Thoughts from the Chinese Ward

The Baroness and I attend the BYU Chinese Ward here in Utah Valley--which is markedly different than the normal ward experience in Utah, or even wards in Asia.  Some thoughts over the next few days about some aspects of life in the Chinese Ward...

The Chinese Ward itself is kind of an odd duck--it's the exception to many of the 'rules' about wards in the Church.  There are no ward 'boundaries' per se, although informally the ward covers the entire valley (Salt Lake City has their own Chinese Ward which covers their valley...)

Like singles wards, the Chinese ward exists as a completely detached entity from the local wards in which it shares 'jurisdiction'.  That means that, while we still belong to a designated stake, the ability to enter and leave the Chinese ward isn't based where you live like normal wards--a person living anywhere in the valley can choose to attend the Chinese ward (assuming you're Chinese, of course...or married to one).  Since the Chinese ward has no official (exclusive) boundaries of its own, this also means that all of us still live within the boundary of a 'local' ward at the same time.

That means Chinese ward members have two wards, essentially--and can choose which one to go to.  This is an interesting 'opportunity' for us, of course, since the average member only has one choice for which ward to attend.  This has some interesting effects on the members, and is worth exploring.

The reason why Church members (normally) aren't allowed to 'choose' their ward should be obvious.  As discussed in my Church Advertising essay, allowing free choice of wards is an invitation to chaos, with members unsatisfied with the recent sacrament talks in their home ward travelling around the area looking for 'better' bishops...or 'better' looking members of the opposite sex, perhaps.  It wouldn't take long before ward populations started to ebb and flow--big wards here and small wards there, with the process reversing itself after new bishoprics or presidencies were called which were more or less 'popular'.  Free will in ward selection would also destroy the geographic organization that currently exists--with bishops having to work with a membership that's spread out over a wide area (and constantly changing), instead of locally oriented.

Having this 'choice' of wards, in fact, has made some of these situations occur in the Chinese ward right now--albeit on a smaller scale.  The ward population is spread over a large area, which makes home and visiting teaching more inherently difficult ('Ha!' you say--wards outside of Utah have this problem all the time.  True enough...)

A more significant problem is that having the choice of attending the Chinese ward or your local ward creates the temptation to leave whenever the ward experience doesn't go as smoothly as you would like.  We have friends who have been unhappy with past and present bishoprics (or EQ/RS presidents, etc...) and rather than deal with the problems, have simply taken advantage of the opportunity to leave and attended their local ward instead.  (Sometimes, of course, they aren't happy in the local ward either, and switch back--creating a 'see-saw' effect)

I mentioned in my Dating & Marriage series that one of the main problems with living together is that the ease of ending the relationship makes the actual ending of the relationship much more tempting.  Instead of working out problems (as all couples will inevitably face), you just leave and start over again somewhere else.  The same sort of 'relationship' applies with wards too--the opportunity to leave your ward and join another one inherently creates a greater temptation to do so when situations develop, whereas not having the choice would provide greater incentive to deal with problems directly.

[Of course, 'ideally', you'd deal with problems directly.  In practice, many individuals when running into problems with members in their current ward in fact don't try and 'work them out' but simply go inactive.  You could argue that in this case giving them a choice of another ward to attend would be better than not having them go to church at all.  You could also argue, though, that those people--human nature being what it is--will simply run into new problems with ward members in their new location anyway, and you've merely delayed the inevitable.]

I'm not aware if the Chinese Ward bishop and/or the local ward bishops keep an eye out for (and discourage) people who switch back and forth looking for the ward they dislike the least...but they probably should.  If a Chinese ward (or a singles ward) exists, then those who are eligible to attend should be allowed to attend (and allowed not to attend) and perhaps the temptation to look for 'greener pastures' in another ward is unavoidable.  I do think, though, that the (usually) inviolable arrangement of members to wards is a positive thing, and members who have the opportunity to switch should consider carefully whether they're switching to or switching away from something...