bad thing--and where it exists it should be taken away.  

Isn't that a bit ironic for a church that talks so much about "agency" (by which they mean free will)? 

--Erik

 

 

This was a video I watched as well. I lived in St. George and was newly single when they disbanded/ merged/ did whatever to the student and singles wards. They had a big fireside where they used much of the same language found in this video.  Based on my personal and observed experience it was a total disaster.  The college wards are dominated by 18-22 year olds. The young singles wards were mostly graduated young professionals.  Instead of having a healthy balance between the two, these just became glorified student wards and most of the rest, wrongly or not, felt left out and most stopped coming.  I've never seen any ward hopping so I can't comment on that, but they (and me) felt very under served by wards that seemingly catered to 18-22 college students and not 18-30 year old people in a variety of positions in life.  

 

For example, I was the first single parent my college ward bishop had ever encountered. I was only one of two divorced people in my ward, and one of only a handful that were not young college students. To show another example, one of our FHE activities was speed dating. If you think that sounds horrible on its own, try being a 27 year old, divorced, college professor, and single parent,  forced to speed date with sophomores from student housing. (They didn't tell anybody this would be the event. And literally the moment I finished eating they told us to start moving at the sound of the bell.) I had several special firesides where I had to listen to sex talks about the proper role of intimacy in marriage,the danger of stds, and other topics that might be useful for college students, but seem kind of redundant considering my daughter wasn't dropped off by a stork. (One of them was on Easter Sunday no less, so I would have appreciated something about, I don't know, Jesus Christ and the Atonement.)   I would have appreciated a ward with more 25 and older individuals with leaders that had some experience ministering to people in my situation, but they were disbanded and ward hopping was discouraged. I would have moved to a family ward, but I was about to move cities anyway and stuck it out until then. Based on my admitted anecdotal experience they tried to solve one problem and maybe they did but only created more. The biggest problem were the legions of 25-35 mid singles adults suddenly forced to choose between wards where the people were 10-15 years younger, or 10-15 years older.    

Edited October 3, 2016 by morgan.deane
typo

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, Five Solas said:

Okay, I'm not a huge fan of watching videos - but having gone through the YSA program back in the day, this caught my eye & I yielded to temptation (appreciation to Valentinus for his thread containing the link).  Kind of funny, kind of sad, and to tell the truth, I was multi-tasking through some of it.  But at about 26:16, it caught my attention: The speaker was talking about overlapping geographic jurisdictions between LDS stakes associated with different colleges/universities.  These overlapping jurisdictions "increase choices for young single adults"--leading to "ward shopping" and other "conflicts."

His recommendation to address the LDS Church's declining retention of the Millennial generation is to eliminate ambiguity that might result in choice of ward.  Choice is a bad thing--and where it exists it should be taken away.  

Isn't that a bit ironic for a church that talks so much about "agency" (by which they mean free will)? 

--Erik

 

 

Darn it's over and we only hear from Sister Beck (I believe) at the very end. She had some good points! I liked that the Primary voice wasn't there either. 

[mfbukowski]

18 minutes ago, Five Solas said:

This seems like an expansion of BCSpace's initial view.  Do you really see Agency (Jesus's plan--see previous link in response to BCSpace) in tension with Order?  And in the case of Ward membership, the latter (order) is to be prioritized over the former (agency), for all the reasons you give?  

--Erik 

Of course.  It's the problem of freedom and determinism and positive liberty vs negative liberty.

One is free to get drunk with one's agency, and then get and a car and kill yourself, and take a whole family with you.   Order and discipline must prevail in all freedoms or chaos results.  It's like traffic laws- if we do not follow them because we don't want to, we will eventually have bad consequences.

Here are some articles about the concept.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_liberty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty

 

[mfbukowski]

28 minutes ago, morgan.deane said:

This was a video I watched as well. I lived in St. George and was newly single when they disbanded/ merged/ did whatever to the student and singles wards. They had a big fireside where they used much of the same language found in this video.  Based on my personal and observed experience it was a total disaster.  The college wards are dominated by 18-22 year olds. The young singles wards were mostly graduated young professionals.  Instead of having a healthy balance between the two, these just became glorified student wards and most of the rest, wrongly or not, felt left out and most stopped coming.  I've never seen any ward hopping so I can't comment on that, but they (and me) felt very under served by wards that seemingly catered to 18-22 college students and not 18-30 year old people in a variety of positions in life.  

 

For example, I was the first single parent my college ward bishop had ever encountered. I was only one of two divorced people in my ward, and one of only a handful that were not young college students. To show another example, one of our FHE activities was speed dating. If you think that sounds horrible on its own, try being a 27 year old, divorced, college professor, and single parent,  forced to speed date with sophomores from student housing. (They didn't tell anybody this would be the event. And literally the moment I finished eating they told us to start moving at the sound of the bell.) I had several special firesides where I had to listen to sex talks about the proper role of intimacy in marriage,the danger of stds, and other topics that might be useful for college students, but seem kind of redundant considering my daughter wasn't dropped off by a stork. (One of them was on Easter Sunday no less, so I would have appreciated something about, I don't know, Jesus Christ and the Atonement.)   I would have appreciated a ward with more 25 and older individuals with leaders that had some experience ministering to people in my situation, but they were disbanded and ward hopping was discouraged. I would have moved to a family ward, but I was about to move cities anyway and stuck it out until then. Based on my admitted anecdotal experience they tried to solve one problem and maybe they did but only created more. The biggest problem were the legions of 25-35 mid singles adults suddenly forced to choose between wards where the people were 10-15 years younger, or 10-15 years older.    

Leadership is tough and leaders are fallible

Sometimes that's the way it goes.  On the other hand maybe others were blessed by the changes.  IMO singles wards in many cases should be disbanded.  All that talent would do wonders for local wards here in the "mission field" and in my experience, the few- very few- marriages that result from them hereabouts do not warrant their existence

Edited October 3, 2016 by mfbukowski

[Calm]

I suspect each area's dynamics shift the needs.  Sometimes it is possible to make decisions on that level, other times the global approach is necessary to meet the most needs in the best possible way.

I don't see ward hopping as inherent to single wards, but rather it is how much local leaders tolerate it.  If bishops assigned someone in each ward in an area to pull a new face aside each Sunday for an interview asking their name, etc. and asking what interests they have and suggesting they would be called shortly, many might get tired ward hopping perhaps.  There might be other things that made ward hopping less attractive that others could come up with, no doubt, in the areas it is a problem.

Singles wards where there are less population may help the other wards, but if instead the singles just don't show up no one benefits.  If single wards are disbanded, the family stakes really need to step up to replace the lost social contact and not just assume the singles need to adapt to the way the family ward does stuff.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Calm

[Doctrine 612]

I live out side of Utah and our stake disbanded the singles ward one month before I joined the church, I was told that if I wanted I could join any singles ward I wanted, so I went to the three that where close to me and I chose the one that felt right. It was awesome they gave me all the information I needed to know about dances, institutes, fhe, and made a lot of friends.

i loved the singles ward.

i was very happy to chooses my ward so not to get lost but go where I felt comfortable.

 

[The Nehor]

I am not convinced you understand what agency actually is.

[Calm]

12 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I am not convinced you understand what agency actually is.

"You" generically?  Likely true, but perhaps you were thinking of a particular individual?

[Tacenda]

I like that they get together for our good in these meetings. Reminds me of meetings that different presidencies of auxiliaries in the church have. At least they take time out of their day and they're not running a corporation all day, which some believe is all they think about.

Of course I've only watched this video on Single Adults and don't know anything about the others. 

[Kenngo1969]

"Ward-shopping/hopping" strikes me as the equivalent of, "I'm trying to find people I don't mind serving, and whom I don't mind being served by," which seems, to me, to be anathema to a major reason why we're assigned to wards geographically in the first place.  The idea is to serve people, and to be served by them, while, if necessary, learning to not mind being the servant or being the served.  Left to my own devices, I may well have missed out on wonderful opportunities to meet people, to serve them, and to be served by them that I would not have chosen of my own volition.  Harper Lee once wrote that a person can pick his friends, but he can't pick his family: the same is true of one's ward family.  If I'm tried by people in my ward, or if they try me, then that's an excellent opportunity to develop true charity.  

And as for the idea that being assigned geographically limits agency, as others have pointed out, that's a misunderstanding of what agency is: In mortal terms, just as many people confuse liberty with license, so, too, do many people confuse agency with license.  Unlike license, agency is not unfettered freedom.  In any event, do people have the opportunity to ward-shop/hop, regardless what the "rules" are?  Yes.  But given the fact that "all things must be done in wisdom and in order," I understand completely why the "rules" limit what non-geographical leaders can do for someone who ward-shops/hops. MFBukowski, as usual, has alluded to several really good reasons for that, and there are others.

I ward-hop out of necessity: I work Sundays, and its the only way I can fit any Church into my work schedule (alas, usually only Sacrament Meeting).  When I inquired about changing my schedule to accommodate a higher level of Church activity, I was offered a schedule that would preclude even that.  When a temporary schedule change made it possible for me to attend my own ward, I apprised the Bishop of the situation.  I'm sure he would be sensitive to any needs I have, and I've tried to touch base when possible, given the constraints under which I am operating.

And after my more-than-year-long "enforced" hiatus from full Church participation, I can say one thing for sure: In my not-so-humble opinion, the "Take-a-sabbatical-from-Church" crowd is nuts!   And Erik, for someone who no longer considers himself Mormon, you sure do seem to worry a lot about why the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members do the things they do.  Just sayin'!  

[Calm]

31 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

"Ward-shopping/hopping" strikes me as the equivalent of, "I'm trying to find people I don't mind serving, and whom I don't mind being served by," which seems, to me, to be anathema to a major reason why we're assigned to wards geographically in the first place. 

I think for young singles it is probably more about finding a group of friends one feels at home with rather than service.  I would have given a lot to feel that way in college.

My niece and her friend wardshopped this summer as the ward they were assigned to had members who had been here for years and many of the young women had never even lived away from home or been out of Utah, where they were recent transplants from out of the country (Singapore) and had totally different life experiences.  They felt out of place so went to friends' wards where something interesting was happening (generally friends of friends coming home from missions or leaving).  It can be very hard to break into a well established ward.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Calm

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

"You" generically?  Likely true, but perhaps you were thinking of a particular individual?

The starter of this odd thread.

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Calm said:

I suspect each area's dynamics shift the needs.  Sometimes it is possible to make decisions on that level, other times the global approach is necessary to meet the most needs in the best possible way.

I don't see ward hopping as inherent to single wards, but rather it is how much local leaders tolerate it.  If bishops assigned someone in each ward in an area to pull a new face aside each Sunday for an interview asking their name, etc. and asking what interests they have and suggesting they would be called shortly, many might get tired ward hopping perhaps.  There might be other things that made ward hopping less attractive that others could come up with, no doubt, in the areas it is a problem.

Singles wards where there are less population may help the other wards, but if instead the singles just don't show up no one benefits.  If single wards are disbanded, the family stakes really need to step up to replace the lost social contact and not just assume the singles need to adapt to the way the family ward does stuff.

We also see ward hopping in language wards where people are actually bilingual.  Some will stay in the "old language" ward because that is where grandma wants to go, or because they want t teach the kids the old culture, etc, but the minute the bishopric changes, or if there is ward discipline, they suddenly think it is just fine to go to the other language ward.

Or sometimes they will just alternate wards depending on which friend is going where, etc.

Sometimes language wards have boundaries that cross into the boundaries of other language stakes.   So for example a Tongan Stake may have huge boundaries because there are not as many Tongan people in the area as English speakers, so there might be one Tongan stake overlying two English stakes- just an example- pick your languages, it could be any two or even three languages, 

So bilingual people can actually jump between the Tongan stake in this example or the English stake.  So a given home could be in the 2nd Tongan ward AND the fifth English Ward for example, with entirely different leadership, Bishop and Stake president for the same address, and if a discipline problem arises, an individual could just jump from the English stake into the Tongan stake and no one in the Tongan stake would be any wiser about what happened in the English stake.

The church is now enforcing the idea that priesthood authority works only within your authorized ward and stake, so that technically a bishop in say 1st Ward could not perform a civil marriage in say, grandma's back yard if grandma lives in 4th ward.

Here in So Cal sometimes people will want civil marriages performed in a park or at the beach or mountains, etc, and even if the Bishop is willing to travel a bit, but if he would be outside his jurisdiction (ward boundaries) he would not be permitted to perform the ceremony in those cases.

It sound strict, but there are very good reasons for all these rules in the final analysis.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Kenngo1969 said:

And Erik, for someone who no longer considers himself Mormon, you sure do seem to worry a lot about why the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members do the things they do.  Just sayin'!  

He's just lurking and cleaning up some loose ends and last minute questions before he comes back.