I agree that adult-only activities are probably a welcome change of pace for most people, and of course the reason it doesn’t happen as often is babysitting logistics. But I don’t see how with-kids activities excludes people without children to the same degree that no-kids activities would exclude people with children. If someone decides not to go to a with-kids activity, it might be for reasons of discomfort or disinterest, which can hopefully be ameliorated by support and a positive attitude. But if someone decides not to go to a no-kids activity, it seems most likely that it’s because they can’t—they don’t have the money or means of leaving their kids for an evening.

I attended a block this last week in which Jesus’ name wasn’t mentioned more than handful of times, if that. But the conversation in all three meetings was marked by teaching principles that are in Christ, and were accompanied by the Holy Spirit and the eye and heart opening and edification that implies, and so to my mind we were conversing about Christ even if that wasn’t constantly made explicit.

The problem is in keeping the center at the center. All the speculating, grousing, wondering, hurting, entertaining, all of it that goes on in the bloggernacle, is beneficial, and wonderful, if we understand and are living the gospel and keeping that central. If the kind of things that the bloggernacle does becomes central, then the battle is already lost. ~

Frankly, we don’t have a lot of low-price options around here for babysitting. Frankly, I’m not going to waste my limited babysitting money/karma on a ward activity–if I have a babysitter, we’re going to a nice restaurant.

I would echo the remarks others are making about the need to integrate people into each ward. My periods of strongest engagement have definitely been a consequence of feeling appreciated in the ward I attended. When I feel unwanted, I stop trying to contribute. I guess the message is to move to wards where the people are like you!

One concrete suggestion that I head expressed yesterday was to have more adult-only activities for ward members. Adults often have very few built-in opportunities to socialize as a group without the presence of children outside of RS activities (which only covers the women!). But, I think adults are in need of friendship, too. I know adult-only activities are hard on people with kids, but only doing activities that include kids excludes those without them just as much.

When I moved into the area where I currently lived (a long time ago), the ward had a thing called “dinner groups,” where every other month we would get together with maybe a half-dozen other couples for dinner in someone’s home. There were always two groups, which rotated, so you had a base of people you got to know really well and over time you got to meet everyone in a social situation outside of church. That really greased the skids for our integration into the ward. I think that sort of thing is much more important than flogging people to do their hometeaching of hard core inactives, which is a misplaced allocation of scarce resources in my view.