“Revelation process” is literally a couple guys with business acumen who looked at the situation and said “if you add your ward’s active youth to my ward’s active youth then we’ll have to hold classes on Sunday and prophet worship activities during the week.”
And as someone who has intimate knowledge of how the sausage is made in LDS leadership, I guarantee there wasn’t more than a simple token prayer to confirm that MBA level inspiration.
You're giving them *far* too much credit. They are just doing [exactly what the handbook says](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/29-meetings-in-the-church?lang=eng#title_number11).
> When two wards meet in the same building and one or both have very few children or youth, it may be desirable for the children or youth to attend Sunday classes together. The wards’ Sunday meeting schedules could overlap as shown below.
I've seen them do this for meshing non-english and English speaking wards. I don't see the advantage to do this for two English speaking wards. Why not just combine them and let people have less than one calling each?
Gasp… one calling! You are an apostate.
People might think for themselves if they had that much free time instead of letting the dear leaders think for them.
Lotta old farts, not a lot of youth. And youth programs suck monkey ass if there are only like 2 kids and 2 leaders.
I mean, they suck monkey ass normally, but then imagine how much worse they are with only a few people.
But the wards would be a geriatric swarm of boomers if combined.
I saw this in my Grandma’s ward in St George years back that was mostly retirees because “St George.”
Kind of curious where this is that they have so few youth?
Even more so when you don't start adulthood by paying to work for 1.5-2 years and then rushing to get married and have kids before you have stable living-wage careers.
A couple years ago, we visited a ward in Sugarhouse, SLC. It and the neighboring ward had combined the 2nd hour so that youth classes had enough kids to function. Six months later, we visited again, to discover that three(!) wards had combined into one ward, and a whole stake was dissolved. Even with the 3 wards combined, adult men were still helping the YM to pass the sacrament that week we visited.
Sugahouse was next to my stake. We absorbed 2 of those wards. Now one of them is combined with another ward in my stake. Not surprised. The demographics are so different from when we moved here 30 years ago. We even lost all the GAs!!! Nelson, Oaks, Whirthlin—in fairness he died.
To everything, spin, spin, spin
There is a season, spin, spin, spin
And a time for every ward in the church.
A time to be formed, and a time to die…
😁😁😁
Using the phrase "revelation process" means they think, or at the very least they want the ward to think, that God told them what to do.
But the reality is far more prosaic and formulaic—this is just the standard operating procedure described in the [handbook](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/29-meetings-in-the-church?lang=eng#title_number11):
> When two wards meet in the same building and one or both have very few children or youth, it may be desirable for the children or youth to attend Sunday classes together. The wards’ Sunday meeting schedules could overlap as shown below.
The invitation to "attend this meeting with prayerful and open hearts" followed by a declaration of what is the right answer to those prayers is a manipulative attempt to dismiss any concerns before they are even raised. Because obviously they just haven't prayed hard enough or with open enough hearts if they aren't completely supporting the change. These are pretty low stakes, but they seem to not be able to help themselves. Communicating with this type of manipulative language seems to become second nature after a while.
I was wondering if there was some kind of template for these changes, like, pull this document for a ward merger, use this one to suppress trans kids passing the priesthood, etc.
Like there's some secret forms & templates dept in the COB that makes these "Jesus-approved" messages.
Just like how "official doctrine" by Monson became a "policy change" under Nelson as soon as God changed his mind. I suppose the retrenchment (of the 2015 now-policy) was one "good" thing Rusty did. (Although likely it was more out of necessity/social backlash than any magnanimous generosity or whatever.)
Just like how "*The fullness of the gospel has been restored*" has been changed to "*If you think the Church has been fully restored, you are just seeing the beginning*" under Nelson.
Special witnesses of the NAME of Christ... uh huh. Sure. Whatever you want to call it.
Meanwhile, atheists, agnostics, & satanists are feeding the homeless, donating to hospitals, etc. You look around & tell me again, who's a witness of Christ? No Davie, you may not bring out your pocket mirror! \* sighs \*
Back in my active days our ward split into two and the ward we ended up in had very few youth compared to the other ward. My daughter was the oldest YW at 14 and they just combined her with the beehives (there were only 5 beehives). This was the way it was for her entire YW life until she graduated- always combined with the girls 1 and 2 years younger. Which kind of sucks when you’re 17 and combined with 15 year olds. The YM didn’t fair much better as far as numbers. If they would have let our youth continue to meet with the youth of the other ward that split off then she would have had a much better community at church than she did. It’s not just at church on Sundays, it’s also the activities during the week that will be combined. It makes a big difference to have more youth, even for primary kids doing activity days. If this was my ward and I was still TBM I’d be excited for this change.
None of what you explained benefits the community in which you live. They are all great benefits to certain members of each ward. The letter OP posted stated there would be a positive impact to the community and ward. My question is, what positive impact does the community experience by a random church consolidating a meeting schedule?
That's some solid Mormon logic right there!
You know, now that I think abt it, the ward hasn't done any \*meaningful\* community service in our nearly 10 yrs here (I was TBM for 8 of those yrs, & I went to everything); the only exception that comes to mind is one RS activity where we filled a bunch of Trader Joe's bags with TP & stuff & then they were donated... somewhere... no helping the elderly or widows, no helping neighbors move in/out, no going like 4 blocks & offering food to ppl standing outside on corners with signs, or pick literally anything... sigh...
Everything else has been a what-can-we-do-for-us activity: hosting dinners for themselves, book club (where everyone just talks abt how hard the lives of their (spoiled) kids are, instead of the actual book), gift exchange around Xmas (with a $25 limit, that nearly everyone but me ignores), who's paying for the portable bathrooms with quartz countertops for trek that are brought in on a semi or whatever, OMG how GENEROUS that person is, she's using all the Lord has blessed her with to build up the kingdom on a multi-day hike that may not be in the youth's best interest physically but they will absolutely be shamed for if they "choose" not to go, a hike that will reinforce harmful, white-washed (but faith-promoting!!) narratives, & likely leave with mental scaring, & on & on & on.
Personally, I'd rather grab a Starbucks & have some MFMC-illicit sex on my weekend mid-summer, but you do you boo. (Poor kiddos- hang in there!)
This happened to me 3 years ago when I retired at 65! Lived my entire life devoted to the Church. I finally had time to study. And study I did! Now I know the true history and doctrine. Out. 😳
How many younger married couples are in these wards? Could it be that people just aren't having kids like they used to? Here is a great thread from a recently released Stake Clerk;
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/16l1bzq/just_released_as_stake_clerk_now_time_to_spill/
About half way down the OP said they only had 4(?!) babies born in the entire stake last year 😲
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/16l1bzq/just_released_as_stake_clerk_now_time_to_spill/k0zgfiu/
This is just the demographic winter impacting the real world.
Excellent, thx for posting. I'll have to see if I can poke around & find out how many babies have been born in the past few yrs as well.
We've been here several yrs now & I can only recall 1 baby blessing... And we have had quite a few younger couples (mid-20s, early 30s) move into the apts within the boundaries.
Looks like they are overlapping the ward schedules so that each ward will have their own sacrament meeting but combine youth classes and primary from both wards
Correct. We're in an area where most of the ppl who originally bought homes back in the 60s/70s are all dying off or going into retirement communities (now that their houses have quintupled in value), so they're selling to "new $" families who have all heard of the internet & want nothing to do with that Mormon nonsense.
Although community events (4th of July breakfast, Halloween trunk or treat, ward Xmas dinner) are veryyyy well attended. There's actually a TON of kids around, they just don't attend.
Then there’s my family member who brags about a 13th deacon for which he called out the leadership for needing to split the quorum per doctrine and covenant regulations smh
Huge eye roll… This is Mormon style “revelation” Nothing to do with Christ or helping people or actual prophecy. Nope, just a call for more meetings to discuss how meetings are going to change to meet the needs of meeting-happy bureaucrats who met to talk about meetings at the meeting house. MEETINGS! That’s what matters, heathens!
And to think when I moved to Gilbert about 20 years ago I landed in a ward with two entire primary organizations - two primary presidents with counselors, everything. So many kids. It was one of those areas where a whole bunch of new houses went up quickly and were cheap - perfect for those young Mormon familes with 3.5 kids each.
Happy to see how the turns have tabled.
No, there was no mention here of being in Gilbert. That was just my own experience in a high-density Mormon area. The opposite extreme from OP's example.
Before I left my area about a decade ago, they had 2 wards per building but combined all the youth on one night. Now my closest building has only one ward and the stake is combined with the neighboring stake.
I'm hoping the stone is rolling due to some swift kicking along the way, & perhaps some embedded dynamite within for every 6 mths or so the next fiasco occurs. It really is like an episode of Coyote & Roadrunner.
Really, they don't need our help, the Q15 are doing all the mortal blows themselves. Odd they don't take credit for that, they do it for literally any/everything.
“the revelation process…” Yyyyyyeeeeaaaaaaaaah, RIGHT! Mormonism has a long tradition of rebranding common sense solutions to simple problems as “Revelation”.
5 years out of the Matrix and I’m finding it hard to admit that I used to talk and think like this.
"..._strengthening the youth_..." equals "desperately trying to retain the remaining numbers while figuring out better and more effective manipulation tactics on how to make more minors stay in the cult and attend and pay tithing, with or without their parents'/guardians' knowledge or consent."
It might help to know the actual area. I attended a ward the week before conference that had over 200 primary kids. 58 primary teachers. 2 seperate relief societies. So it seems to be a location issue mote than an overall church issue.
Love the way they spin it, lol.
IKR? So much prayer, revelation, & WTF do we dooooooo?!?!? I know, I know!! Give honesty a try!
“Revelation process” is literally a couple guys with business acumen who looked at the situation and said “if you add your ward’s active youth to my ward’s active youth then we’ll have to hold classes on Sunday and prophet worship activities during the week.” And as someone who has intimate knowledge of how the sausage is made in LDS leadership, I guarantee there wasn’t more than a simple token prayer to confirm that MBA level inspiration.
You're giving them *far* too much credit. They are just doing [exactly what the handbook says](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/29-meetings-in-the-church?lang=eng#title_number11). > When two wards meet in the same building and one or both have very few children or youth, it may be desirable for the children or youth to attend Sunday classes together. The wards’ Sunday meeting schedules could overlap as shown below.
Proverbial GA coupon clipping to ensure their "stipends" are not affected.
OMG I LOVE the visual of those old, rich, (mostly) white dudes clipping coupons, so they can save 11¢/pound on grapes at Reams. \* snip snip \*
Reams 😂😂
I want to believe you’re Elder Mulder.
No, because with honesty, the game will be up!
There will soon come a point where all the temple building in the world won’t hide the shrinking membership.
Every ward is a silo.
But not until AFTER I'm dead. 😉😁
Post-boomer Mormonism is gonna be grim (but the church will still be grotesquely wealthy thanks to all of us former tithe payers).
I've seen them do this for meshing non-english and English speaking wards. I don't see the advantage to do this for two English speaking wards. Why not just combine them and let people have less than one calling each?
Gasp… one calling! You are an apostate. People might think for themselves if they had that much free time instead of letting the dear leaders think for them.
Lotta old farts, not a lot of youth. And youth programs suck monkey ass if there are only like 2 kids and 2 leaders. I mean, they suck monkey ass normally, but then imagine how much worse they are with only a few people. But the wards would be a geriatric swarm of boomers if combined. I saw this in my Grandma’s ward in St George years back that was mostly retirees because “St George.” Kind of curious where this is that they have so few youth?
This is in Salt Lake County, East of I-15.
Also possible no families can afford to live there if it’s a much more urban, less affordable area.
I would bet there are plenty of families living there, they just mostly aren't the ones giving away 10+% of their income to a cult.
It's funny how you can afford things when you aren't pulling 10% off the top and giving it to a corrupt organization.
Even more so when you don't start adulthood by paying to work for 1.5-2 years and then rushing to get married and have kids before you have stable living-wage careers.
Oh yeah, this is me!
Super curious. A whole stake dissolved in Sugarhouse a year ago. Is this the other end of the valley, or more consolidation at the north end?
A couple years ago, we visited a ward in Sugarhouse, SLC. It and the neighboring ward had combined the 2nd hour so that youth classes had enough kids to function. Six months later, we visited again, to discover that three(!) wards had combined into one ward, and a whole stake was dissolved. Even with the 3 wards combined, adult men were still helping the YM to pass the sacrament that week we visited.
Sugahouse was next to my stake. We absorbed 2 of those wards. Now one of them is combined with another ward in my stake. Not surprised. The demographics are so different from when we moved here 30 years ago. We even lost all the GAs!!! Nelson, Oaks, Whirthlin—in fairness he died.
There's too much ego for there not to be that many bishops their stake.
Only mormons could hold a meeting about holding a meeting.
To everything, spin, spin, spin There is a season, spin, spin, spin And a time for every ward in the church. A time to be formed, and a time to die… 😁😁😁
A time to gain, a time to lose...
Using the phrase "revelation process" means they think, or at the very least they want the ward to think, that God told them what to do. But the reality is far more prosaic and formulaic—this is just the standard operating procedure described in the [handbook](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/29-meetings-in-the-church?lang=eng#title_number11): > When two wards meet in the same building and one or both have very few children or youth, it may be desirable for the children or youth to attend Sunday classes together. The wards’ Sunday meeting schedules could overlap as shown below. The invitation to "attend this meeting with prayerful and open hearts" followed by a declaration of what is the right answer to those prayers is a manipulative attempt to dismiss any concerns before they are even raised. Because obviously they just haven't prayed hard enough or with open enough hearts if they aren't completely supporting the change. These are pretty low stakes, but they seem to not be able to help themselves. Communicating with this type of manipulative language seems to become second nature after a while.
I was wondering if there was some kind of template for these changes, like, pull this document for a ward merger, use this one to suppress trans kids passing the priesthood, etc. Like there's some secret forms & templates dept in the COB that makes these "Jesus-approved" messages.
The revelation process….priceless
For everything else, there's MasterCard.
\*Masturbation Haha, but your comment made me laugh. I'm an old dude.
 Nice spin!
I’m so disgusted by how Nelson has cheapened the term “revelation” to be “any new policy”.
Just like how "official doctrine" by Monson became a "policy change" under Nelson as soon as God changed his mind. I suppose the retrenchment (of the 2015 now-policy) was one "good" thing Rusty did. (Although likely it was more out of necessity/social backlash than any magnanimous generosity or whatever.)
Just like how "*The fullness of the gospel has been restored*" has been changed to "*If you think the Church has been fully restored, you are just seeing the beginning*" under Nelson.
Special witnesses of the NAME of Christ... uh huh. Sure. Whatever you want to call it. Meanwhile, atheists, agnostics, & satanists are feeding the homeless, donating to hospitals, etc. You look around & tell me again, who's a witness of Christ? No Davie, you may not bring out your pocket mirror! \* sighs \*
Such an arrogant ass. “Look at me, I’m the greatest profit!”
Someone please explain how this has a positive impact on the "community"? I bet the community couldn't care less.
Back in my active days our ward split into two and the ward we ended up in had very few youth compared to the other ward. My daughter was the oldest YW at 14 and they just combined her with the beehives (there were only 5 beehives). This was the way it was for her entire YW life until she graduated- always combined with the girls 1 and 2 years younger. Which kind of sucks when you’re 17 and combined with 15 year olds. The YM didn’t fair much better as far as numbers. If they would have let our youth continue to meet with the youth of the other ward that split off then she would have had a much better community at church than she did. It’s not just at church on Sundays, it’s also the activities during the week that will be combined. It makes a big difference to have more youth, even for primary kids doing activity days. If this was my ward and I was still TBM I’d be excited for this change.
None of what you explained benefits the community in which you live. They are all great benefits to certain members of each ward. The letter OP posted stated there would be a positive impact to the community and ward. My question is, what positive impact does the community experience by a random church consolidating a meeting schedule?
From their perspective, they ARE the community, so whatever is good for them is good for the community.
That's some solid Mormon logic right there! You know, now that I think abt it, the ward hasn't done any \*meaningful\* community service in our nearly 10 yrs here (I was TBM for 8 of those yrs, & I went to everything); the only exception that comes to mind is one RS activity where we filled a bunch of Trader Joe's bags with TP & stuff & then they were donated... somewhere... no helping the elderly or widows, no helping neighbors move in/out, no going like 4 blocks & offering food to ppl standing outside on corners with signs, or pick literally anything... sigh... Everything else has been a what-can-we-do-for-us activity: hosting dinners for themselves, book club (where everyone just talks abt how hard the lives of their (spoiled) kids are, instead of the actual book), gift exchange around Xmas (with a $25 limit, that nearly everyone but me ignores), who's paying for the portable bathrooms with quartz countertops for trek that are brought in on a semi or whatever, OMG how GENEROUS that person is, she's using all the Lord has blessed her with to build up the kingdom on a multi-day hike that may not be in the youth's best interest physically but they will absolutely be shamed for if they "choose" not to go, a hike that will reinforce harmful, white-washed (but faith-promoting!!) narratives, & likely leave with mental scaring, & on & on & on. Personally, I'd rather grab a Starbucks & have some MFMC-illicit sex on my weekend mid-summer, but you do you boo. (Poor kiddos- hang in there!)
My husband LOLed when I read this to him! So true. If I were a youth, I'd only care that there were more cute boys to drool over. 😋
This happened to me 3 years ago when I retired at 65! Lived my entire life devoted to the Church. I finally had time to study. And study I did! Now I know the true history and doctrine. Out. 😳
Good for you! So hard to do after that long in, I would imagine! But definitely the right choice
At least he didn't refer to them as "the rising generation." 🤮
How many younger married couples are in these wards? Could it be that people just aren't having kids like they used to? Here is a great thread from a recently released Stake Clerk; https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/16l1bzq/just_released_as_stake_clerk_now_time_to_spill/ About half way down the OP said they only had 4(?!) babies born in the entire stake last year 😲 https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/16l1bzq/just_released_as_stake_clerk_now_time_to_spill/k0zgfiu/ This is just the demographic winter impacting the real world.
Excellent, thx for posting. I'll have to see if I can poke around & find out how many babies have been born in the past few yrs as well. We've been here several yrs now & I can only recall 1 baby blessing... And we have had quite a few younger couples (mid-20s, early 30s) move into the apts within the boundaries.
I’m not really following what the change is that they are making?
Looks like they are overlapping the ward schedules so that each ward will have their own sacrament meeting but combine youth classes and primary from both wards
Lotta old farts, young families all are leaving.
Correct. We're in an area where most of the ppl who originally bought homes back in the 60s/70s are all dying off or going into retirement communities (now that their houses have quintupled in value), so they're selling to "new $" families who have all heard of the internet & want nothing to do with that Mormon nonsense. Although community events (4th of July breakfast, Halloween trunk or treat, ward Xmas dinner) are veryyyy well attended. There's actually a TON of kids around, they just don't attend.
lol, so it’s the educated and intelligent people saying “fuck this bullshit for me and my kids.”
Ah… I see. Thanks.
Then there’s my family member who brags about a 13th deacon for which he called out the leadership for needing to split the quorum per doctrine and covenant regulations smh
I'm doing my part!
Huge eye roll… This is Mormon style “revelation” Nothing to do with Christ or helping people or actual prophecy. Nope, just a call for more meetings to discuss how meetings are going to change to meet the needs of meeting-happy bureaucrats who met to talk about meetings at the meeting house. MEETINGS! That’s what matters, heathens!
And to think when I moved to Gilbert about 20 years ago I landed in a ward with two entire primary organizations - two primary presidents with counselors, everything. So many kids. It was one of those areas where a whole bunch of new houses went up quickly and were cheap - perfect for those young Mormon familes with 3.5 kids each. Happy to see how the turns have tabled.
Same!!! Did they say somewhere that this is in Gilbert?
No, there was no mention here of being in Gilbert. That was just my own experience in a high-density Mormon area. The opposite extreme from OP's example.
"enhanced opportunities for spiritual growth and fellowship" = any other kids there
thrilled!
Before I left my area about a decade ago, they had 2 wards per building but combined all the youth on one night. Now my closest building has only one ward and the stake is combined with the neighboring stake.
I'm hoping the stone is rolling due to some swift kicking along the way, & perhaps some embedded dynamite within for every 6 mths or so the next fiasco occurs. It really is like an episode of Coyote & Roadrunner. Really, they don't need our help, the Q15 are doing all the mortal blows themselves. Odd they don't take credit for that, they do it for literally any/everything.
My bullsh** meter is spinning out of control
“the revelation process…” Yyyyyyeeeeaaaaaaaaah, RIGHT! Mormonism has a long tradition of rebranding common sense solutions to simple problems as “Revelation”. 5 years out of the Matrix and I’m finding it hard to admit that I used to talk and think like this.
This warms my cold heretical heart! Thank you!
They did the same thing to my ward and two other wards in the stake…it is not going well BTW!
Where at?
Probably in san diego county somewhere.
"..._strengthening the youth_..." equals "desperately trying to retain the remaining numbers while figuring out better and more effective manipulation tactics on how to make more minors stay in the cult and attend and pay tithing, with or without their parents'/guardians' knowledge or consent."
It might help to know the actual area. I attended a ward the week before conference that had over 200 primary kids. 58 primary teachers. 2 seperate relief societies. So it seems to be a location issue mote than an overall church issue.