Prester John<\/a> suddenly asked for missionaries to be sent, could the Church respond in a timely way, and to what extent? And the answer is yes, the Church could dispatch 100 or 1000 missionaries fairly quickly by pulling them away from their current assignments, or 10,000 with extreme effort, and have a regular program to train missionaries in the relevant language(s) within a few years, while 100,000 missionaries would exceed the Church\u2019s capacity. What the Church could accomplish would also depend on the abilities of the individual missionaries and companionships.<\/p>\nBut I\u2019m more interested in the concept of church capacity on the local level, where it seems like the capacity of a ward or branch would be a cross product of several inputs, including the sheer number of members participating; their degree of personal commitment; the level of relevant talents and experience available; socioeconomic resources; and probably several other things as well. It\u2019s easier to stand up a ward choir for a community sacred music festival, for example, if you have a lot of members with musical experience who are motivated to participate and who have leisure time in which to do so.<\/p>\n
In general, it\u2019s better for a ward or branch to have higher capacity to be able to accomplish the Church\u2019s purposes in the world. It\u2019s better to have more members, with higher personal commitment, with their talents well organized and adequate time and resources.<\/p>\n
Over the long term, it\u2019s not usually possible for a ward or branch to operate beyond its capacity. An approach that works well in one ward (\u201cassign everyone one day per month when they will be available to go with the missionaries if needed\u201d) can\u2019t be pasted onto another ward whose circumstances are substantially different (\u201ccheck with me a half hour beforehand, which is when I\u2019ll know if I\u2019ll be working that evening or not\u201d).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s important to normalize things that increase church capacity. While the circumstances of individual people and their schedules will differ, in most circumstances people need to show up, accept callings, and contribute useful talents, rather than feuding with other members, causing scenes in Sunday School, or other actions that diminish church capacity.<\/p>\n
Socioeconomic factors matter, and we shouldn\u2019t pretend otherwise. A ward can do more if its members are educated, have stable employment, and build significant relationships in the wider community. Speaking from experience, though, and mostly to myself: Not all jobs are equal. Unpredictable hours and schedules that conflict with church meetings have drawbacks compared to a 9-5 job. All-consuming career paths with modest financial reward like many academic careers aren\u2019t as useful as other options. I could have been much more useful to the Church (and society as a whole, and just about anybody else) as a dentist or electrician than as an academic.<\/p>\n
High church capacity, being a \u2018high functioning ward,\u2019 isn\u2019t the same thing as being Zion, and shouldn\u2019t be mistaken for it. I\u2019ve been in wards overflowing with young married couples, and others with vast numbers of stable families, and others with staggering amounts of wealth. Each one was different, and each accomplished some amazing things. The capacity to bring casseroles on demand, or staff organizations and host memorable events, or organize and contribute to international relief efforts, all while serving as a deep reservoir for stake callings, were impressive in their own way. I hope all those wards continue to do amazing things.<\/p>\n
My current ward isn\u2019t like that. It struggles to staff organizations and provide casseroles in a timely manner. We should try to do better. People\u2019s work schedules change unpredictably and sometimes conflict with Sunday meetings. We couldn\u2019t stand up a community choir on demand. But it\u2019s no less a part of Zion \u2013 not through its mere existence as a ward, but for what the members manage to do with the ward capacity available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It seems like \u2018church capacity\u2019 would be a useful concept. In parallel to \u2018state capacity,\u2019 church capacity might describe the ability of a religious organization to carry out its missions, promote its doctrine, gain adherents, participate as an entity in broader society and accomplish its other purposes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45517"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45520,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45517\/revisions\/45520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}