A handful of posters have made reference to how the church used to be a much more pleasant place to be 30, 40, or 50 years ago. Can anyone elaborate on this? How has it changed over the last 50 years? Did it used to be less cult-like? Was it not a cult as we know it? I'm very curious about this.

Growing up in a small farm town where everyone was more or less in the same boat financially. I remember that they would get together for dinner more often, play games, dances, less meetings outside of Sunday's it was more about community and it felt like you could be yourself. It didn't matter what you did for a living you were a neighbor. I don't know how much of that was the church or if it was just plain old small town feeling. Activities for the youth were fun and less regulated, you could go swimming in the pond, (it had a rope swing) you could go hiking, you didn't need to worry about permission slips or 100 hundred other things that you have to worry about today. just my .02 worth.

ablmu65 Wrote:
> Activities for the youth were fun and
> less regulated, you could go swimming in the pond,
> (it had a rope swing) you could go hiking, you
> didn't need to worry about permission slips or 100
> hundred other things that you have to worry about
> today. just my .02 worth.


Over the past few months we have seen many posts linking to deaths and disaster due to youth leaders going out without proper preparation, and without due regard for weather or prevailing conditions.

the overwhelming feeling on this board seemed to be that the church organizations have been careless and ill prepared.
just my .02 worth

a believe that they are invincible (God will bless them) and cancelling an activity is looked down upon as a lack of faith.
Example, when I was a Stake Activity Director once, I cancelled a golf tournament because of rain and lightening in the forcast. I was read the riot act by the stake president over that, who said, "if you just have a little faith, you'll find the Lord blesses you in times like this..you shouldn't have cancelled." I couldn't bear to have someone take the risk of being electrocuted while holding his nine-iron up in the air. Stupid idiots all of them.

Approx 1970 - correlation - all the years of teaching "by the Spirit" sure produced a wild collection of theology .... but once the Brethren got caught flat-footed too often they decided it was time to reign in the cowboys and start making sure that all teachings were correlated - I don't think my year on this is correct but its certainly much different today in 2011 than it was in the '60s

Approx 1980 - consolidated meeting schedule - good for the superbusy lay leaders - but bad for building social cohesiveness in the Wards.

Approx 1990 - bye bye ward budgets - good for SLC, period

Approx 2000 - every member a janitor - more tightening the screws on TBMs

for the better. This control from the COB is hurting them.

Tithing money was handled locally, not sent to SL so the bish could disperse it where it was needed to pay for various local activities. Wards had more secular activities, like the Roadshow where they'd write and produce a play, teams sports for both kids and adults, ect. I was on the church's softball team and played against other wards. It was awesome and I loved the community bonding we had with other families in the ward through these activities. This also meant there was more ward-ward interactions and almost a competitive mentality of "Our ward is the best ward" We'd take pride in how the ward basketball team was undefeated that year, or we did the best job on our Roadshow over the other wards in the stake.

They decided to slowly phase all of that out over several decades. By 1990 it was gone. Now the best ward is determined by which ward has the most people with high paying jobs. It's a totally different church now than the one I grew up in.

The doctrine that was taught then was way more extreme. They've mainstreamed it and suppress much of what I was taught growing up, like Jesus being a polygamist, god having literal sex with Mary, the planet Kolob, Earth getting transplanted to another part of the solar system... Definitely see a different church now. Far more corporate of a system.

One of the first things that I recall happening was the shift in focus. Even events that were purely social got changed so that they had to include some "spiritual" component, especially those activities that involved the youth.

The one thing that kept me participating during my teen-age years was the ward did lots of fun things. Even MIA on Tuesday nights was planned to include something fun after the individual classes finished. Then there was a the basketball and softball programs, from the stake level all the way to All Church tournaments.

Our ward had pot-luck dinner at lease once a month, and the ward paid for the holiday dinner. During the summer the ward parties were held at various places; in the mountains at a group site, for instance. Hayrides and Christmas Caroling at Christmas, watermelon busts, corn roasts were standard activities during the year, swim parties where the ward would rent the pool for the evening, and cook hot dogs and burgers for everyone.

All of those activities stopped when the suits in SLC pulled the budgets away from wards and stakes, and told them they would be blessed if they stopped having fun activities and turned in all their money to SLC.

very well put, more of what I wanted to say but just couldn't find the words. Thank you.

my2cents Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> All of those activities stopped when the suits in
> SLC pulled the budgets away from wards and stakes,
> and told them they would be blessed if they
> stopped having fun activities and turned in all
> their money to SLC.


Great way of putting it! If that aint' the morg way...stop haveing fun and you will be blessed.

I see all the put downs that happened to those not in the inner circle--BUT as a child, it sure seemed a lot more fun. They had R.S. bazaars, halloween parties with spook alleys and cake walks, fishing ponds (where you got prizes), etc., like they used to do at elementary schools (which they still might do).

Mutual and primary were during the week--not on Sunday. Mutual--when we had activities, we did FUN things--not goal-oriented things.

It really wasn't SOOOOO BORING.

BUT, then, as I got older, I saw the more cliquish aspects of the ward I grew up in and I thought they were ridiculous.

This is one of the things I took great note of--I was in YWs back in the late 1980s. I was not allowed to do anything fun with the girls. It kept the girls from feeling like they could look to us as a friend. I was a sports director when I was about 20 and I was really close to all the girls. They still will stop me if they see me and that has been 34 years.

So--one time I was in charge of teh whole YW/YM activity back in about 1989. I chose to have them go ice skating (In Logan, Utah, they used to or still do have a skating rink the city prepared every year in a park). You could rent skates, but we were supposed to keep the spending LOW. I found skates for all 23 girls in Beehives, but the other leaders didn't find skates so we had to rent skates for about 30 kids. This activity cost less than all the donuts and drinks they had for the previous fireside, but I got called on teh carpet as it wasn't a "spiritual" activity and it cost money. We had more kids show up to that activity than any activity we had had for years.

Being mormon isn't about teaching children how to have good clean fun. It is about making them slaves to mormonism.

The ward I was in on the east coast not too long ago (2008) had a Halloween party like the one you mention. The ward building got all decorated up in spooky Halloween stuff, we had a guy dress as a corpse and hide in a fake coffin, we had games for the kids, hot dogs and snacks, a cake walk, etc. Then we had trunk or treat at the end of the night.

We moved out west to an area that's about 10% LDS (maybe more) and all they have is a big, disorganized trunk or treat and then everybody goes home. No time for hanging out, gettting to know each other outside of church roles. Very disappointing.

They also sponsored "teams" like a team in a softball league. Of course this was not in Utah. They just don't do stuff like that any more.

I remember one Christmas party where one of the men dressed up like Santa Clause and gathered the children around him - this is really cool. Well low and behold, Santa gave the children a Sunday School lesson. HO HO HO!!!

The funny part was that SS was 14 hours away.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2011 01:28PM by iamagodu.

back in the 1960s, Santa Claus came to primary every year. We'd sit in the gym and sing Christmas songs (including the not religious ones) and when we sang Jingle Bells, Santa Claus would come running in. He would give us small paper sacks of peanuts with some candy in them.

Summertime primary activities were always a lot of fun--not lessons every week and we'd meet at about 10 a.m. on a weekday. R.S. was more fun, too--my mother always volunteered me to BABYSIT (just after I graduated high school) and they had luncheons once a month on "work day" and they'd quilt, etc. My mother and grandmother LOVED to quilt and loved work day.

Also being raised in a small farm town we had many get togethers. There were dances,,road shows,,talent shows,,cook outs,,group work projects,,barn raisings,,hunting trips,,hay rides. I was taught many good values and work habits back then. Haven't been involved in any mormon activities in many years. Seems like with all the rules and laws now it would make growing up much less fun.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2011 01:29PM by unworthy.

Thats the idea that all church auxiliaries must conform to the standard set by the suits in SLC. If the activity that your auxiliary, RS, Priesthood, YM, YW, wants to put on is not in spiritual agreement with all other auxiliaries, that activity will be eliminated.

It also had the effect of eliminating all activities that were not gospel or spiritually oriented. The Idea was created in the 50s and began being implemented in the 60s. It took about 10-15 years, but after the transition, it wasn't the same church anymore.

I remember in the 50s, in junior HS, I played for the church bb team. we played other churches teams from all over the city. we did road shows, we did parties, we did it all and it was fun. Not now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2011 01:45PM by foundoubt.

grew up in a more insular, community-oriented time when most organizations were far less concerned with legal liability than they are today. I think the church probably WAS more fun, but only because the times lent themselves toward community and neighborhood gatherings. The church was a much more rural organization 30 or 40 years ago - getting together with the neighbors was a primary source of entertainment. The church is more suburban now, and instant electronic access to the entertainment of our choosing makes community and neighborhood gatherings less attractive. Instead of being things members want to go to, they are things members feel forced to go to, with predictable results.

Yes, the money stayed in the ward back then, and that probably was a positive thing. But that doesn't mean it was a fundamentally different or better organization back then. It just means that, like all organizations, it was a creature of its time then and its a creature of its time today.

This subject always comes up and I'm always happy to respond in my Grandpa Simpson sort of way about the good times. It is most definitely a case of the "The Brethren" mercilessly screwing up a good situation and then being too proud to reverse the poorly thought-out decision that caused all the trouble.

I came of age in the 1960s and was in the Palmdale, CA, ward. George Busby, may the dear man rest in peace, was our wonderful bishop for a good part of the time. Bishops back then were called, sent off to SLC where they were ORDAINED to the office of bishop by a member of The Twelve. That's why they used to say, "Once a bishop, always a bishop," something that is literally no longer the case. Then the man might serve as your bishop for 10-15 years or longer.

Your ward had identity. It was semi-autonomous, and the stake was almost totally autonomous. You were responsible for scaring up your own funds, and there were all kinds of activities to bring in money. One thing that all the posts of those who reminisce have in common is the listing of activities that there used to be: Fund raisers, road shows, RS bazaars, barbecues, car washes, youth conferences, etc., etc. These activities were as these activities are supposed to be--mindless, an activity for activity's sake. The big mistake from SLC came in the zeal to make everything a forced "missionary opportunity," and all the programs began to implode after that grand decision. So nowadays, due to the "inspiration" of the Mormon leadership, missionary opportunities are anything but. I mean, which, after all, is the better missionary opportunity--one that you can easily drag friends out to with no hint of embarrassment, or ones where the theme is a planned and pitched monotone lesson about the Book of Mormon and devoid of laughter and fun?

This is yet another example of a nest that Mormon leaders have carefully made and then thoroughly shat in. Then it's up to the members to lie in the nest.

Correlation, my friends, killed the joy. Make it all the same. If you seen one McDonald's, you've seen 'em all.

Just sayin'...

Ron

It was fun. We had hayrides, dances, bowling; even work projects were fun and full of kidding around and laughing. Our ward youth sold hot dogs at local college football games as a fundraiser, and it was a blast.

I haven't been around the church since correlation. But what's with the church's war on fun?

We had stake dances every month - even the non-LDS kids would come because they were better than the high school dances were everyone was wasted. We had barn dances too and hay rides. We had roadshows, where every ward would put on their own short play. There were stake plays and everyone tried out - our stake did The Sound of Music. There were dance festivals where you'd learn and perform dances from other countries - not just your ward but these were multi-stake activities. We rented buses and went out to BYU for Youth Conference. We were there 4 days and every youth in our stake went. Girls camp was CAMP - not an indoctrination session. No one told us to bring copies of the Ensign and other church books like nowadays. And, it lasted a week, just like Boy Scout Camp, not a two night, three day budget thing like our stake did this year. There were youth firesides every month and everyone went - it was a chance to socialize with all your friends in the stake. And all the youth in our stake were friends because we did all these fun things together. My Sweet 16 was a combined birthday party with my best friend, who's birthday was the day after mine. We invited like 70 of our closest friends but 150 showed up from all over the stake - because we all knew each other and were friends. Even the snotty Mormon kids were friends with the least popular Mormon kids because we were all MORMON together. We had our personal cliques and groups but we were all in the same big club.

My mom taught things in Relief Society like Family Relations and Art Appreciation. She could get information wherever she wanted. The lessons hadn't been dumbed down. They had classes where they taught about foreign countries, the food, the culture, the language. We had ward dinners all the time and craft days.

Nowadays you are given lessons approved by Salt Lake and written for the dumbest members to understand. It's all be said before. You aren't supposed to look up further info to make it more interesting. Budget cuts have reduced the number of ward activities, stupidity has reduced them even further. Several years ago, our ward gave up their very popular Halloween Carnival, because Bishop Jackwagon thought it wasn't faith-promoting. So they had a Harvest Festival instead, which was lame games like an arm wrestling contest called "Strengthen Your Testimony." Costumes were prohibited. The Haunted House was banned. People hated it so now they don't do anything at all.

I need to wrap this up because I could go on and on. I'm not talking about life in the church in the pioneer days. The church was a lot more fun in the early 80s but it's gone severely downhill since the early 90s and is just a burden and a chore, one more thing to be endured to the end.

The youth are getting the hint more and more that they pay into the tithing fund for almost nothing, not even a healthy community. Youth don't stick around to socialize, except for the weirdos, typically. In fact, where I live, hardly anyone normal goes to anything in the church period, except maybe church itself, but the sane people either shut up or are not even at church at all. Every once in a great while, the church likes to throw a bone to everyone and have some kind of large event. Last one I went to, they had special marriage seminars for large groups of people. So fuck the church. They just want to herd the sheeple into a life of enslavement in the church, that's all, nothing else. They can suck my rebel sheep balls!!

Two things. First, tithing has always been remitted to SLC. It was budget that was locally raised and controlled.

Second, correlation, though good in some ways, also stamps out any thought, variation, and ultimately, fun. The church is dying, and the bozos in SLC can't figure out why. The problem is, they can't figure out the problem, because they ARE the problem.

I've heard also that tithing used to be much more voluntary, that GAs used to explicitly tell people that they shouldn't pay tithing if it would make them go broke, and that there was even some support for the idea of only tithing on surplus instead of straight-up income. If so, that would have left a lot more room in member budgets for local fundraising. But I don't know if any of that is true.

It seems like some time around 1960 was a serious turning point for the church, and that the leadership resolved to significantly change the direction of the organization. If I recall, that's about when missions started to become mandatory; when there was an enormous push on the international mission front; and about the time of the baseball scandal in the United Kingdom.

I too remember roadshows, haunted houses, road trips to SLC, Stake dances that drew in almost as many non-mormons as mormons because the dances were fun. This was while I was growing up in the 70s & 80s.

Now all the activities are bland. My own teens didn't even want to go to the church dances. So they must have sucked all the fun out of those as well.

Besides who can stand a 3 hour church meeting anyway. The times I did try to invite a friend they balked at 3 hours.

What on earth? Things sure must have changed.