I was sitting in sacrament meeting recently and had a realization that while I’ve lived in my ward for a decade, and I feel like I know a fair number of people, if I stopped coming, there are only a tiny number who would notice. I don’t mean this in a woe is me way. More just I was thinking about making friends at church in general, and whether my experience is typical or not. Here are a few aspects of friendship at church I was thinking of, along with my brief thoughts. I’d love to hear your experiences, either related to these points, or related to points or issues I hadn’t even considered.
Separation — Church seems like a great candidate for being what sociologists call a third place, separate from the typical first two places where we spend most of our time, which are home and work. This aspect of church has definitely been a plus for me in making new friends beyond the people I already know in the first two places. Even though there has occasionally been a bit of overlap between people I know at work and those I know at church, it has always been small. And in some situations, I’ve even been fortunate to have church function as more than one place, in the sense that I’ve known non-overlapping groups of people in different church contexts. This has happened when I’ve known one group of (potential) friends through my ward and another group that I’ve played volleyball or basketball with. Also, I haven’t personally experienced this, but I know my wife has gotten to know people beyond our ward through book clubs and Relief Society enrichment groups (Is that what they were called, back in the 2000s?) that included women from multiple wards.
Breadth — One aspect of geographically assigned wards that I’ve seen discussed as a positive (I think originally brought up by Eugene England) is that it brings together people who might not otherwise choose to associate. A geographic area can include people of different ages, races, and income levels. In practice, though, I’ve pretty much stuck to getting to know people who are most like me. As a fairly educated middle-aged white man, I have mostly gotten to know other fairly educated middle-aged white men, even when my ward has included a greater variety of people. The people I’ve made friends with have been similar not only in age and race, but also in more peripheral characteristics, like the ages of our kids and our general income bracket. Of course, this pattern of who I’ve made friends with is clearly on me, as I’m hanging out with people I’m most comfortable with rather than pushing myself at all to know different people better, even when church at least opens the opportunity to me.
Depth — Of the people I’ve become friends with at church, I’ve only known a very few at any level of depth. I feel like in all the wards I’ve lived in, I’ve become friendly with quite a few people, at an acquaintance level, but like I was saying at the beginning, I’ve really only gotten to know a small number. I doubt that this is something specific to church, though. It’s probably more attributable to my general style of making friends, or perhaps even to people’s general experience of making friends. I feel like making new friends as an adult is hard, and this is something I’ve seen a lot of people comment on, in and out of the Church. One other point I think it’s worth making, though, is that I have enjoyed many of the acquaintance-level relationships I’ve had quite a bit. At least for me, it’s not a case of someone being a close friend or a waste of time. Acquaintances have made my life better.
Fungibility — One thing that’s sad about my friendships is how much they’re clearly just happenstances of people I’m in the same place with and at the same time. I say this because it’s a rare person I’ve gotten to know through church at any level of depth that I’ve kept in contact with when either they or I moved away. If one of my children were swapped out for a different person, even of the same age and gender, I would notice! Of course. The same goes for my sisters. But when a friend at church moves out, I’m far more likely to try to make a new friend in the same place than to try to keep the friendship up. Like with other issues, this isn’t a church issue—friends moving away is a potential problem for all of us—but more likely a me issue.
And callings — I’ve never served in a high-demand calling like elders quorum president (or even presidency) or even a highly visible one like gospel doctrine teacher. I suspect that serving in these callings, as difficult as it may be, opens opportunities for deeper friendships, particularly with the people you serve with. I’ve seen my wife serve in some auxiliary presidencies over the years, and I think she’s become quite close with some of the women she’s served with. Along similar lines, of course the most demanding calling I’ve ever had by far was full-time missionary, and I made a couple of really good friends among my companions. Although, again, as I noted in the previous point, I haven’t done a great job of keeping in touch afterward.
Comparisons — There are two groups I’ve thought of that are similar in my experience to most of the people I know at church. One group is co-workers. Just like at church, I know a lot of people at work a little bit. I know about their families, what sports their kids play, where they like to vacation. Just like with lots of ward members. And like I said with the fungibility point above, when a co-worker moves on to a new job, I’m unlikely to stay in touch, and more likely to try to get to know the person who replaces them.
The other group I think many of my church acquaintances and friends are like is Facebook friends. I have hundreds of Facebook friends, but of course I only know a very few in any depth. Like with people at church, sadly I’ve realized how fungible most of my Facebook friends are, as they’ve sometimes disappeared for one reason or another, and it has taken a long time for me to notice. (Of course this is entirely in line with Facebook’s business model, as they’re just hoping to keep me engaged and scrolling through posts, regardless of whose posts they are.) But like I said earlier, I have really enjoyed so many people I’ve gotten to know at an acquaintance level through Facebook. It’s not like it’s necessary, or even possible, for everyone to become a close friend.
I’d love to hear about your experiences making friends (or not) at church.
Hi Ziff,
I’m not so sure that my ward counts as a third place. Wouldn’t a third place be like the bar in the sitcom “Cheers?” Remember the theme song?
Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you’ve got
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot
Wouldn’t you like to get away?
Sometimes you wanna go
Where everybody knows your name
And they’re always glad you came
You wanna be where you can see
Our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows your name.
The problem is that once you turn 50 and you are not in leadership, no one knows your name.
I think your experience of making friends is typical. In my experience, most Church friendships are very, very dependent on proximity (pretty much like secular/work friendships).
It made me kinda sad the day I realized that. All that talk about the automatic social support that one gets as a member of the Church seems pretty illusory to me.
Your experience sounds like many middle-aged American males, and I don’t think it’s unique to Mormons. As an adult, I’ve lived in 7 different homes and 7 different wards (though two homes were in one ward, and one home was in two wards). Our record in a single home is 5 years, our record in a single ward is 4 years. So we’ve seen a lot of people move in and out, and we’ve been those people plenty of times. We’ve been friendly with a lot of people, but I have very few friends from all those wards. I think all of your points are valid, and I have a few of my own to add.
1. I don’t have room to keep adding close friends. My wife is, and I’m not kidding, my best friend. (It sounds cliché, but it’s true.) I have a college roommate who is my more traditional “best friend”. I maintain friendly relationships with people at work, and people at church, and people I run with, but for the most part we’re friendly, and not friends. There’s a limit to how many close friends I need or even keep up with, and I can’t add one in every ward I’m ever a part of.
2. For the most part as we’ve moved to new places (several moves have been across state lines) I haven’t stayed in contact with low-tier church friends. (Same is true for work friends.) When there’s no more shared experiences it is just much harder. There’s no chatting in the church parking lot, bumping into anyone at the grocery store, and no more Saturday morning pickup basketball. When you lose those touch points, you have to work harder to maintain friendships, both to make time, and to still connect when you have fewer shared experiences.
3. In my experience, deep friendships are formed by going through crap together. Sometimes good crap, but often bad crap. When we lived far outside the Mormon corridor and medical emergencies struck, we leaned on our ward for support. Now we live in Utah again, and family would be more likely to fill that role.
4. Mormon corridor wards are small, so moving all but guarantees that you’ll be in a new ward, and probably a new stake and therefore essentially every time someone moves, it will disrupt church relationships. When we lived in the eastern time zone, our small city had a “high” LDS population density, which means we had *two* wards. We rented the first couple years we were there, and then when we bought a home, we made an effort to stay in our ward, partly to preserve those relationships. (Would have added 5 or 10 minutes to my commute to head over to the other ward, too.) This put a bit of a limitation on our options (we looked at a few homes on the other side of town) but we still had plenty of area to chose from. I believe this has an effect not only from the actual moves in and out of wards, but also psychologically. If you know that people (including yourself) are more likely to move in and out of wards often, you are disincentivized to built relationships that will last.
We form close friends in our single young adult phase of life because we’re away at college, etc. away from family
Those relationships last. After marriage , having one’s own family, relying on one’s own family , that’s it. LDS people have no time for “friends” the way they did earlier in life. We say we have a ward family but not really. People come and go but family is usually always with you–until death. In the ward we have assignments , not friends. Tons of acquaintances but rare to have time to connect with anyone in a meaningful lasting way. Visiting teachers, home teachers, ministering brothers–call them whatever but you don’t see them again if not assigned to you. LDS people are really into their own families and when you aren’t their family, you’re not. I miss being young when I had real friends.
But acquaintances are better than nothing.
Ward friends. Hmmm. That’s a term of memories past.
I grew up in the mission field and our ward boundary included three of the four borders of our state. Church required tremendous sacrifice and teamwork.
For example:
*Temple trips were multi-day affairs in loaded cars or buses and we typically worked for a year or two on various fundraising projects to earn the money to go.
*VT and HT required hours in the car, a massive expense AND expensive long-distance calls through Ma Bell. If you traveled to do VT/HT, you stayed all day and made the most of it. Dinner/lunch were likely involved. We had to get real about it…doing it for superficial reasons would never justify the sacrifice.
*Everyone helped out at the church service farm.
*We supported one another as a minority community living with deeply-seeded anti-mormonism. There were so many battles being fought in local courtrooms, in school board meetings, in lecture halls, in PTO meetings, and city halls, for basic civil rights and/or to rebut false (but damning) accusations.
*We participated in many activities together-sports, music, road shows, seminary, fundraisers, farming, scouts, bazaars, holidays, service, etc.
*We had to earn money to keep our dilapidated church building in repair (prior to correlated finances). Even though Salt Lake provided most of the funding, we had to pony up the initial down payments.
*We shared our LDS news, books and tapes, music and art, sought out LDS physicians and businesses, helped each other buy food storage and garments, and prepared each others’ loved ones for burial. Few people were around to give blessings during emergencies- and we leaned on each other often during times of serious illness and adversity.
We developed some lifelong, multi-generational, deeply meaningful friendships. There were scandals, betrayals, and unforgivable behavior as well- but the reason there were as many authentic friendships as there were (friendships that have lasted through the decades, independent of geography, and even death) was the fact that we were vested in trying to do better and unable to do anything but row together. It was our little piece of Zion, scruffy with dirt under its nails.
In subsequent decades, no other ward friendships have come close to those forged during that time. As a matter of fact- I mourn being friendless in my ward. Todays ward acquaintances are shallow. No one is able to invest the time, priority, or focus. I think it’s because the work we do in comparison is shallow. Nothing, comparatively is as galvanizing to our community. Wards are more homogenous. Ministering assignments pair you with your demographic doppelgänger, but even then- the magic doesn’t happen. I proposition that homogeneity isn’t the l most important ingredient in a spiritually meaningful friendship- it’s share vision, mission, and interpersonal connection.
I’ve been a “reactivation project” for some time, and a handful of people have knocked on my door. They give me a 10 minute spiel and want to tick me off a list, but they don’t plan to meaningfully interact with me after that. How do I know? I ask. What do you want me to do? I’m supposed to go to take my church medicine (sit in a seat), not contribute to something or be with anyone.
As I write this, I can understand how a reader might interpret my perceptions as a skewed, but I’d point to this post and the comments as evidence that I am not speaking as an anomaly. Also, has anyone seen the tv series “Young Sheldon”? In it, Ms. Hutchins, the depressed middle-aged never-been-married librarian sympathizes with Sheldon. Seriously- how could pop culture pull-off such a Mormon arch-type if there weren’t a kernel of truth in it? In the 80’s pop culture joked that you needed sunglasses to behold a Mormon (or Osmond) as their smile would blind you. Now, we are the Debbie Downers- the “Ms. Hutchins” of the world. (Our crumbling community is certainly part of that equation- but I could list many more hypotheses for Mormon depression. Not wanting to thread-jack.) I’ll just say- Isn’t this trend a wake-up call to us?