Specialized Ward Activities Entice Members
By Clark L. and Kathryn H. Kidd

Although the mission of the Church is to bring souls to Christ, most church members interpret that as an exhortation to do missionary work and find new people to baptize.  Although new baptisms are critical for the growth of the kingdom, we also believe that it is every bit as important to keep existing church members active as it is to find new ones. 

If you look around your ward, you'll see many faces of people whose names you may not know.  Some of these people only attend church meetings sporadically.  Others attend but won’t take church callings or otherwise fully participate in the ward for one reason or another. 

All too many of these church members are one step away from inactivity.  If they are allowed to drift away — because they are insulted or simply because they are ignored — their children and generations that are yet unborn could feel the ramifications of their decision.

There is a story behind every nameless face.  We may never know why someone stays on the fringes of full church fellowship, but it is our responsibility to keep these lambs within the safety of the fold if we can do so.  

Our last column focused on ways you can use ward activities, as well as assignments within the ward activities committee, to keep these marginalized members at least partially engaged in the ward.  This month we want to concentrate on how you can use peripheral ward activities — activities that may not appeal to every member of your ward, but that may be extremely enticing to particular subsets of people — to reach out to those individuals who may not feel they are within the mainstream of the congregation.

Last month’s column mentioned that our ward has a weekly play group.  Once a week, mothers and their preschool children meet at a local fast food restaurant so that the children can play and the mothers can talk. The day and the location are set in stone — Thursday at 10 a.m., at the local Chick-fil-A.  Having a fixed date and time means that announcements don’t have to go out, and everyone can schedule the event in advance.  People who are interested in visiting can make up their minds the morning of the event (or the month before) and know exactly where to go.

This is a concept that can spawn limitless variations.  Indeed, our ward is currently or has sponsored:

• Seminary Walking Moms — mothers who drive their children to seminary use the opportunity to get some exercise while the class is in session.
• Exercisers — these energetic ladies meet twice a week, same time, same place.  On Tuesdays the women “sweat to the oldies,” and on Thursdays they use a live aerobics instructor who lives in the ward.
• Lunch Bunch — once a month, Relief Society members bring their kids to a potluck luncheon at the ward or at someone’s childproof home or at a neighborhood park.
• Game Night — explained at length in our last column, this activity for adults is held on months when there are no other major ward activities.  We get together for junk food, silly games, but mainly just to visit and have fun.
• Quilters — everyone has a project and gets together once a month to visit while they work.
• Crafters — they make bracelets or scarves or stained glass or other items.  This sharing of skills has led to several new careers in our ward.
• Oriental restaurant hoppers — our ward has had a number of people who come from different Asian countries.  They have met to share meals and friendship at numerous Asian restaurants.
• Empty-nesters — these are older couples without children, or whose children have all fled the nest.  They get together every month for a pot-luck dinner and to have some kind of lesson or presentation, usually on Family Home Evening night.

Other special interest groups might include:

• Scrapbookers — make scrapbooks together, visiting while working
• Stampers — make stationery together, visiting and sharing materials and ideas
• Canners — take advantage of the stake dry-pack equipment, or do group canning of fruits or vegetables in season
• Gourmet (or ethnic) cooks — learn together and eat your rewards
• Movie-goers — go together in a bunch (works great for chick flicks, where the husbands wouldn’t be caught dead watching the movie, or for adventure movies, where the wives may prefer to stay home)

As you can see, most of these activities would only appeal to a small group of people.  But if you have a woman in your ward who rarely attends church but who is an expert baker of wedding cakes, what better way to get her out than to have her teach an ongoing class to people who want to learn her skill?  Or if you have a man who likes to go build model airplanes, what better way to help him feel the fellowship of other Saints than to get a few of the guys together and build (or fly) model airplanes?

The great thing about tailoring mini-activities to people who may be on the fringes is that there can be no limit to your creativity.  Unlike major ward activities, most of these require very little time other than just getting the idea started and finding someone to run with it.  Floating around on the internet is a letter from Jessica Bean, who at one time was the activities chairman for a YSA ward in the Los Angeles area.  Her stake president suggested a tri-stake YSA program of “clubs” for people with similar interests, and she took the ball and ran with it.  Here are some of her suggestions:

• Diner's Club — once a month we get together for potluck dinners. We have 8-10 people per group so we get to know each other a little better.
• Team in Training — a large group of YSA's in the Los Angeles area are training for marathons. They run together every Saturday at the beach.
• Ultimate Frisbee — about 25 people get together every Wednesday night to play ultimate Frisbee on the field.
• Soccer — every Tuesday night on the field.
• Volleyball — every Tuesday night at the church building, and every Saturday morning at Venice Beach.
• "Free Cool Stuff to Do Club" — meets once a month and finds something free to do in the community (minus parking, of course!). This includes art museums, fairs, and seeing places of interest around the area.
• Service Club — meets once a month to do community service projects. We do lots of interfaith projects.
• Film Club — a large group gets together to see movies, make movies, and meet new contacts.
• Bocce Ball Club — meets every other Saturday afternoon for 2 hours at a lawn-bowling field in Beverly Hills.  It's free and lots of fun!  (If you don't know what this is, look it up on the internet.  You can buy bocce ball sets at Costco or any sports supply store ... and
  it's super fun!)
• Restaurant Club — meets the first Saturday night of every month to try a new restaurant. With more than 8,000 restaurants in the area, this is more popular club than most!

Jessica advised people who were forming their own ward groups not to head up every group themselves or they’d quickly find themselves overwhelmed.  In her stake, people actually had ward callings to head up one group or another and this sounds like a good idea. 

It is also important to let ward members know these are not mandatory activities.  If people want to come, the activity is there.  If not, that’s fine too.  If enough people are interested, the idea will succeed.  If people don’t attend, it’s time to look for something else.  It is also good to plan activities that will be successful whether they are attended by two people or 200.  The measure of success should be the good feelings that are generated and not the number of bodies that show up.

Any one of these ideas could help you lure back people in the ward who may be drifting away.  But before you jump in with both feet to set up your activities, you need to know the people who are being targeted and what their interests are.  Even this process of getting to know specific people in the ward may be enough to encourage them toward fuller church activity.  Often, people drift away solely because they don’t think anyone in the ward knows they exist — or cares.

Next month we’ll cover dinner groups and book clubs — two mini-activities that are often started and seldom successful.  If you have any ideas you’d like to share for how to make them work, don’t hesitate to let us know!