After years of declining attendance, Mesa Vista Ward in the Santa Barbara CA Stake was dissolved yesterday September 23, 2018.

Formed 18 years ago in a bubble of babies and move-ins, no one yesterday seemed particularly sorry to see it go. In fact, most were giddy to at last be rejoining friends in the adjacent wards.

When announced last Sunday a flurry of texts went around the world as the stake president was speaking. He looked up and saw heads down looking at phones, shook his head and smiled.

Yesterday the SP spoke about the process. Gerrymandering new boundaries, negotiating those boundaries with the First Pres. and finally getting permission. Actually kind of interesting.

Bishopric spoke, great music. As a ward we had a little picnic afterward where we compared notes of who was going where and “remember that time…”

We all went home looking at new adventures ahead.

in the last several decades was to aggressively split wards and stakes to give the illusion of rapid growth.

When I was growing up, Churchco had not yet gone whole hog on splitting wards. As a result, we had something that felt like a real, functioning ward, with competent people holding most positions, enough people in each age group to make it feel like you were part of a real community...kind of how it may have felt to be in a small town. Enough kids to make having a school worthwhile. A big enough town to have a pool of reasonably qualified people to manage programs and projects, and so on.

About the time that I was heading off to university was when they started going crazy with the splitting and multiplying of wards. Whenever I visited, it felt like I was visiting a ghost town, compared to what I experienced growing up. Many, if not most, classes in Primary and Sunday school would be 1 or 2 "student" and a teacher who obviously was not qualified to be a teacher. It was depressing.

For all its faults, Churchco was able to create a sense of community for members back in the day. I couldn't stick with it after learning the real history and thinking too much about all of the messed up doctrine. But I had a feeling of loss as a result of leaving the only community I had known.

After what they did to most wards and stakes as a result of the splitting and multiplying craze, I think I would have been happy to leave, even if I could have still believed in the doctrine. There just weren't enough people in it to make it interesting.

Santa Barbara has always enjoyed the perverted pride of being "one of the smallest stakes in the church".

SB stake has 3 wards and 2 branches in the SB metro area and 3 wards in Lompoc and Solvang in north SB county.

The stake numbers are so low that one that one of the possibilities was to have the north county wards drive 50 miles to meet at the stake center. Consolidating all units in the SB metro area. Got shot down by the 1st. Pres. Doesn't mean that those three won't consolidate in one building in north county in the near future.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2018 12:19PM by rutabaga.