I was just thinking today about the ward I have lived in for the last two decades. Not sure how it is now, but while I was active the ward had a serious case of STP (same ten people). The same ten people were always called to the various leadership positions within the ward. At one point the bishop's wife was the Primary pres and the first counselor in the bishopric's wife was the Relief Society pres. So it kinda felt like the ward was being run by these two families.

So is this unique to this ward or is it like that everywhere?

Problem in my ward for sure.

And we don't "call" anybody - it is all volunteers. I just received my pledge statement (how much I told them I would contribute in 2012 - it was nowhere close to 10%) from Glenn. He used to be the collector around 10 years ago, then a couple of other people did it, but is has pretty much rotated.

And there is this one family that does EVERYTHING. I hope they don't burn out. We have had a few cases of burn out and the family is just not seen in church for a few years. And then they turn up again - and gradually get just as busy as they were when the burnout hit. Not sure why.

We had this situation in our local back in the eighties/early nineties. It had little to do with faith, it was actually about a large clique of members who kissed ass with the SP. They even had a "prophet and revelator" among them who became Patriarch, and read "special books" together, and speculated about "Saturday's Warrior" type doctrines together. Then in the late nineties, they all went for the "Left Behind" novels big time.

They would only let in new people who kissed their asses very well indeed.

Mo leadership types are a very exclusive group IME.

in almost any Ward. They are the ones that hold the leadership positions, pay a full tithe, go to the temple, etc.

Every Ward requires a certain number of worthy Priesthood holders to keep the Ward running and not combined with another one.

It's the same principle in religious organization as in any other group (business, sports,non-profits etc.): certain people know how to play the game by the rules and succeed as the hub of the wheel. The rest of the people just follow along and do their little minor parts as spokes.

So the only way to get a leadership calling is to marry into the little cliche and shoot to the top.

Bishop's kids married SP's kids and so it continues, I believe, to this day.

Briggy

I suppose it happen everywhere to a certain extent. I was just appalled when it seemed that two or three families were running everything and making all the decisions. I thought that because the calling as a bishop or a counselor was so demanding that the wives of such weren't supposed to be given demanding callings at the same time - and yet not only were they in the presidency of the auxiliaries, they were the president. Seemed a bit strange and cliquie.

Sometimes it is because a lot more people than you think refuse those callings ...

notion Wrote:
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> Sometimes it is because a lot more people than you
> think refuse those callings ...


I suppose that's possible, however in my ward I know there were plenty of people willing to accept callings. It was talked about amongst the members. It is really interesting to me how or why this goes on. Don't kiss the right ass, don't ever get called to anything except perhaps leading the music, playing the piano or the nursery (my fav).

It's called the mormon shuffle!