Ward Boundaries Changed

[Pheidippides]

Eh.....Grapevine does it all the time with board impunity.

Grape is a special case. His colloquial nomenclature for the general authorities belies his general knowledge of them.

[scottie]

Grape is a special case. His colloquial nomenclature for the general authorities belies his general knowledge of them.

His "general" knowledge of them, lol.

[wuapinmon]

Eh.....Grapevine does it all the time with board impunity.

Grape is a special case. His colloquial nomenclature for the general authorities belies his general knowledge of them.

What nik said. I like having DWhitmer around and hope he doesn't go away, but I wish he'd recognize that he ain't no salty dog.

[Katy Lied]

I'm with Solon on this.

I'm always interested in learning new perspectives. I can google "whitmerite" or I can ask DWhitmer for his angle on something, an angle I suppose he has contemplated more than I ever care to do so. Why run him off?

[CardiacCoug]

Compare the servitude to a church to do all that and yet not a single item is found in the book J.Smith was called to bring forth. David Whitmer said two revealing things:

1. The Book carries conviction with it.

2. The evil one does not want you to follow it.

The gospel in the Holy Book of Mormon is so simple nearly every Protestant church could cling to it and not change a single thing other than to stop the baptism of children - if they were doing so.

I appreciate your perspective.

Seems like Community of Christ would fit your perspective really well, right? You get to believe in and read the Book of Mormon but practice a religion that is a lot more similar to mainline American Protestantism.

[DWhitmer]

I appreciate your perspective.

Seems like Community of Christ would fit your perspective really well, right? You get to believe in and read the Book of Mormon but practice a religion that is a lot more similar to mainline American Protestantism.

I started a new thread here on those topics and apologize if this one went too astray to the liking of some.

I hope people will continue to share what's happening in their areas.

[Donuthole]

For all the lip service we hear about how the youth are the future and how bishops and leaders should be more concerned with them than the other auxiliaries, they sure are an afterthought when it comes to splitting wards.

The church's footprint is steadily growing here, and I've now been through three ward splits in the 7 years I've lived here (that's through a recession, mind you. Prior to the recession most suburban wards were splitting almost yearly). Both prior times my ward split, there has been a noticeable carve out for some old-timey, well-established members. Sometimes it is more obvious (Diatribe: I think I posted about this on CG back then, but 6 years ago in a different stake, the gerrymandering was so explicit that it elicited several audible guffaws from the ward when it was formally announced in sacrament meeting. There was, quite literally, a big jog in an otherwise straight boundary line to incorporate a neighborhood containing four established families into a ward with all of their established friends (and, conveniently, no apartment complexes in that ward boundaries). We were split off into a ward with 4 apartment complexes and exactly 3 young men, while the other ward maintained 14-16 young men, 6 of whom would have been in our ward absent the obvious gerrymandering), and sometimes it is more subtle (3 years ago an inconvenient boundary was pretty clearly drawn to leave a bishop in the old ward. Generally this is a legitimate consideration when drawing the boundaries, but he had been in for 5 years already and was released just 2 months after the split. Oh, and all of his 6 kids got to stay in the ward with their friends while the new ward was left with a total of 3 deacons, 1 teacher, and 1 priest).

Last week it was the splitting of 2 wards to make a 3rd. Our new ward meets for the first time this Sunday. While there are certainly some peculiarities to the new boundaries, nothing blatant stands out (although, the old bishop's family is still kept in the old ward based on that prior boundary, when it would make a lot more sense to have his street in our ward). However, our new ward has exactly two young men. Two. Each of the other two wards have at least 10. I am not in YM at this point, but, having been in YM 6 years ago when in the exact same situation, I can empathize with our new YM presidency. Sunday lessons will be painful with such a small group, and I'm almost certain they'll be asked to tag along with one of the other wards for Wednesday activities (which is extremely difficult for planning purposes, especially when coordinating joint activities with the YW). Add in the fact that we will be meeting in a different building, and they will be facing another layer of difficulty.

My rant is mostly over, but as I sat through a stake leadership training meeting last night and listened to the SP talk about how the bishops need to spend most of their time with the youth and let the other auxiliaries take care of themselves, I couldn't help but think of how nice it would be to have the youth be a consideration while the new boundaries are being drawn, as opposed to merely a priority once they've already been drawn.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Two YM? Wow. That will be tough on those two boys.

My daughter is attending her last YW camp this week and our ward has 60 YW attending. That has to be one of the biggest YW groups in the church.

[creekster]

For all the lip service we hear about how the youth are the future and how bishops and leaders should be more concerned with them than the other auxiliaries, they sure are an afterthought when it comes to splitting wards.

The church's footprint is steadily growing here, and I've now been through three ward splits in the 7 years I've lived here (that's through a recession, mind you. Prior to the recession most suburban wards were splitting almost yearly). Both prior times my ward split, there has been a noticeable carve out for some old-timey, well-established members. Sometimes it is more obvious (Diatribe: I think I posted about this on CG back then, but 6 years ago in a different stake, the gerrymandering was so explicit that it elicited several audible guffaws from the ward when it was formally announced in sacrament meeting. There was, quite literally, a big jog in an otherwise straight boundary line to incorporate a neighborhood containing four established families into a ward with all of their established friends (and, conveniently, no apartment complexes in that ward boundaries). We were split off into a ward with 4 apartment complexes and exactly 3 young men, while the other ward maintained 14-16 young men, 6 of whom would have been in our ward absent the obvious gerrymandering), and sometimes it is more subtle (3 years ago an inconvenient boundary was pretty clearly drawn to leave a bishop in the old ward. Generally this is a legitimate consideration when drawing the boundaries, but he had been in for 5 years already and was released just 2 months after the split. Oh, and all of his 6 kids got to stay in the ward with their friends while the new ward was left with a total of 3 deacons, 1 teacher, and 1 priest).

Last week it was the splitting of 2 wards to make a 3rd. Our new ward meets for the first time this Sunday. While there are certainly some peculiarities to the new boundaries, nothing blatant stands out (although, the old bishop's family is still kept in the old ward based on that prior boundary, when it would make a lot more sense to have his street in our ward). However, our new ward has exactly two young men. Two. Each of the other two wards have at least 10. I am not in YM at this point, but, having been in YM 6 years ago when in the exact same situation, I can empathize with our new YM presidency. Sunday lessons will be painful with such a small group, and I'm almost certain they'll be asked to tag along with one of the other wards for Wednesday activities (which is extremely difficult for planning purposes, especially when coordinating joint activities with the YW). Add in the fact that we will be meeting in a different building, and they will be facing another layer of difficulty.

My rant is mostly over, but as I sat through a stake leadership training meeting last night and listened to the SP talk about how the bishops need to spend most of their time with the youth and let the other auxiliaries take care of themselves, I couldn't help but think of how nice it would be to have the youth be a consideration while the new boundaries are being drawn, as opposed to merely a priority once they've already been drawn.

We've had some wards in our area go through some years where they opnly had a few youth. Our stake will typically combine yourth programs across ward boundaries for activities and other functions to try top improve the experienvce.

[Moliere]

That sucks DH. There's nothing worse than a crappy YM program and it's tough to make it decent when you have 2 kids to work with.

I do know they have certain quotas they have to meet to form a new ward. I don't know the specifics, but there has to be a certain number of MPH holders and TR holders.

On a somewhat related note, during priest quorum last Sunday the phone in the bishop's office rang. The 1st assistant picked it up and it was a member from Utah calling to see how many YM we had in our ward. I guess they are moving down and are doing some ward shopping to see where they will land. I can imagine them skipping on your ward when you tell them you only have 2 YM.

[cougjunkie]

I am in Young Mens right now and we have similar issues. Our stake recently split and wards are splitting like crazy. Our ward is fairly solid we have 8 priests (only 2 show up regularly but we have had up to 6 actually come at one time), 5 teachers (our lowest number by far but several deacons are close to turning 14) and 12 deacons. We also have 4 more boys that will be turning 12 before the end of the year.

At a recent stake young mens meeting they were going over the numbers, last month we had 15 boys attend church at least once during the month which was pretty average among the stake, I think the highest was 27. We get to a recently formed ward in the only older neighborhood we have in the stake (with a much older Young Mens Presidency, I have noticed the presidency always seems to be early to mid 30s, this ward the entire presidency was closer to 50-60) they had 1 young man attend last month. They have 3 total in the entire ward, to make things worse the 11 year old primary class only has 1 boy in it. They are going to lack numbers for quite some time.

They decided to combine this young man for activities with other wards, I also snatched him up for all of the sporting events as he is one of the better athletes in the stake. When splitting the ward if they would have added one additional street they could have added 3 families one has 4 boys that are YM age, the other both have 2 and they are all fairly active. I asked the 1st counselor in the Stake Presidency about this and he said the rules when splitting do not consider the youth (similar to what D-hole said) but they do need a certain number of Elders and High Priests in each ward.

[Donuthole]

That sucks DH. There's nothing worse than a crappy YM program and it's tough to make it decent when you have 2 kids to work with.

I do know they have certain quotas they have to meet to form a new ward. I don't know the specifics, but there has to be a certain number of MPH holders and TR holders.

On a somewhat related note, during priest quorum last Sunday the phone in the bishop's office rang. The 1st assistant picked it up and it was a member from Utah calling to see how many YM we had in our ward. I guess they are moving down and are doing some ward shopping to see where they will land. I can imagine them skipping on your ward when you tell them you only have 2 YM.

Unless they are like Brekkot Chapman or Jordan Loveridge and, rather than ride the pine in a premier ward, they would rather their boys have the chance to turn the program around. In our ward they could be blessing and preparing the sacrament from day 1! Not every ward can offer that kind of immediate playing time.

[jay santos]

Two YM? Wow. That will be tough on those two boys.

My daughter is attending her last YW camp this week and our ward has 60 YW attending. That has to be one of the biggest YW groups in the church.

Our YW/YM is pretty huge also. Not that big but close.

[Uncle Ted]

That sucks DH. There's nothing worse than a crappy YM program and it's tough to make it decent when you have 2 kids to work with.

I do know they have certain quotas they have to meet to form a new ward. I don't know the specifics, but there has to be a certain number of MPH holders and TR holders.

On a somewhat related note, during priest quorum last Sunday the phone in the bishop's office rang. The 1st assistant picked it up and it was a member from Utah calling to see how many YM we had in our ward. I guess they are moving down and are doing some ward shopping to see where they will land. I can imagine them skipping on your ward when you tell them you only have 2 YM.

Officially we have only have four deacons in our ward but about eight attend scouts nearly every week, our campouts, and are official members of our unit. A while back I had the boys recruited some more boys (non members). If you look at the requirements for one of the rank advancements then you will notice that there is a requirement for the boys to (or at least attempt to) recruit more members for the troop. I had them do the requirement and they passed. Some of the non-member boys even come on Sundays because they like hanging out with the other boys.

BTW, I tell the missionaries if they scare off my non-member troop members by trying to convert them and/or their parents then I'll run them down on their bikes in my truck. I figure if they want to convert then they will do it on their own time.

[Katy Lied]

Wait till you get gerrymandered out of a brand new building that your ward members helped to build at great personal sacrifice and cost, and you have to go to an old building further away, and the gorgeous new building goes to the brand new expensive subdivision next to it, with houses owned by wealthy people who weren't living in the area when the new chapel was built. And when your ward applies to use the picnic pavillion and the baseball field at the new chapel, you are turned down because you live out of the ward boundaries.

Still Steaming,
KL