Stake identity - cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board

RedHeadGal · 11-06-2009, 03:14 PM

Do you feel a sense of collective identity with others in your stake? I feel like I did as a child in a somewhat rural area where our stake spanned hundreds of miles and included somewhat small wards. Now as an adult living in a large city where the stake only spans dozens of miles and includes many it has virtually no meaning. I barely know the name of my stake president, and, although there have been three over the 11 years I've lived in my ward, I've never known any of them to attend my ward unless they had to. I've never met one of them either. It seems strange to me that an authority so close in the heirarchy feels so far up bureaucratically.

This issue has been on my mind recently especially because I volunteered to do some service work with the stake RS, and I knew no one there. That was fine--I met a few women while I was there, but they somehow felt worlds away, and the likelihood that I would have any future contact seemed so remote. Which I find sort of sad. We should feel connected as part of the same stake, no?

MikeWaters · 11-06-2009, 03:21 PM

I think it depends on what you do. I have come to work with many people in the stake in regard to YM/Scouting. We have camped with other wards, coordinated activities, and had meetings. And that's been cool.

If I had never been in a calling where I ended up working with others in the stake, then probably the extent of my interaction with other members of the stake would have been some idiot in jeans fouling me in stake basketball.

RedHeadGal · 11-09-2009, 04:20 PM

I'm not so much talking about whether you get to know other people in your stake. I'm talking more about whether you feel connected to them (as in the people you don't know) based simply on the fact that you are in the same stake. I posit that I should but don't.

MikeWaters · 11-09-2009, 08:45 PM

My Mormon tribes are two things: my ward and just LDS in general. I don't feel closer to someone if they are from my stake or the next stake. But if we know people in common, that gives us something to talk about, and someone from my stake is more likely to know someone.

11-06-2009, 03:14 PM	#1
RedHeadGal Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: DC Posts: 995	Stake identity Do you feel a sense of collective identity with others in your stake? I feel like I did as a child in a somewhat rural area where our stake spanned hundreds of miles and included somewhat small wards. Now as an adult living in a large city where the stake only spans dozens of miles and includes many it has virtually no meaning. I barely know the name of my stake president, and, although there have been three over the 11 years I've lived in my ward, I've never known any of them to attend my ward unless they had to. I've never met one of them either. It seems strange to me that an authority so close in the heirarchy feels so far up bureaucratically. This issue has been on my mind recently especially because I volunteered to do some service work with the stake RS, and I knew no one there. That was fine--I met a few women while I was there, but they somehow felt worlds away, and the likelihood that I would have any future contact seemed so remote. Which I find sort of sad. We should feel connected as part of the same stake, no?

11-06-2009, 03:21 PM	#2
MikeWaters Demiurge Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 36,365	I think it depends on what you do. I have come to work with many people in the stake in regard to YM/Scouting. We have camped with other wards, coordinated activities, and had meetings. And that's been cool. If I had never been in a calling where I ended up working with others in the stake, then probably the extent of my interaction with other members of the stake would have been some idiot in jeans fouling me in stake basketball.

11-09-2009, 04:20 PM	#3
RedHeadGal Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: DC Posts: 995	I'm not so much talking about whether you get to know other people in your stake. I'm talking more about whether you feel connected to them (as in the people you don't know) based simply on the fact that you are in the same stake. I posit that I should but don't.

11-09-2009, 08:45 PM	#4
MikeWaters Demiurge Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 36,365	My Mormon tribes are two things: my ward and just LDS in general. I don't feel closer to someone if they are from my stake or the next stake. But if we know people in common, that gives us something to talk about, and someone from my stake is more likely to know someone.