{"chapter_no":"15","chapter_title":"A Vision of a Ward","book_id":"2","book_name":"The Story of James","subchapter_no":"0","page_no":"268","page_number":"1","verses_count":0,"total_pages":3,"page_content":"

 <\/p>

Chapter 15<\/p>

A Vision of a Ward<\/h1><\/p>

 <\/p>

James walks <\/i>through the neighborhood<\/i> on crutches<\/i> for the first time—A <\/i>Latter-day Saint<\/i> ward <\/i>is
more<\/i> than<\/i> just <\/i>a meetinghouse<\/i> or a Sunday event, it is something<\/i> glorious and without limits.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

 <\/p>

 <\/p>

In the days that followed his return from the hospital, James started looking at his
schoolwork again and the assignments from class he needed to do. His parents had worked out
an arrangement with his teachers, allowing him one additional week of sick leave once he was
back at home, with the understanding that he would return to school the following Monday.
There was, however, one important non-school related task he wanted to do right away. <\/p>

 <\/p>

On his first Saturday home, at 8:30 in the morning, James decided to take a short walk
through the neighborhood on his crutches. His destination––the apartment complexes a few
blocks away where William Downs lived. His parents had chauffeured him around in the car the
past few days, but this was something he wanted to do on his own. He wanted to get William
coming to church again, but that was secondary. His main desire was to help William feel
accepted and comfortable around him and others at church and at school. Becoming good friends
with William, spending time and doing things with him, seemed like the best way to accomplish
this. <\/p>

 <\/p>

It was a beautiful Saturday morning, a break from the cold, dark winter days of recent
weeks. Sun rays bounced off the snow and above him there was a clear blue sky. The
temperature outside was warm and inviting. The walk to the apartment building on crutches
would prove to be slow going, but James was in no hurry. It was a chance to get out of the house
and see the world again. <\/p>

 <\/p>

As a young man with important athletic goals, James had often raced past these homes in
the neighborhood when doing his running exercises, rarely giving a second thought to any of the
people who lived there, other than where friends or girls of interest might live. But forced to
walk slowly on this occasion, he took notice of every house that he passed. <\/p>

 <\/p>

He had always been active in the Church, but never before had he experienced the ward
in this manner. He could see it now! The ward was here... in this place... out here! <\/p>

 <\/p>

In his mind, he had always pictured the ward as the Church meetinghouse—the physical
structure. The ward was the building where the people assembled for gospel lessons, the place to
take the sacrament, and the place where different roles and callings in the Church were assigned <\/p>

to everyone. And except for regular visits to member homes or service projects that were done
once in a while, he considered callings in the ward as work assignments people did primarily on
Sundays within the walls of the church. <\/p>

 <\/p>

He realized, now, that the Church was much more than that. The Sunday services were
extremely important, but in a matter of only a few minutes, and after having walked less than a
block from his house, it became clear to him that the main work of the ward, indeed, the main
work of the Lord, was actually done here in the homes of the neighborhood, in the place where
everyone lived out their lives every day. <\/p>

 <\/p>

Reaching the corner at the top of the street, still within sight of the front gate of his house,
he took a moment to rest. Looking down at the homes on the next street, he quickly realized how
many people in his ward he didn't actually know.<\/i> <\/i>He knew most of the active members in the
ward to some degree, having collected fast offerings from them in prior years, but there were
many he didn’t know. Some of the people living here were probably baptized members of the
Church, but ones who didn’t attend meetings very often. And there were a number of others who
were probably not members of the Church at all. <\/p>

 <\/p>

There were a few clever indicators a young Aaronic Priesthood holder like James might
look for to know whether a particular family or individual living in the ward was active in the
Church or not. Their cars tended to be gone more often on the weekends. You might also see
them out on Sundays doing yard work, working on their cars, loudly revving up a motorcycle, or
having large parties with cars parked up and down the street. Alcohol or tobacco use was
sometimes noticed. There were also those well-known families and individuals in the
neighborhood who belonged to other churches or religions, or to no religion at all. These James
thought more of as “nonmembers.” For a person like James, encounters with these kinds of
normal, every-day activities and behaviors of people had always been somewhat of a culture
shock, providing a first glimpse of what the world outside of Utah was like.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Another interesting thought occurred to him. Not only had he always considered the ward
as something confined mostly to Sunday activities in the church building, but also as something
confined mostly to active members of the Church like himself. With the exception of occasional
visits made to them by priesthood holders, or rare visits made to them by full-time missionaries
whenever they passed through, he had never thought that inactive members or nonmembers
actually belonged to the ward. He had never really made the mental connection before. He knew
that such persons were always welcome to come to church at any time––that part was clear. But
these persons had generally been invisible to him up until now.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Where James was only a young man, and his involvement in the ward had been
primarily in the preparatory duties of the Aaronic Priesthood, he hadn’t ever thought these things
through before. With his limited knowledge of the Church, he had presumed that inactive
members had been kept on the ward membership list for administrative reasons only, in order to
keep accurate records. They would presumably stay on the list until it was brought to the
attention of the ward clerk that they had long since moved and no longer lived at the address on
file. At that point, they would then be removed from the list as part of the ongoing effort to keep
Church records up to date. This administrative change also freed up a spot on the physical ward <\/p>

layout diagram in the bishop’s office where another family or individual (also perhaps inactive)
might move in and be added to the list once they were noticed. And in those cases where an
inactive person or family ended up living in the ward for a long period of time, such families or
individuals would presumably be kept on an inactive member list that was passed down from one
generation to another; and in the case of the present generation, passed from one priesthood
leadership group to another when a bishopric or elders quorum was reorganized. <\/p>

 <\/p>

This had been James’s perception of the Church as he grew up, but he could see now that
he had it all wrong. <\/p>

 <\/p>

The ward actually included everyone––active members, inactive members, part-member
families, and nonmembers––and each person's soul was certainly equal in value to his own. In
addition, the ward itself, by extension, was not physically limited to its boundaries. As he walked
along, James noticed that there was nothing magical or different about a street lying inside or
outside the ward. A young man like himself could easily walk across the boundaries into an
adjoining ward and find people with similar needs. There were stronger wards and weaker wards
in the Church. There were stronger stakes and weaker stakes. One ward’s priesthood holders
could help those of another. A strong stake could help mentor a weaker stake. Indeed, the power
of just one ward in the Church, as a role model, and as a catalyst, seemed infinite. A righteous
ward could become a light to the whole Church, able to lead hundreds or thousands of other
wards to greatness. Such a ward might export momentum, excitement, and success in the gospel
to all of the adjoining wards, thereby overflowing its physical boundaries and magnifying its
calling as an organizational unit of the Church. The same was also true of a stake. The great faith
and miracles experienced by members in one stake might become like a stone cast into the
middle of a pond, creating powerful ripples across all of the adjoining stakes in the area. In this
way, Zion in the greater community would be born<\/span>.<\/p>

 <\/p>

James was overcome by what he saw and felt as he toured through the neighborhood. <\/p>

 <\/p>

He saw a vision––a ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in operation
was something glorious to behold. It had limitless potential.<\/p>

<\/p>"}