What will church look like...after Covid-19

[hmb]

My bishop dearly misses the opportunity to worship together, according to his occasional emails.

I get these emails too. Missing being together... I don't buy it. It must be nice not to have to do all the meetings, being away from family, etc. I can imagine an email, at least from many, that states how glad they are to not have to deal with the meeting madness. If they feel that way, they probably feel guilty for feeling that way.

I know there are some bishops that get off on the militaristic structure of meetings and the authority crap. But I'm betting more than half of them are really enjoying this vacation away from a large flock of children and adults treated like children.

My one brother always wanted to be a bishop. He is a control freak, and not a nice one. My other brother has been a bishop more than once and did not want that calling, but did it willingly. I always thought that anyone who WANTS to be a bishop should not be.

[PalmSprings]

I believe church attendance is going to be way down until at least Jan 2021. Still attendance numbers will take years to recover fully, if ever. So you will definitely see a push to get people back out to meetings. On the flip side, I think the church is going to wait until people feel the crisis is a bit behind until the major guilt trip happens.

[Culper Jr.]

I think Nelson will use this to continue to remake the church like he wants it. He seems to really want to get rid of a lot of things, and with everything being cancelled because of Covid-19, the things he doesn't like just quietly won't come back. Whereas getting rid of certain traditions and beloved activities may have caused some pushback earlier, he can now just blame the pandemic.

My dad recently observed that the church is increasingly becoming the "church of NO". Ideas he has had for fun activities (as YM Counsellor and HPGL) that were done in the past were increasingly being shot down by leadership citing cost and liability issues. I can imagine where the church may want to drop things like camps and trek, and really anything that is fun (well, not saying that trek is fun, but...) and replace them with a low cost bore-fest that will not expose the church to much liability (the new FSY conference thing springs to mind).

[hmb]

I think Nelson will use this to continue to remake the church like he wants it. He seems to really want to get rid of a lot of things, and with everything being cancelled because of Covid-19, the things he doesn't like just quietly won't come back. Whereas getting rid of certain traditions and beloved activities may have caused some pushback earlier, he can now just blame the pandemic.

My dad recently observed that the church is increasingly becoming the "church of NO". Ideas he has had for fun activities (as YM Counsellor and HPGL) that were done in the past were increasingly being shot down by leadership citing cost and liability issues. I can imagine where the church may want to drop things like camps and trek, and really anything that is fun (well, not saying that trek is fun, but...) and replace them with a low cost bore-fest that will not expose the church to much liability (the new FSY conference thing springs to mind).

Does this mean the boys are experiencing what girls have always dealt with? NO to most any activity that requires being away from the church building. Camp once/year for 5 days is about the only outing girls ever had. I'm not okay with saying "no" to fun activities, but I'm in favor of more equality in the "no" category. Can you tell I still feel bitter? I also suspect that leaving the umbrella of BSA is part of this. No Boy Scouts...less insurance. Insurance is expensive so less activity.

[græy]

Another græy anecdote...

This past Friday night we were invited to join in a "virtual game night." Basically it was jackbox.tv games over google meet. It was a lot of fun. It was good being able to interact with a few other people who weren't explicitly asking for help... but that is another issue.

Once we finished playing a few games it was approaching ~11:30pm and we were all just chatting and killing time, when the wife in one of the other couples spoke up and mentioned how great she has felt not being stressed about getting to church on time or having to worry about any meetings. The rest of the group quickly agreed. Each shared their relief about not having to get dressed up, not having to relentlessly hound kids to get up, get showered, or get dressed, and not having to be at meetings.

These are all TBMs amongst TBMs; one high councilman, one early AM seminary teacher, EQ/YM/Primary presidents or councilors. If any of them were missing church at all they didn't say anything about it. The only sentiments expressed at all were about how great it was to NOT have church to *worry* about.

And yet, if you ask any of them they'd tell you how the church makes them so happy!

I recognize the pain this pandemic is causing. I know individuals, families, and communities are suffering. I do hope the pandemic breaks and some sense of safety can resume. And yet, a small part of me wants this to continue so that I never have to return to church.

[alas]

I think Nelson will use this to continue to remake the church like he wants it. He seems to really want to get rid of a lot of things, and with everything being cancelled because of Covid-19, the things he doesn't like just quietly won't come back. Whereas getting rid of certain traditions and beloved activities may have caused some pushback earlier, he can now just blame the pandemic.

My dad recently observed that the church is increasingly becoming the "church of NO". Ideas he has had for fun activities (as YM Counsellor and HPGL) that were done in the past were increasingly being shot down by leadership citing cost and liability issues. I can imagine where the church may want to drop things like camps and trek, and really anything that is fun (well, not saying that trek is fun, but...) and replace them with a low cost bore-fest that will not expose the church to much liability (the new FSY conference thing springs to mind).

Does this mean the boys are experiencing what girls have always dealt with? NO to most any activity that requires being away from the church building. Camp once/year for 5 days is about the only outing girls ever had. I'm not okay with saying "no" to fun activities, but I'm in favor of more equality in the "no" category. Can you tell I still feel bitter? I also suspect that leaving the umbrella of BSA is part of this. No Boy Scouts...less insurance. Insurance is expensive so less activity.

I said approximately this, then decided not to post because it sounded bitter. So, I deleted it...twice. But if somebody else dares to start the bitter, “welcome to how the YW have always been treated” then I can add to it.

It was bad enough when I was a YW watching the boys go to camp 18 times a year, and I couldn’t afford to go once because the girls had to pay their own way, while the boys got to go to no cost other than the gear they took. But then as a YW leader, and we couldn’t even bake cookies because the church kitchen is apparently for decoration only. Cooking is a liability issue. Meanwhile we watched the boys go repelling, and white water rafting. We watched the boys fly to Florida at somebody else’s expense while the girls were restricted to going 100 miles to camp, and there was NOTHING within 100 miles of where we lived at the time that was more interesting than.....well Texas. If you have ever driven across Texas, imagine girls camp at 120F in the Texas flat lands, meanwhile, the boys drove to the mountains of Colorado for some real camping. Yeah, I loved that the boys got the scouting experience, but hated hated hated that the girls got NOTHING.

[alas]

Meanwhile, my husband refused to participate, because he said that they will violate social distancing, but all the men in the ward were asked to come pass out the Mother’s Day treat to all the women in the ward. And sure enough, he showed me pictures of a room crowded full of men getting the names, addresses, and goodies to take to the women. Only one man of the 30+ that were visible in the pictures had on a face mask. It was all done in a small room, smaller than the RS room, about classroom size. With 30+ guys crowding around.

I hate that people around here think that it is somebody else that is going to die of this disease and not them because they like denial much better than reality. Reality stinks, so let’s all pretend there is no problem and it is all made up by the people who hate His Royal Orangeness. So, if you want a picture of how church will be as soon as they decide to open it back up, look up “Petri dish.”

[Linked]

Another græy anecdote...

This past Friday night we were invited to join in a "virtual game night." Basically it was jackbox.tv games over google meet. It was a lot of fun. It was good being able to interact with a few other people who weren't explicitly asking for help... but that is another issue.

Once we finished playing a few games it was approaching ~11:30pm and we were all just chatting and killing time, when the wife in one of the other couples spoke up and mentioned how great she has felt not being stressed about getting to church on time or having to worry about any meetings. The rest of the group quickly agreed. Each shared their relief about not having to get dressed up, not having to relentlessly hound kids to get up, get showered, or get dressed, and not having to be at meetings.

These are all TBMs amongst TBMs; one high councilman, one early AM seminary teacher, EQ/YM/Primary presidents or councilors. If any of them were missing church at all they didn't say anything about it. The only sentiments expressed at all were about how great it was to NOT have church to *worry* about.

And yet, if you ask any of them they'd tell you how the church makes them so happy!

I recognize the pain this pandemic is causing. I know individuals, families, and communities are suffering. I do hope the pandemic breaks and some sense of safety can resume. And yet, a small part of me wants this to continue so that I never have to return to church.

I feel bad for the TBM spouses of the disaffected. It's probably harder for them to embrace their enjoyment of no church when their spouse would happily stop going all the time. My DW did say that she does not miss teaching primary.

[græy]

I feel bad for the TBM spouses of the disaffected. It's probably harder for them to embrace their enjoyment of no church when their spouse would happily stop going all the time. My DW did say that she does not miss teaching primary.

If only we all practiced the church-taught-but-not-followed mandate of honesty...