Justified Secrecy for Our Ward Split?

[Deepthinker]

Our ward was split yesterday, but that’s not what I’m upset about. I was all set to teach my first lesson to the youth (was just called to this calling last week). I spent a significant amount of time on it, and my wife spent a great deal of time on her lesson for the YW.

At the end of sacrament meeting yesterday, the person conducting announced that the next two hours of meetings are cancelled (surprise!) and we are to reconvene in 15 minutes in the chapel.

The stake presidency planned to do it this way, saying that they wanted us to actually listen and enjoy our sacrament meeting and not worry about the ward split. Is this a good reason? I don’t think so. It seems like there is just too much secrecy about this.

I mean, why not just announce the week before that we will have a special meeting after sacrament next week. Who cares if people speculate about what’s going to happen? Let them prepare for the news and give teachers a break from spending hours on lessons that they won’t have to teach anyway.

Stake president even kept the news from his wife, who he said had been spending time last week preparing for a lesson that day too. Ironically, my wife didn’t get to enjoy sacrament meeting because she was too stressed about her lesson. She gets very worried when she has to teach (about 3-4 times per year). She was just as upset as me, said that it basically ruined her whole weekend trying to prepare for the lesson.

Sorry, just need to vent. It seems like a little thing, and it shouldn’t bother me so much but it does. There are much bigger issues, for sure. I think the reason it does bother me is that I felt as though I was finally in a calling that I could do some good, that would keep me from getting bored with Sunday school, and that I was really making an effort in supporting DW at church by accepting the calling. Now I feel like I had my first week on the job, and all my work was just tossed aside as not important.

[Linked]

That sounds really frustrating. As a parent of 2 little kids there is no way our whole family would be able to stay for SM, then an additional large group meeting.

[alas]

It may sound like a little thing but it is a symptom of a huge problem. The church has no respect for the members, or their time. Consider the hours of time spent on lessons that will never be given. And for what purpose? So that members will not be trying to guess what the special meeting is about. So what if members spend 15 minutes talking about what this meeting is going to be about, even if some of them guess correctly. So what? Isn't the time wasted on getting a lesson ready worth anything. If someone wasted several hours of one of the 12, I bet he would be royaly pissed. The members time is not worth crap to our leaders, and that is the real problem. Shown in hundreds of small ways.

[Jeffret]

It's all part of the Mormon leadership obsession with control and secrecy. They want to control what everyone thinks and says and does, particularly when it concerns them. They try to keep everything as quiet as possible and then spring it on everyone as suddenly as possible. They enjoy the power that gives them. The power to disrupt everyone's lives.

And no, the really don't care how that inconveniences others.

[Just This Guy]

I have been though two ward splits and one stake split. In all cases, it was known about before hand and everyone came in knowing to expect something, even if the details were unknown. So unless there has been a change in policy in the last few years, there is no reason to keep it under wraps.

[Not Buying It]

Alas is 100% correct, it is symptomatic of an overall lack of respect for members. They couldn’t care less about the time that was spent preparing lessons, because to the organization overall individual members mean nothing. The LDS Church has it completely backwards - rather than existing to serve and help members, members exist to serve and help the Church. Your work and service on its behalf mean nothing to it, in the Church’s view you owe it anything it asks for. Wasted time on lessons that were cancelled doesn’t even register with leaders.

I’ve told my wife, the Church doesn’t care about you. It really doesn’t. And she knows it, she just puts up with it because she thinks God wants her to.

[nibbler]

That stinks. Usually they will do the standard meeting for an undisclosed purpose and let all the teachers know to take a week off.

I'd just take my preparation from the previous week and teach that lesson the next time it was my turn to teach... if possible.

[GoodBoy]

I think it is leadership reveling in their power over people. There is no reason why it should be secret, and in fact it shouldn't be. How can the members make an informed decision as to whether they are going to sustain or not when there is no time to consider it?

[A New Name]

It is the same then the Exec Sec (ward or Stake) calls you and says Pres Smith wants to meet with you. You ask why and they say they don't know. B.S!
They know exactly what they meeting is about. When I was bishop, I told the Exec Sec to tell them that the Bishop was thinking about a new calling for them and he would like to speak with them about it.

[wtfluff]

The stake presidency planned to do it this way, saying that they wanted us to actually listen and enjoy our sacrament meeting and not worry about the ward split. Is this a good reason? I don’t think so. It seems like there is just too much secrecy about this.

Is it a good reason? In the Steak President's mind, yes it is. I mean, it's literally like a grade-school boy's-club clique "keeping secrets", but it's still justified in his head.

And as other's have mentioned: It's about power and control.

[MerrieMiss]

It's all about power. And it's stupid.

A few years back our stake redrew boundaries and etc., and there was an extra meeting scheduled for 5pm after church. That's right, you've been at church for three hours, go get some more. On top of that, I had a friend on the high council who told me that they were instructed to leak the reason for the meeting to a few people who were notorious for gossiping in order to get the rumor mill started. Just stupid.

[moksha]

Missing a lesson is something small; nothing to fret about. The more lasting effect will be the change you experience from having the ward split. There might be some familiar faces you will miss. I know that was the case for one of the wards in my stake that was dissolved a few years ago and the congregation was sent to two other wards. Some of the folks missed one other since they got used to seeing the usual suspects stand and deliver during Fast and Testimony Meeting.

I can understand the secrecy since the Mormon rumor mill would have been equally upsetting if something were to set it off.

[deacon blues]

Is it the church that's weird, or just the members? I think we suffer from leadership by whims. Last Sunday our choir was prepared to present a musical number at Ward Conference. When we arrived at Sacrament meeting we were told that the Stake President had picked another musical number. My wife, as choir director sort of shrugged it off, but I think it's a reminder that the church members are subject to whims by leaders, but leaders don't believe they should be subject to whims of members.

[crossmyheart]

To some, it may not be a big deal, but to you and your spouse, it was an unnecessary sacrifice of time and effort. The anxiety alone is enough to prompt a need to educate the leaders. I would probably be irked enough to write an informative letter asking for consideration given to those whose mental health could have been better served with advanced notice of a special meeting.

It may very well fall on deaf ears, but it would be cathartic.

[DPRoberts]

I have been though two ward splits and one stake split. In all cases, it was known about before hand and everyone came in knowing to expect something, even if the details were unknown. So unless there has been a change in policy in the last few years, there is no reason to keep it under wraps.

Likewise, when our ward had a boundary change they announced that there would be a combined SM with the affected wards attending, and no other meetings. They let us guess about what the change would look like, but I'm not sure they had made the final decision when they made the announcement. This was fairly recently.

[alas]

I have been though two ward splits and one stake split. In all cases, it was known about before hand and everyone came in knowing to expect something, even if the details were unknown. So unless there has been a change in policy in the last few years, there is no reason to keep it under wraps.

Likewise, when our ward had a boundary change they announced that there would be a combined SM with the affected wards attending, and no other meetings. They let us guess about what the change would look like, but I'm not sure they had made the final decision when they made the announcement. This was fairly recently.

We also had a special meeting for the wards involved with three changes in my last stake. One was a ward split (2 wards split to make 3) and another was one ward split into two, then later when boundaries were redrawn. It was announced what the meeting was about ahead of time and a special meeting not during regular church. These meetings and the exact purpose were announced a week in advance. Sure, there was speculation on where exactly boundaries would end up, but so what if people try to guess ahead of time.

[Linked]

They probably bought what they were selling about SM being the most important meeting in church (It's not, none of the meetings are important). If that were true then they shouldn't disrupt it by announcing the ward split there, and if any leaks came out people wouldn't be able to experience the amazing event that is SM.

The logic is kind of there, unless you have actually attended a SM.

[Deepthinker]

It's all part of the Mormon leadership obsession with control and secrecy. They want to control what everyone thinks and says and does, particularly when it concerns them. They try to keep everything as quiet as possible and then spring it on everyone as suddenly as possible. They enjoy the power that gives them. The power to disrupt everyone's lives.

And no, the really don't care how that inconveniences others.

This is what I told my wife it was about, power and control. She had no comment.

[Deepthinker]

The stake presidency planned to do it this way, saying that they wanted us to actually listen and enjoy our sacrament meeting and not worry about the ward split. Is this a good reason? I don’t think so. It seems like there is just too much secrecy about this.

Is it a good reason? In the Steak President's mind, yes it is. I mean, it's literally like a grade-school boy's-club clique "keeping secrets", but it's still justified in his head.

And as other's have mentioned: It's about power and control.

What's funny about this is that I had a conversation with our stake president late last year about splitting our ward, he was the one who brought it up. We were talking about how many youth we had, this was while I was executive secretary. I remember him saying he didn't want people talking about it, to which I quickly responded that people are going to talk no matter what you do, that you can't control that. Needless to say, what I said to him didn't matter. He still thought in his mind that he was controlling the situation.

[Deepthinker]

They probably bought what they were selling about SM being the most important meeting in church (It's not, none of the meetings are important). If that were true then they shouldn't disrupt it by announcing the ward split there, and if any leaks came out people wouldn't be able to experience the amazing event that is SM.

The logic is kind of there, unless you have actually attended a SM.

Apparently, it was already leaked by someone in the elders quorum of the other ward involved in the split the week before (they took 2 wards and made 3). There were many in the other ward who knew it was coming the week before.