Can 1:00 Church Be Saved?

-- Of course not! But this is as close as we can get



Once upon a time I read about a deacons quorum in New Zealand who patrolled the aisles during sacrament meeting, jabbing with a “long … pointed rod” any members who had fallen asleep. It was then I realized this one fact: church could be better. And the way to improve it will not come by arming our 12-year-olds, but by getting rid of 1:00 church.

Have you met someone who likes 1:00 church? Me either. I’d go as far as saying it’s the worst thing to happen to the LDS religion except my stake outlawed shorts during youth conference last year and we all know how that turned out.

I’ve had a number of ideas come and go as means to remedy this situation. There’s the Extremely Rich proposal, where instead of buying a winter home in Saint George to avoid the cold you buy an every-third-year home in Saint George and occupy it only when your ward hits the 1:00 schedule. The problem with this plan is I’m not rich.

There’s the Jehovah’s Witness proposal where we skim down membership to the point where only two wards per building are needed. Two problems here: how would this trimming of the fat be performed? I’m not sure. And more importantly how are we going to have a successful churchball season if we lose two or three wards in every stake?

Another idea is the Early Bird proposal, wherein everything gets bumped TWO HOURS earlier. 9:00 AM church becomes 7:00 AM, 11:00 become 9:00, and 1:00 becomes 11:00. For those worried about how ward council and other meetings will come together in the 7:00 AM bracket fear not. Under this plan such meetings would be outlawed for the year. You'd just run it out and hope for the best. Does church HQ support this idea? Elder Holland has yet to retweet my proposal so I'm not sure.

So ... these ideas are crap. And their also stale, having been batted around by my Let’s Be Done With One consortium since early 2010. I bring you to bloglandia today to discuss a new favorite idea. Unable to rid ourselves of 1:00 church the next best idea is to hold a series of building-wide competitions to determine which ward earns which time slot. I call this the Tri-Wizard Tournament!

Whoops. I mean I call this the Tri-Ward Tournament!

The competition would revolve around the four tenants of LDS culture: athleticism, financial soundness, ability to make awkward conversation, and righteousness. One point would be awarded to whichever ward prevailed in the competition associated with its respective pillar. The ward with the most points at the end of the year is granted the first pick of the 9:00, 11:00, and 1:00 time slots. How the winning ward decides the slot to choose is up to them and is not considered in the scope of this project. Here are how the challenges would play out.


The Test of Athleticism

At first glance it seems obvious to link this pillar to church basketball. Most stakes have churchball in place already and most participants play at a level of recklessness and anger that would suggest there is more on the line than simply making region. However to link a ward-wide incentive to churchball presents a few problems. Do we base it off of the young men’s team or the elders or the young women? Do we base it off of who beat who in the regular season or who made it farther in region? And what about the elderly or the adult females? Don’t they deserve to be included in this competition? 

The way I see it there is only one sport which caters to both the young and the old, the male and the female, and that sport is softball. I’d propose each ward plays two games against each of the other wards throughout the course of the year (one spring, one fall). The ward with the most wins at the end of the year wins the point for this pillar.1

1. As a bonus playing softball brings America’s past time back into our church culture which can only help in our quest to maintain tax-exempt status.


The Ability to Make Unpleasant Conversation

This one is simple. Home Teaching is the art of awkward communication. Thus the ward that reports the highest percentage of home and visiting teaching for the year wins this point. Granted doing home teaching just to avoid 1:00 church may violate the good-better-best principle of obedience ... but at least it's something.


The Test of Righteousness

At an unpublicized date and at random the Stake High Council will select 15 members from each of the three wards. These 15 members will be required to hand over all electronic devices to the Council whereupon the Council will comb their browser history for any scandalous or sinful Google searches. The ward with the lowest amount of scandalous internet activity wins the point for this category. What constitutes scandalous activity? That’s up to the High Council. For my sake I hope "Victoria Secret locations Riverton Utah" is not one of them.

Important Note: While the winners of the Athleticism test and the Conversation Test will be apparent as the year draws to an end, the results of the Test of Righteousness are known only to the High Council and will not be revealed until after the conclusion of the following challenge.


The Test of Financial Soundness

This is my favorite pillar but also the most confusing so stick with me friends. Every year a ward is expected to review their tithing performance in what we call tithing settlement. I propose that each member of a ward, as part of their tithing settlement, extend a bid of what they are willing to pay as tithing for the next year. Tithing is normally a 10% contribution but under this plan a member would submit a personal tithing bid anywhere between the range of 9% and 11%. Whatever you submit is what you must pay for the following year to be considered a full tithe payer, be your bid 9.25% or 10.5%. The catch is that the ward which collectively submits the highest bid wins the point for this challenge.

The fun part of this idea is that it will always be the final challenge from a calendar perspective so if you thought you needed a point to clinch the first pick your ward could effectively buy the opportunity by having everyone bid high at say 10.75% or 11%. Conversely, if your ward sucked at softball and home teaching and you suspect you lost the righteousness test you could submit a low tithing bid for the upcoming year. That way if you know you’re likely to end up with the 1:00 time slot at least you can save a few bucks next year by committing to a 9% tithing bid.

This idea will be at its finest when two or all three of the wards are neck-and-neck point wise, where each member has to make that gut-wrenching decision: should I go cheap and save money on tithing while risking losing this final challenge? Or should I bid high and try to win this one? Or should I just play it safe at 10% and hope my wealthier neighbors will bid it up for me?

I could spend days debating what to bid and trying to convince others in my ward to bid high.22. This would be a nice way to spend Ward Council, PS.  And then think of the uproar after the results are revealed. Imagine you personally bid 11% but the rest of your ward went cheap and you were collectively outbid and lost the point. You'd be stuck at 11% tithing while still losing out on prime church hours! The potential for extreme celebration and extreme suffering is off the charts. Think of the closed door discussions! Think of the spy work trying to figure out enemy wards bids! Think of the agony in choosing what matters to you more: money or time.

This is decision making at its finest.


Some Final Notes on the Tri-Ward Tournament

A week after tithing settlement and bidding is completed the three wards will meet together for the official unveiling of the winners and the choosing of time slots. One by one the High Council will reveal which ward won the Home Teaching challenge, the Righteousness challenge, and finally the Financial Soundness challenge. The highest point-earning ward will make their selection, followed by the 2nd place team, with the 3rd place team left to dine on the remaining 1:00 crumbs.

Savvy mathematicians may have recognized in a competition that only awards four points it’s possible two wards could tie by winning two categories each. In such a circumstance we go to a sudden death challenge which hearkens back to the very meeting that sparked this post in the first place. The deacons quorum of New Zealand was authorized to poke sleeping church members because in that era they held UNLIMITED length testimony meetings. The meetings would continue for one hour, two hours, three hours, until every member who so desired spoke for however long they wanted. Sleep was inevitable under such a burdensome meeting.

As tie breaker we would bring this concept back for one special Sunday.

Each ward, sequestered in different buildings, would start a testimony meeting at the exact same time. Electronic jammers would be set up in the chapel so no one in the building could communicate with anyone outside via electronic means. The meeting would be allowed to run for as many hours as the ward could endure. Whichever ward’s meeting ends first (or has over 15% of its congregation leave the building or fall asleep) is the loser. The enduring ward wins the tie-breaker and gets priority choice of time slots.

Finally there is one piece of the tournament I’ve yet to discuss, and that is the idea of the new member draft. Currently when a new member moves into a neighborhood he’s assigned to a ward based on the ward boundary he moved into. In the Tri-Ward Tournament there would be no individual ward boundaries for the purposes of allocating new members. Instead, every three months each of the wards will have a chance to draft anyone who has moved into the combined areas of the three wards. The ward which finished last in the most recent Tri-Ward Tournament is given the first pick and so on. This allows losing wards the best chance to rebuild their squad for the upcoming competitions.

For example if the 3rd place ward excelled in the Righteousness Test but struggled in softball, they might be inclined to draft the newly married couple who have age and athleticism on their side. Meanwhile the cheap ward that loses the Tithing Bid every year might set their sights on the more established 42-year-old father of 3. Yeah he'll probably be garbage at softball and likely have Game of Thrones on his phone but he's a lawyer and if anyone can bid 11% surely it's him right?

Close your eyes and you can hear it now.

Stake Clerk: "With the first pick in the fall 2018 Tri-Ward draft, the Riverton 16th ward selects ... at 6' 2", out of West Valley Cityyyyyyyyyy, Nathan Ballard!!!"

(raucous applause mixed with intermittent booing from the Summerhill ward)

Stake Clerk: "Let's throw it over to our analyst Jeff to tell us more about Nathan."

Ward Mission Leader: "Thanks Mark, we've visited Nathan three times and here's what we can tell you. He's athletically skilled, and relatively willing to do home teaching if guilted appropriately. He looks up the occasional risque photo on the internet but uses an incognito browser so he should be safe from the eyes of the council. Reports from Reddit are that he committed to a 10.25% tithing last year, which may not seem high but remember he lived in Idaho so that's pretty good by hill people standards. Basically I see no holes in his game. He's as sure fire a first round pick as you can get."

Behold my dream, my hope. If this wouldn't make 1:00 church great again, nothing will. Well, nothing beside playing volleyball and having barbeques after. Alas I'm not in singles wards anymore.