http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/51700209-78/lds-single-ballard-lake.html.csp

"Ballard and other speakers acknowledged that the Utah-based faith was worried about massive losses of members in this age group — prompting the change in ward structure — and challenged those in attendance to bring at least one other person back into the fold."



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2011 06:05AM by MJ.

Free agency at work.

The luster will wear thin and the reality will set in. Ward hopping will turn to bar hopping.

Glad2B Out

My TBM wife made an interesting point about this very subject yesterday - they are setting up a ward like this in our Stake.

She said that it will take good people away from existing wards, meaning more workload for fewer people. She's right.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2011 06:59AM by Stumbling.

Good article and good comments.

Most of them have been counting the years until they have the resources to get out. Shuffling church units isn't going to fix that.

"...massive losses of members in this age group."

The church leaders should have said: "...this INTERNET AGE group". The church began to lose its grip years ago when it kept giving dated answers that were oblivious to the Information Age.

Adult Mormons censor themselves. They put filters on their computers. They dismiss anything that appears to be anti-Mormon. They keep themselves in the 50's as if there were still mechanical ways to ward off “the outside world”.

As a result, non-Mormons can actually know more about the LDS church than most adult Mormons know...and young Mormons have started to join the outsiders. This generation has grown up on the Internet. This generation knows how to bypass filters. This generation is far more in touch with the real world than any other Mormon generation in the past. But adult TBM Mormons and their leaders keep on censoring themselves – and widening the generational information gap.

The youth simply know better. One generation has locked itself in the old world, while the new generation is moving on with far better facts and resources. The older generation is afraid to even look at the material that has now become common to the youth.

The problem is that you only need to lose ONE generation and the chain is broken for good. This is what the church fears, and this is what the church is seeing. The problem is that the church can’t reach this generation without examining itself in ways that are too frightening to face.

The truth is seeping to the surface all around the LDS church, and it typically responses with denial as if the problem is strictly organizational in nature.

All they did was consolidate wards because they don't have enough people. Reactivation? Getting back 25% of those who left is not going to help when 75% are going inactive.

What I see is an organization that is so patriarchal, so old, so uni-directionally top-down in its leadership, so obsessed with control, they cannot adapt to the needs of their youth. The church today is all about perfect adherence to the magical belief set but lacks the practical side to make it an overall benefit in real life.

Cracking the whip about marriage, ward-hopping and reactivation isn't going to fix that, it's just going to wake up more of them that they need to leave for good.

--DH

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Ballard repeated LDS President Thomas S. Monson’s recent admonitions to young single Mormon men to stop “hanging out” and start dating with an eye toward marriage. Ballard said he was confident that this change would improve the group’s spiritual and social opportunities.
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Yeah, they don't want any young men just "hanging out" instead of taking their Molly Mos through the veil. Hanging out might lead to dating non mormon women and young men might realize that normal women want and enjoy sex and don't spend their time making scrap books for their future temple sealing (where they promise to obey their church not to love each other).

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“We hope you’ve got the message: You have no option to bounce around,” he said, referring to a common practice dubbed ward-hopping in which young Mormons shop around for congregations they like. “We know where you are. We’ve got our radar focused on you.”
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Nice. Threaten people into what is (in real life, aka non-Mormon life) a VOLUNTARY activity (attending church).

According to the gospel of Saint Leia: "The more you tighten your grip, Tommy Monson, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

Instead of questioning the model, their response to the "problem" is to try and increase the amount of monitoring and control over the lives of young people.

Excessively monitoring and control is partly the reason why young people are leaving in the first place. That and the information that's available on the internet. I can't see how this will work in the long run.

The ward hoppers haven't left the church, they're just not in their designated places. And no one who has left the church is going to come back because the singles wards have been shuffled around a bit. "Oh, NOW it's not boring, oppressive baloney anymore! Whee! I can't wait for Sunday!"

Key quote “We know where you are. We’ve got our radar focused on you.”
Control, control, control.

My favorite comment:

I am 39 and in a 31-45 singles ward. People leaving the church has nothing to do with doctrine. It has to do with not being married. It would be nice if the church would actually ask us why we might be losing interest in the church, rather than asking bishops, stake presidents, and institute teachers. I think you would find that answers would fall along these lines:

1. Obesity has ruined a huge percentage of 'available' women. That is why young men ward hop--they are dissatisfied with what they see in their wards and are desperately trying to find a ward where every women isn't huge.
2. The struggle against the MTV generation of women--career minded, don't "need" a man, self serving, unrealistic demands and expectations, etc.
3. Docile and confused men who still haven't found their place in the world and have not learned how dating rituals have changed.
4. Dating rituals, expectations, and demands have changed, and it is frustrating and contradicts what I was taught about dating growing up.
5. The Blame The Man First syndrome from church leaders.
6. Poor and useless counsel from church leaders on life and dating.
7. The competitive, demanding, and complex world that we live in today has forced men and women to go to school in order to live in today's word.

8. The Doctrine

(Ducks under desk...heheheheheh)

ROFLMAO at your #1!!!

I thought the Word of Wisdom was good enough.....oh how we are wrong.

They left back when they were kids or teens but, being minors, they were stuck.

Ugh - that obesity comment is more telling about why no woman would want to marry this 39 year old man yet. First of all, the shallowness and sense of entitlement is astonishing. Mormon men catastrophically care about appearances over substance. Not that most men wouldn't prefer a woman they are sexually attracted to - obviously they would. But so many Mormon men expect a woman to be perfect and a trophy wife more than they want a friend and partner. They care more about how she looks and if she fits the mold, than what is going on in her head. And secondly, who says this guy deserves a hot wife? He seems to think he's entitled to one, because he's an RM. But most of the guys I knew at BYU weren't worth settling for...yet they all thought they'd earned a Miss Provo, by serving a mission. Their giant priesthoods were getting in their way of seeing realistically what THEY had to offer a woman. They seem to think women should fight over them, because they are righteous priesthood holders.

I did like his comment number 6 though. The advice the Mormon leadership gives the members reeks.

Fat women have a HELL of a lot easier time finding husbands than fat men do finding wives.
Why is that?
Could it be that modern women are vain, stuck up c--ts?

Mormon women marry an RM. I've seen women marry just about anything, as long as he went on a mission.

This is about Mormons and the way they marry an expectation instead of a real person. This isn't about your personal problems in finding a nice woman. I never cared what a guy weighed. In fact, my mom recommended against marrying a guy who was too much into his looks because he'd pressure me to be just as shallow. Maybe it's more your attitude toward women than what you look like. Which was my point in the first place. The 39 year old guy who originally made the comment had a bad attitude toward women and an expectation of perfection at a level he probably couldn't have given back in return. People need to relax and marry their best friends, instead of making important life decisions on such shallow things as weight.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2011 03:32PM by CA girl.

Well, if you're using the word c**t to describe any woman, that might just be your problem. Just a thought.

I see plenty of fat men getting married. Most of my male friends are obese - and were when they married. They're in healthy, happy marriages.

It has everything to do with the personality of a person. Inner ugliness is a turnoff.

I kind of agree with ynad.. I do think that fat women may find it easier to find a spouse than a fat man...HOWEVER, that is only true in regular society... In Mormon society it's very very different.

In Mormon culture there is no group more undesirable than the FAT SINGLE WOMEN (ok maybe the flamingly gay yet TBM single over thirty male is tied with the fat single woman)....The fat single woman is even lower than the non-RM male in LDS culture. LDS men are conditioned to feel that if they go on their mission then they'll get the ideal prize of a woman that they "deserve"...... I know more than one chubby chaser LDS male who married a thin wife because she was what he "deserved" Believe it or not, not EVERY male desires the exact same type, but just like everything else in LDS culture, there is a lot of pressure to conform. It's sad all the way around.

I'd comment back to that guy, "Way to go, genius. You've just found yet one more way to make the women feel like nothing in the LDS Church."

The church is going to start shrinking here pretty soon I think. If they can't brainwash the youth, they're screwed in the long run.

My 3 kids are in the 20-30 age bracket. TSCC has pretty much lost 2 out of 3. I long for the day they lose all three.

They need to get a grip on reality. A bunch of old farts up in SLC directing the singles wards won't work. They have no idea (or any of their 'yes men' advisors) on how to create an interest in church. It is boring beyond belief. What they don't get is that they need to liven it up. But they won't. Why? Because they are a bunch of old farts up in SLC. It is their "institution" and not the "word" that is sacred to them. Rock bands, new music, clapping, and paid clergy are what they need. In addition, they need to abandon a forced tithing - kids going to school and struggling aren't gonna pay tithing.

It seems all they have done is change "student wards" to "singles wards", meaning that students and non-students meet together.

So what? That will not affect the vast majority of YSA. BYU wards will already be 99% BYU students. Outside of Utah, those wards will not change much at all.

I guess I could think of a handful of cases where this might help administration of these wards, but they will still have the same problems and offer little more to Mormon 20-somethings. This is especially true of gay Mormons struggling to stay active who will be dumped at age 30 when they are shuffled off to the family wards.

That's true. If they're an RM and a 'righteous Priesthood holder,' they don't care. They'll marry him.

Is that why they had to run pilot programs first before unleashing it in the Salt Lake Valley? If this was God's program they would have just implemented it.

I'll take bar-hopping over ward hopping any day; so much more fun.

NAILED IT.

In this article, Ballard seemed to be bringing back shades of the SCMC when he said this pile of big-time bullshit about preventing them from leaving TSCC:

“We hope you’ve got the message: You have no option to bounce around,” he said, referring to a common practice dubbed ward-hopping in which young Mormons shop around for congregations they like. “We know where you are. We’ve got our radar focused on you.”

OMFG the state of Utard is going off the deep end!