Ward Family

As an introvert, socializing in a large group setting is not my forte. In fact, places where there are large groups of people all gathered together can really stress me out. So, for example, church. Especially when it seems, as it so often does in Mormon singles’ wards’ culture, that the main expectation of church is socializing. To be honest, sometimes this drives me crazy.

But lately I’ve been realizing on a more personal level one of the blessings that comes from actually getting to know the people at church. Church leaders often refer to a “ward family,” and I’m starting to understand what that means with my heart.

This past semester has been one of draining struggles. Before my mission, I would have been so hesitant to ask for support from those around me. I would have kept my struggles to myself until I absolutely could not take it anymore. But something about spending 24/7 with someone and not being able to hide my hard days from them, whether I wanted to or not, taught me a much-needed lesson: it’s okay to let others into the hard parts of my life. Not only is it okay, it’s also helpful. And what’s more: there are always Christlike people around me who want to help.

And so, these past few months, I have once again seen that Christlike desire to help in those people who are around me. And I have found the majority of those people in my ward: neighbors, roommates, the bishop, home teachers, visiting teachers, friends. I have felt my Savior’s love through the willingness that these people in my ward have shown in spending time with me and serving me. I feel so much love from those around me, and it fills me with the strength to get through yet another day. It gives me hope that I can figure out solutions and that things will get better. The effort they put into serving me helps me understand my worth.

And it’s not just one person, but a whole multitude of them, and each one brings with them a different strength. Including those people whom I barely know who keep bringing me cookies. I don’t even know how they knew I was struggling, but somehow they did, and without even really knowing me they are showing me that they care.

It makes me think of a game from a ward activity a couple months ago: each person in a group of five or so had to hold onto a strand of duct tape connected to a pen and draw a picture. Now, picture this in your mind: If only one person holds onto a strand of the duct tape, they can hold the pen upright, no way could they actually draw something with it. Another person holding a strand on the other side would balance it out better. Add two more people to the other corners, and the pen’s now fairly stable. The more people there are supporting the pen, the easier it is for the pen to draw.

Lately I have been that pen. Some days I just feel like lying flat on the ground. So I read my scriptures and I pray, and I find myself standing upright, tied straight to heaven. But even with heaven pulling me upright sometimes it’s still hard to move myself enough to make a mark.

But then my ward family gets involved, and now I have even more people holding onto the strands of duct tape, reinforcing what scripture study and prayer are telling me, that I can do this and everything will work together for my good. All these people supporting me, reinforcing me, helping me not just to stand up straight but to move forward – and suddenly, when I didn’t feel that I could even stand up on my own, I find that somehow I have the strength to make a piece of art.

The Whole is More than the Sum of Its Parts

In case y’all haven’t noticed, life is full of challenges! I’ve mentioned in a previous post how we grow as Christians by helping each other deal with these challenges. Through the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints not only can we help our friends, but we have many opportunities to help strangers, too. Whether they be our neighbors or someone living far away from us, whether they be LDS or not, whether their needs are physical or spiritual, the church provides many opportunities for us to give of ourselves. Of course we can (and should) find opportunities outside of the church organization to serve strangers. So then why does it matter so much that we can serve all these people through the organization of the church? Because it’s effective, it’s efficient, it works on both a global as well as a local level, and through the way the church is structured, we learn a whole lot about eternal leadership principles.

Globally

What can the church, as a group 15 million strong, do together that the individual members couldn’t do on their own? Oh man. A whole heck of a lot. Let’s start with:

Missionary work. Sure, I could go on my own to another country to preach the gospel to all the world. I’m sure it would be great fun. It’d be super exciting when I got there and realized no one else spoke the same language as me, and even if they did, I’d have no idea how to teach the gospel (people go to school for years to learn how to teach, y’all. It ain’t the easiest thing to pick up on).  And then I’d probably have nowhere to stay for the night, no idea where anything was or how to go about finding it, no idea what to do with people who wanted to get baptized once I, miraculously, learned the language and, just as miraculously, found people who actually wanted to get baptized. No structure = not much happens. Problem!

Solution: a system where we spend time in the Missionary Training Center to learn the language and how to teach random strangers about the gospel message. More experienced missionaries are put with less experienced missionaries to help them learn. We have a mission president and his wife, as well as people working in the mission office, to help us find places to live and to help us when there are emergencies that we, as young’uns, have no idea how to handle on our own. We have the materials we need, such as pamphlets and scriptures, to give away. We know where the local meetinghouse is and how to get there. We have the resources and knowledge we need to get by in such a stressful environment, so that we can focus more time on working and less time on being lost and confused. Whew. Thank goodness!

And what about things that cost a lot of money? Like, say, temples? I’m pretty sure I couldn’t afford to build one! Even all the members working together in a country like, say, Nigeria quite possibly could not afford to build a temple. You know who can afford to build a temple? Really, really rich people. Or, you could you just combine a bunch of tithing money from people all over the world, including from much richer areas of the world, and voila, suddenly you can afford to build something really expensive in some place that’s really poor. And the members there don’t have to spend a whole lot of money they can’t afford to give to gain the strength and protection they get from covenants made in such a sacred place by the Lord’s own Priesthood power. They just pay what we’ve all been asked to pay, and working together they can have the same spiritual blessings that people living in richer areas of the world do.

There are also things such as Humanitarian work (remember those bright yellow “Helping Hands” shirts? Those represent great effort from many people to accomplish more good than one person on their own could. Or even more good than that many people working separately, in an unorganized, haphazard manner could), the welfare program of the church, church schools (so much cheaper than other private universities), institutes, meetinghouses, and the like. When we all work together in an organized manner, we have the resources and the manpower to do so much good. On our own, it’s much less effective.

Locally

On the local level, a Priesthood leader living in the area is called to lead the congregation as Bishop. He ensures that ward members are being taken care of both physically and spiritually. He is given specific responsibilities to perform. However, like most humans, he cannot personally visit all 300 ward members every week and plan every meeting and teach every lesson while still working 40 hours a week at his normal job.

So he delegates to the presidents of the various organizations (Relief Society, Elder’s Quorum, High Priests, Young Men and Young Women, and Primary), who, in turn, delegate to the other members of their presidencies and committees. Anyone can be called to any one of these callings at any given time, which means that each of us has the opportunity to serve those within our ward boundaries. 

Each of us needs spiritual and physical nourishment, and sometimes we need help from others to get the nourishment we need. These callings provide us with a way to see the needs of others, including people we may not come into contact with normally. And for those frequent moments when we have no idea of their needs, the Lord has promised to provide us with the revelation we need to know how to bear meet those needs. God knows their needs, and He has promised to magnify our efforts as we serve in our church callings with all our heart, might, mind, and strength. Through these callings, we have opportunities to make sure others in our locality are spiritually, physically, socially, and mentally nourished and taken care of.

The one calling in our life that never changes is that of home or visiting teacher. This lifetime calling gives us ample opportunities to serve others on a very personal, meaningful level. Home and visiting teaching gives us an opportunity to visit with others in the ward, to get to know them and their struggles and their joys. As we visit every month, we can receive revelation (and sometimes observe with our own intellect) what they need. If we discover that they are struggling, we can help. If they need love, or support, or help financially or physically, we are in their home every month, and they (hopefully) know they can turn to us. This is the purpose of home and visiting teaching, so that every member of every ward gets visited in their home every month so that their needs can be met by other members. If their needs are something more than we have the resources to help them with, we can inform the Bishop, and he can help them in ways that we maybe cannot. But since he cannot visit every member every month, he asks us too, and in this way it is not just the higher-up leaders of the ward organization that have the opportunity to personally serve the members of the church, but all of us have that opportunity as well.

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Of course there are a lot of other organizations we can, and probably should, get involved in, but this list of things we can accomplish as an organized church is just another example of why we need a church, and not just a religion. A church organization can do things that religious people working individually cannot. This is a small list of what we can accomplish working together. A more comprehensive list can be found in the talk “Why the Church” by Elder Todd D. Christofferson. Without organized religion, the blessings of the restored Priesthood, such as baptism by proper authority and temple work, cannot spread. Nor, without organized religion, do we have as easy an opportunity provided for us to nourish others both physically and spiritually. We can accomplish much good on our own, but when we work together within the framework of the church, our whole becomes more than the sum of our parts.