I wonder if TSCC is trying an experiment?

The experiment, judging from the reduction in activities in my ward just in the 18 months I was in, is to reduce/eliminate all social aspects, community-building activities.

Socializing between sacrament and hour two? Cut time by 50% (from 20 minutes to 10 minutes). Boy scouting? Cut. Firesides? Cut. Christmas parties in the Ward? Eliminated (My first year, 3 Christmas parties in the Ward, year 2=zero). Senior Missionaries stationed to our ward, gone. 2 sets of missionaries, reduced to one.

Is it an experiment to see if they can cut everything and people will still come? Study at home, pray at church and go on home.

I think that they top leadership knows the church isn't going to collapse completely in their lifetime. So the primary objective at this point is to make sure they get all the money they can out of it before they kick the bucket. So cut the funds and suck them up. Somebody's got to take that trip to Rome and that's not going to be cheap!

Devoted Exmo Wrote:
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> ....get all the money they can out of it before they kick the bucket.

Yes, I agree. But I admit I was surprised at how drastic these cutback would be in just a year! Obvious even to me a new member/convert. Somebody in SS once talked about the 'old days' of I guess the 1980's, where there were church activities every night. Those days long gone!

they just had the R.S. birthday party (and many wards did as the women were buying supplies at Sam's Club and would talk about it). I got invites to both parties.

From when I was young, they have gradually done away with many things, cut money for activities. When I was in YW in the 1980s, the skating party that brought out more kids than any other activity they had had, cost $26 for ice skates for kids who hadn't found any and I got in trouble for spending $26 on the successful party. We had to pay out of our own pockets for most things we did with the kids.

cl2 Wrote:
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> they just had the R.S. birthday party

But this was all member out-of-pocket, no church support, right?

> We had to pay out of our own pockets for most things we did with the kids.

Yes, donate your time, money, AND tithe! No wonder activities are going away.

members were assigned things or allowed to VOLUNTEER, but the stuff I rang up at Sam's was paid for separate from their own orders as they had to turn in the receipt. All the ones I did were that way. So I think it was paid for from what I could tell.

They didn't ask me to bring something when I was invited. ha ha ha (I didn't see the text until 2 days later anyway.)

that we had to make sure all activities had to do with the goals that were available for the girls to choose. We weren't allowed to "have fun." I got in trouble once for stopping at the mall to pick up my kids' pictures while I had the girls with me. I guess for insurance reasons. I thought it was ridiculous. Everything that I tried to do fun with the girls, I was shot down. I asked to be released.

Also, when I was called, they didn't have the new goal books ready NOR the new lesson manuals. I can't remember how long we went without either. We weren't supposed to use the old ones.

As for the goal books, I'd go through with the girls and ask them "So do you help fix dinner for the family?" "Yes." I'd sign them off. All this busy work. Make a goal for tending younger siblings when you do it all the time.

When we were in mutual, when we had activities (we had lessons 3 weeks a month and an activity 1 week on weekday evenings), we had fun. We even went on a camping trip with our Beehive leaders with NO PRIESTHOOD. They were 2 single women. It was up at Bear Lake from Brigham City. The women in R.S. had quilting all the time. My mother learned to quilt in R.S. and she was in the presidency, and she was always gone quilting. She LOVED IT. R.S. was much better when I was young and my mother was involved in it. They had luncheons quite often, too. I think they had a work day once a month and had luncheons. They'd quilt then, too.

The last Ward I was in, someone in Stake leadership decided the Young Women shouldn't do fundraisers and should only spend what was budgeted for girls camp. Since that meager budget wasn't nearly enough to cover the camp costs, the Young Women leaders in the Ward encouraged the girls to visit the homes of active members and ask for donations so the girls could "go camping with a group of friends".
Everyone involved knew the donations were for church girls camp.
Instead of either budgeting enough or else allowing fundraisers, the whole experience taught the young women a bit of dishonesty & how to bend the rules for their benefit!

Shinehah Wrote:
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> The last Ward I was in, someone in Stake leadership decided the Young Women shouldn't do fundraisers

This makes NO sense! They won't give you money for an activity NOR will they let you raise money for it? Huh?

> visit the homes of active members and ask for donations so the girls could "go camping with a group of friends".

Wow. Personalized begging. I'm speechless.

> taught the young women a bit of dishonesty & how to bend
the rules for their benefit!

Well I suppose that skill at least might come in handy in the real world. Doesn't say anything good about the cult though! What a lesson to teach!

From what board members have shared in the past, back in the old days wards were beehives of activity. They had dinners and dances and Green and Gold balls. Wards developed and put on road shows. The RS was allowed to raise money and spend it as they saw fit. At some point most of that was shut down. It was decided that everything had to serve a "gospel purpose." IMO that was a very short-sighted decision. People often look to their church communities for a social outlet.

It's interesting that you noticed further change in even the short amount of time that you were active.

summer Wrote:
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> They had dinners and dances and Green
> and Gold balls. Wards developed and put on road
> shows.

Yep. Never heard of anything like that going on last year when I was in.

> The RS was allowed to raise money and spend it as they saw fit.

There was none of that going on either. The only thing they did was constantly ask for donations from all of us women, bring canned goods or whatever, for who knows who?

> People often look to their church communities for a social outlet.

Yes, this was what got me. Because my SS teacher lectured me several times that it wasn't just about joining a church (me, as a convert) it was about me becoming part of the church community. So, yeah, I tried individually to socialize with members but had there been activities it would have been easier and who knows, I might have been able to feel a part of the community. As it was I never felt that.

> It's interesting that you noticed further change
> in even the short amount of time that you were
> active.

Yes, it was very apparent, when I first started attending in May of 2017, to when I stopped at the end of 2018, it was just a deserted building most of the time. Wednesday nights they used to allow community members (non-church members) to come in and play basketball, that was all ended, as well as most other things.

I wonder if they are just counting every bean, so much they have saved by cutting to 2 hours, so much saved by not having these dinners or boy scouts or whatever. I wonder if it will balance out with the tithing they lose by members not coming anymore?

And way back when, we were allowed to actually use the kitchen in the building! And we had church basketball teams and league competition. And church softball teams. And musical talent shows. And Ward camping trips. Lots of parties and food during holidays. Mostly all gone now....

It's really sad looking back at how much more the church was playing a part in the community with youth playing basketball leagues, some buildings even had showers because of this. Later that didn't happen and remodels happen. The kitchen is not designed to barely even be used because church doesn't want to fork out the money for a commercial use and pay permits etc.
Softball teams don't happen as much. Some church properties have sporting facilities that basically run down and not used.

Road shows and money for activities seemed to be quite favorable to visitors and an opportunity to invite to hang with the Mormons.

They just aren't building in community relationships anymore and just breeding kids in a closed network. Church in the 80s and 90s was a lot different than 60s and 70s.

Granted that kids these days are more interested in electronics, smartphones, sitting on their ass, movies, and not moving round much. Of course there are sports still happen but even that has declined.

So the trend continues?

We old farts remember when there were all sorts of social events and that they've been dwindling for several decades.

olderelder Wrote:
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> So the trend continues?
>
> We old farts remember when there were all sorts of
> social events and that they've been dwindling for
> several decades.

Back when it actually was a community I guess?

Comparing your recent experience to the organization I grew up in, I don't even recognize it. You made a very timely exit, mel.

I'm not a party pooper. In fact, I'm shocked how the church has cut back on its activities as well. I'm also amazed that a newbie like mel, has picked up on this.

One thing that blew my mind was how cold and callous members had become in my home ward (the ward that I grew up in and the ward of my parents). Before my father passed away, he had a hobby of making videos of the ward socials. Then he would spend a week or two editing and adding music and effects. Then he would make copies and pass them out to various ward members. He did this over a five to six year period. I'm guessing that he gave copies to 30 or more persons in the ward. Now hold on! This was long before everybody had phones with cameras.

So one day I asked him (before he passed away) if he was still making videos of the socials. He said no and it surprised me. He went onto say that in all the years that he had taken the time to make the videos, not ONE member had ever came up to him and said thanks or made any type of comment. It really hurt him.

You would think that either parents or the grandparents would have been appreciative of seeing their children/grandchildren running around the culture hall or dressed up fo Halloween. It sent a helluva message that mormons don't really care about their families.

Unbelievable! But I believe you. And to think that your dad did this for several years! No wonder he stopped.

I’ve written almost 1750 letters by hand mostly to Mormons, and received only 206 replies.

So yes, I understand how it feels to do a lot and not be noticed in the Mormon community.

Messy,

What a nice thing it was your dad did. I would probably kill to see some films of childhood things but I never will. He spent hours and hours doing that for no gratitude. Disgusting.

I hope at least you have some movies of your own activities and family functions to look back on sometimes. :)

My ex was a YW president more than once in the late 80's and early 90's and I'm sure she has no idea or record of how much money she spent on activities and projects they were involved in.

One time, there was a ward (feels so odd the spell that word now) division so we were in Sunday School and introducing ourselves to the new ward members; our family and our callings in the ward.

I was a ward clerk and then a finance clerk for at least the last 3-4 years and I mentioned that I'd been a clerk for much of the last couple of years.

I also mentioned that I was the Assistant Young Women's President and got a big laugh out of the crowd. My wife thought that the bishop might not like that comment but I never heard from him.

there really doesn't seem to be much point of having wards and stakes, other than to spy on each other, monitor each other and provide a system for local leaders to collect tithing payments.

The full range of normal, healthy human interactions has been fenced off to such an extent that genuine friendships and feelings of community can no longer develop. Anything that is not specifically planned and defined by the bureaucracy in the Church Office Building is discouraged.

Any kind of spontaneity is a threat to THEIR system. Opportunities for spontaneity, individual initiative and creativity at the local level must therefore be reduced, if not eliminated altogether.

Wally Prince Wrote:
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> provide a system for local leaders to collect tithing payments.

Yes, I hadn't thought of that. People being more likely to pay when they at least once-in-a-while see the Bishop in person.

I agree with everything you said. Good points, Walls!

I agree with what's been said. The church was a different place in the day. We almost always had a 1 or 2 weekly activities, and some sort of monthly activity if not more.

Road shows, gold & green ball, steak dances, homemaking, RS birthday party, temple night, baptisms for the dead, firesides, missionary splits, YW/YM's/scouts, volley ball, basketball, soft ball, ward parties, ward camp out, Christmas parties, the spring social, fundraiser dinners, daddy-daughter/mother-son activity, YW of excellence, girls camp, youth conference, pioneer treks, service activities, (babysitting for homemaking, visiting and cleaning/doing yard work for widows, picking up trash on the highway, visiting the old folks home, pushing wheelchairs at the state developmental center, making emergency kits, working at the cannery, etc).

When I was in YW's in the late 80's we went to Wyoming for girls camp, and stayed at a ranch owned by a relative of the YW's leader. A few years later we went to a different WY ranch owned by the bishops brother for youth conference. We went to bear lake & water skied once. Another time the YM & YM stayed at the mutual dell lodge in AF canyon & went snowmobiling half the night.. don't know how that one ever flew.. boys & girls sleeping in the same building, and being out alone in the mountains, in pairs no less, past midnight!

They used to have fun activities and actually did real service. As time when on the cutbacks & rules became a joke and the people attending dwindled. Only a few people would show up for service activities and it sucked to be on of the few doing work that needed many.

By the time I was a young mother RS homemaking was so boring you couldn't stand to go. A bunch of us in the ward got together and decided to have (non church related) supper club one night a month, and bunko on another night. We'd take turns hosting and leave the kids at home for a much needed break. Then the local priesthood leaders decided bunko had to go and threatened us to stop. They claimed it gave the appearance of evil (gambling) since we all pitched in $5.00 to go toward the nightly prize. Ridiculous! I think they were just pissed we were having fun outside of church and quit going to homemaking.

Yes, and a stupid one at that.. just something to pass time while socializing.. ;D

Mmm, steak dances, sounds yummy.

Hockeyrat Wrote:
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> Mmm, steak dances, sounds yummy.


Reasons why I should proof read before posting...

I'll take some A1 with my steak! :P

mahana Wrote:
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> Road shows, gold & green ball, steak dances,homemaking, RS birthday party, temple night...

Yep, none of that was around last couple years when I began going. Although as an introvert just reading your list makes me rather overwhelmed, it would have been fun to have some of those at least.

Glad you did have some fun activities, till they stopped them!

I will never forget the time I spent hours creating a"Jeopardy!" type game featuring stuff from the BoM. This was for RS. I had little stickies over the answers.

Everybody was on the edge of their seats. They LOVED it.

Except for the RS Pres. A few days later she ripped me a new one for having gone "off script." The EXIT sign began blinking at about that time.

Heaven forbid that anything should have a single atom of "fun" attached to it.

So no more young adult dances? Father/ Son, Mother/ daughter banquets!

Hockeyrat Wrote:
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> So no more young adult dances? Father/ Son, Mother/ daughter banquets!

There were no dances in my ward, for sure, nor banquets, they did give us strawberry cake for the Mother's Day after the third hour last year, but I thought it was strange because the women were shut off from everyone else in the church so it wasn't really like socializing, it was just women being put in a room by themselves so they could eat cake.

My dad use to talk of the old days when church was all day long. Sacrament meeting at night for 2-3 hours. must have been horrible! And since a lot of people walked to church they didn't want to walk home between meetings just to walk all the way back. Then going back even further into the 1930's I've heard family stories of relief society being all day long on Wednesdays. They would quilt for hours and hours. Women had nothing to do in the depression I guess? No wife would have a job in the big bad world mind you... especially in rural Utah.

macaRomney Wrote:
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> My dad use to talk of the old days

Wow this is both horrifying and impressive, for sure they built a 'community' in those days. I probably couldn't have taken so many hours, too much!

The Pentecostals here (I've visited with a member there a few times) still do that, a couple hours Sunday morning, and then come back again for more in the evening, and probably Wednesday's as well. Ooof!

mel Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wonder if TSCC is trying an experiment?
>
> The experiment, judging from the reduction in
> activities in my ward just in the 18 months I was
> in, is to reduce/eliminate all social aspects,
> community-building activities.
>
> Socializing between sacrament and hour two? Cut
> time by 50% (from 20 minutes to 10 minutes). Boy
> scouting? Cut. Firesides? Cut. Christmas parties
> in the Ward? Eliminated (My first year, 3
> Christmas parties in the Ward, year 2=zero).
> Senior Missionaries stationed to our ward, gone. 2
> sets of missionaries, reduced to one.
>
> Is it an experiment to see if they can cut
> everything and people will still come? Study at
> home, pray at church and go on home.

I have a good friend who is a councilor in his stake presidency. We go way back and we rarely talk religion. I brought up so what's with this home based church thing I keep hearing about? He goes the church is pivoting away from the meetinghouse centered church and to a temple based church. The focus will be on the home and on the temple.

I thought about that and really what the church has discovered is everything that goes on in a meeting house doesn't keep the members paying, praying and obeying. Activities don't keep the money coming in. Temple recommends do.

The church is just becoming more efficient. It' not going to be about what kind of fun activities can we throw it's going to be temple attendance. Explains why so many temples are being built. As long as several million people want to attend the temple weddings of their children, the church will get it's money. It doesn't need a bunch of activities to do that.

So it's a sort of a weeding out process? That does make sense...

Why have ward houses and stake buildings that anyone can get into for free? Where's the profit in that?

Rubicon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I thought about that and really what the church
> has discovered is everything that goes on in a
> meeting house doesn't keep the members paying,
> praying and obeying. Activities don't keep the
> money coming in. Temple recommends do.

But what goes in a meeting house keeps people emotionally invested in the church.

In any church, fulfillment doesn't just come from the pulpit. Members find it in the friendships they form, the time they spend together, the service they do for the community, and simply having shared values with people. It's a natural, healthy phenomenon that keeps people devoted. Why would the Mormon church want to get rid of that?

For proof, just look at this website. Even people who made the decision to leave are saddened by the relationships that were lost or damaged in the process. Even Ex-Mos have fond memories of dances, road shows, and other events, all long since cancelled. The board is full of these stories.

It also contradicts the church's usual M.O., which is to never leave you alone. You're pressured into a mission with a companion at adulthood, pressured into marriage and reproducing when you return, and harassed if you try to leave. Now they take steps that will isolate members from each other, and leave them wondering why they're sitting in a roomful of strangers listening to the same correlated pablum week after week.

From my (non-LDS) perspective, this is a very strange policy. Is their need for control that great?

Rubicon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> He goes the church is pivoting away from the
> meetinghouse centered church and to a temple based
> church. The focus will be on the home and on the
> temple.


This a little bit ironic. Way back when the church came out a statement and read it over the pulpit. I was young & my memory is a little fuzzy on the details. From what I remember it basically said members should not engage in discussing doctrine (especially in groups like a bible study) with other members outside of church meetings. They felt that members were coming up their own ideas about doctrine that weren't correct. The only exception was family home evening. Even at that you were supposed to follow the lesson manual.

So if they go to a home centered church, and encourage people to have their own Sunday worship.. it leaves an awful lot of room for interpreting and teaching doctrine incorrectly..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2019 01:15AM by mahana.

Perhaps as the GAs drive home they see RVs & Boats parked in new(er) homes in nice neighborhoods & say to themselves:

HEY! these folks can afford a boat, an RV, & a nice house, THEY CAN AFFORD TO PAY FOR ACTIVITIES TOO!

as for the others without the perks.... Too Bad!

The watering-down or diluting of Mormonism is enfeebling it and is the most inspired thing a Mormon prophet has ever done.(but he doesn't know it)

Rubicon wrote:

>church is pivoting away from the meetinghouse centered church and to a temple based church. The focus will be on the home and on the temple.

This is very interesting! Thanks, Rubicon. I agree with Politic here also, this is an inspired development to reduce membership even more!

It denies the basic human drive to know people and socialize. You won't socialize at a temple, you probably won't know anyone there, since they would come from miles around, and you have probably had to drive hours to get there unless you live in Utah where they are sprinkled all over the place.

But from an MBA econ view, it makes perfect sense. Why maintain stakes and wards which are freely open, when you could just have fee-required admission to temples? And they will still use the free labor to staff those temples, so it's a win-win!

I just can't even imagine the concentration on maximizing monetary return which would lead them to cut down local church support and activities in favor of correlated, impersonal Temple services.

And Temple, its the same every time you go, right? So there's no sermon where they might talk about current events or anything? Just the same thing, over and over?

Wow. What an illustration of an 'only-money-matters' organization!

I think that the church will end up suffocating in its own boredom.

That's what happens when you leach enjoyment, socializing and community-building out of an organization. What real motivation is there, any more, for people to attend church? What do they get out of it besides bored and depressed?

Yes! Ha! I always came out depressed and feeling ignorant. People kept telling me church is supposed to make you feel good!!!

Never happened in mormondom.

LDSinc schedules lots of activities: Ex-mos criticize.

LDSinc cuts back on activities: Ex-mos criticize

I've never seen anyone here criticize the fun activities. Many of the older members have fond memories of those days.

I loved growing up mormon! I counted myself a believer between 1955 and 1965, when I went through the temple, a few days before going into the mission field.

I have been a constant supporter of what a very nice community I was part of! And even after I determined that there was no real live ghawd in mormonism, it was still a good community. I enjoyed my mission and I enjoyed my three years at the Y, even the hilarious part of me being an EQP...

And now that church doesn't exist anymore. Gone, gone, gone!

If there wasn't cult susceptibility built into a certain percentage of the human race, the mormon church would have begun it's death spiral in 1978 (The Blacks get to join the party) and then cratered out in 1985, courtesy of Mark Hofmann.

But it continues to march on, leaner and much much meaner... Yay mormon Jesus!

Ex-Mormons criticizing the Mormon church—every bit of it—who’d have thunk it?!

We had a "break the fast" potluck every month but that stopped too.

subeamnotlogedin Wrote:
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> We had a "break the fast" potluck every month but that stopped too.

I’m guessing that the same 10 people who were the only ones who brought food every time, got tired of doing it. :)

The mormon church does not invest in their members. They just want to take from them. It is shortsighted to think they can constantly harvest benefits without even investing anything of significance in to next year's crop. In business, you're always much better off to get a very small percentage of revenues from a very large and successful enterprise than you would be to get a much higher percentage of a relatively small enterprise. Would you rather get one percent of all McDonalds revenues and never need to do anything, or fifty percent of revenues from some local hamburger restaurant that you had to manage and work at yourself to keep it running? The church is cannibalizing their core and selling-off their most precious capital asset, their people.

When the church steals revenues away from local communities and people in those communities get little in return, they quit or leave. So those revenues dry-up all together eventually because the leadership got too greedy. The church leaders think they can sell the temple experience like they have a monopoly on something of value. By the time they realize that the core of their organization has abandoned ship and that the former members now mock that temple experience, the church will be left with a much smaller organization because of their own shortsightedness and greed. It's like if McDonalds cut their employees pay in half and then made their salaried managers work more overtime to make up the losses of labor when the bottom-level employees quit. How sustainable would that be? Communities suffer while the church gets richer out of their own greed to take something from others and not give anything of value in return. What goes around comes around.

at least to me it seems like ChurchCo wants to destroy / eliminate any-all individual sense of Right/Wrong, Good/Bad.

Thanks, Azsteve, for your thoughts.

I agree with your comparisons to big businesses which care only about their quarterly profits, not about anything long term. It seems the old men are just out to squeeze every penny for themselves and their families before they die. They pretend to care about the members but don’t.

If the wards close or just offer sacrament, no activities, while still requiring tithing and missions and unpaid callings and temple attendance, I wonder if that equation will balance out? Pie in the sky when you die, in the meantime give us everything.

Thanks for writing, Steve!

The 'church' doesn't sleep well,
Only concerned about EATING,
It gets fat on its greed & lusts.
It feeds on its member's vulnerability: its ignorance (of the truth) and trust!

There is a saying: A Taker May Eat Better But A Giver Sleeps Better.

Clearly, TSCC is a TAKER.
Take a member's Time
Take a member's Money
Even take their Morality
Their Family, Their Faith
Their Practices & Traditions
Their Thoughts & Patterns

It can ONLY take...
Not designed to give

It is a leech-
Mormonism sucks!

moremany Wrote:
---------------------------------------------------
>
> It is a leech-
> Mormonism sucks!

You’ve got it!!! Good points here!!!

Maybe they don’t people talking to each other. That’s the first step to apostasy. It’s too easy to put two and two together.

I assume that is a major element in the thought processes of the LDS leaders. I believe it's also why they don't want members forming groups to reading scriptures or pray together, or meeting with other families even semi-regularly for FHE. LDS inc. is partial to the "divide and conquer" technique for keeping apsotasy at bay. It's tough to get a good apostasy movement rolling without communication.

The prohibition of study groups was a gut-punch to many believers & TBMs.

They have been experimenting since 1980s.