We share a building with like 19 other wards, so every third year we have church meetings that don’t kick off until 1pm. It’s the worst thing in the world, by several yardsticks. 
Saturday is supposed to be a special day–it’s the day we get ready for Sunday! Not with late church, though. Because with late church and our own mortal weaknesses, we put off shining our shoes and washing our hair and all that stuff until Sunday morning, because Jiminy Cricket there is literally nothing else to do for like 5 hours and if I couldn’t kill an hour with making the kids take showers and stuff, I don’t honestly know what I’d do.
You can’t make the kids put on their church clothes early in the morning on Sunday, because A) that’s cruel and B) then they’re stuck inside for 5 hours straight which is guaranteed to result in them driving me up the wall. But you can’t let them go outside and get all dirty and rowdy because it’s Sunday, and we don’t do that, right? You can’t go anywhere, you can’t do anything. For eons.
Late church screws up food preparation, too. For many dishes that aren’t called “crock pot grody food,” you can’t start preparing dinner in advance, or you’ll end up with poor quality grub because it had to sit too long; similarly, since by the time you get done putting away the 13,000 chairs that the stupid earlier wards set up for who-knows-what-reason, you can bank on not getting home until at least 4:45pm–after which it is way too late to start thinking about dinner. Consider all of the people I would have invited over for dinner and probably baptized by now if we had just had time to make a decent meal on Sunday afternoon. Think about it!
And I could talk about kids and naptime, but I’d just get angry and be in a foul mood by the time I get home, so I’ll just move on.
Late church makes you sin, too. Consider: having late church means that on Fast Sundays, you’re basically forced into the longest fasts in the known universe, since there is a law decreed in heaven that “two meals” equals “from the time you get up to whenever you get home from church.” If you’re really committed, you might last until you’ve changed out of your church clothes before snarfing a handful of tortilla chips. I don’t. So in theory, late church should make you super-spiritual because you’re fasting longer than everyone else, right? Wrong.
What REALLY happens is that on Saturday night, while you sit at home and stare glassy-eyed at the Netflix or the Internets or Whatever with your spouse and argue about what to watch, you’re both engaged in a delicate game of trying to pretend like you’ve “forgotten” that tomorrow is Fast Sunday and hoping that, if you succeed, your spouse will be the one who “accidentally” eats a hearty bowl of cereal in the morning, thereby justifying your own indulgence. “We’ll fast next Sunday!” you’ll shout as one, united in false commitment, knowing full well that you’ll do no such thing because c’mon who are we kidding? So, yeah–late church causes you to sin.
You want to know how bad it is? Late church is so bad that I enjoyed Stake Conference last Sunday, and wish we could have more of that.
By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog 
We actually changed wards because it was moving to 1pm.
If the SP came out tomorrow and announced that we would stay on this schedule for another year, I would move or just go to another ward.
When we have late church we go on family bike rides in the morning. When it’s not raining. Otherwise, we do other fun family things. But we aren’t a scriptures/MoTab/booksOnlyOnSundays kind of family.
you know who probably likes 1pm church? Drunks. Wake up hungover, get a little hair of the dog at brunch and you’re almost back to being human by 1. So, maybe that’s the ward Jesus would attend as well because drunks, etc. are there. Just putting that out there, in case you wanted to be like Jesus.
When our ward are on the late shift we don’t start until 2pm. Not looking forward to it come January. It makes it nigh on impossible to get to the Stake Centre for any Sunday evening events, unless we head over straight from church. I’ve always preferred the morning shift.
We went to a sorry building that had church at 8, 11:30, and 3. Pretty sure baptisms went way down as a result, except maybe for the 11:30 group, but that time only looks good in compulsion to the others.
10 AM is the best. Or homechurching, you can choose.
For some insane reason, our bishop declined to switch back to the 0900 time slot, so we are suffering with our 2nd straight year of 1 PM church. I guess he’s trying to get released.
ErinAnn,
Neither are we a “scriptures/MoTab/booksOnlyOnSundays” kind of family, but we also don’t go on family bike rides because our kids are still really young and honestly that sounds more exhausting than almost anything. I feel like I need to hit the pool now just to recover from considering your idea.
So an idea. Where there are shared buildings, instead of ward boundaries why not let members divide themselves up according to when we prefer our meetings. Morning or afternoon…
We have one member who can only attend in the morning, so has to switch ward every year.
I don’t pretend to know what it means to say that the church is “true”, except that I’m certain it only applies to the 10-1 block and no other. 9-12 is still 66.6% true; however, ending after 1:00 instantly forfeits all truthfulness. Starting on or after 1 is a mark of the church of the devil.
How we deal with 1PM church is practice a sundown to sundown sabbath. Which means, not going anywhere Saturday night (we usually do anyway). Our sabbath ends between 4:30-5:00pm. Because I have teens and they might have a meeting after church that extends church time another 30 minutes to a hour. To celebrate the end of the sabbath and because everyone is tired crabby and extremely hungry we go out to a restaurant for dinner. We would take in a movie, but we have early morning seminary.
You are absolutely right.
My ward has had the 1-4 time slot for THREE FLIPPIN’ YEARS IN A ROW, simply because the Stake President and his wife are in our ward boundaries, and the Stake President’s wife sings in the Tabernacle Choir in the morning, and the Stake President’s wife wants to come to ward meetings, and the Stake President tells the bishops what time their ward meetings have to be, so the rest of us have to have hellion church hours so that the Stake President’s wife isn’t inconvenienced.
1. If that isn’t unrighteous dominion, I’d like to know what is.
2. The Stake President’s wife turns, like, 168 years old this year, so this is her last year in the Choir, so maybe the rest of us will no longer be punished for having this couple in our ward. One can only pray that will be the case.
P.S. Our schedule has Sacrament Meeting last. We aren’t stupid. Too many of us were being sane and leaving after Sacrament Meeting when it was the first hour, so they reversed the schedule to punish us even more.
My ward meets in a shared building that rotates times between 8, 11:30, and 3. The most recent year that my ward met at 3, I taught the CTR 4 class. I’m confident that my calling and election are now made sure.
When I was in college and working graveyard shift health care, I got permission to attend “Night Church”. Two stakes participated, and they would rotate wards in charge from week to week. Each ward in charge was responsible for sending a member of the Bishopric, a priest, a deacon, and a speaker or two. Church met at 7 PM, Sacrament meeting only. It was fantastic. We’d have police officers in uniform, nurses, doctors, and idiots like me who worked the night shift.
The only meeting even close was in-home meetings on my mission. The non-member husband where we held church was responsible for selecting the prelude music, so we’d get The Scorpions more often than not. Greetings, opening hymn, prayer. Bless the Sacrament on a stereo speaker, have a member give a 2-3 minute talk, and then have a Gospel Essentials lesson. Closing hymn, closing prayer, and you’re all holy within the hour. I think we met at 5 PM.
Worst time ever, even worse than 1 PM, was 5:30 AM in a Provo student ward. I wasn’t a BYU student, so they couldn’t threaten to kick me out of school if I didn’t attend. That was just evil, because it blew Saturday night all to heck, and then I’d take an entirely too long nap on Sunday after church.
Late church blows!!!!!
It’s the worst when you have young kids as it always falls during nap time. So you either miss some church so they can have their nap or you stay at church and pay for it the rest of the day as the young ones morph into nap-deprived monsters the rest of the day. They know how to make you pay for making them miss their naps! Believe me, we had plenty of miserable Sunday evenings due to missed naps.
At the end of last year we skipped from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm church. The Ward that had the 10:30 slot asked if they could keep it and our Bishop said “sure, we’ll just go to 12:30 pm. Despite my vociferous protests at Bishopric Meeting the next week over this, I lost that battle and we went to 12:30. I feel totally cheated we didn’t get the 10:30 slot this time around!
I’ve been going on mountain bike rides with my son every Sunday morning recently. I’m kind of loving late church for once.
I too feel your pain. Along with everything else, one o’clock church really screws up trying to follow NFL football on the West Coast.
We start at 10:20 because we combine youth/Primary with another ward. We almost had to go to the 1:00 slot but the bishop’s wife looked at schedules to make it work. We get stuck with Sacrament last though. We make the YSA ward go at 1:00; they appreciate the opportunity to sleep in.
JA Benson,
I find your idea very interesting. I have to think about that some more.
Anyone heard about the new policy of no new church buildings if there is one within a 30 minute drive (or something like that) that isn’t at 3-ward capacity?
Also, yes, 10 AM church is more true.
So her literal voice has a figurative voice in the affairs of the church!
Scott B., I’m not sure what we’ll do this next year. We just moved to a very hilly neighborhood and we switch to the 1pm in January I think. We also have youngish children and trekking up and down our ridiculously steep road (to the less steep main road) with all the bikes isn’t very appealing. I still haul a trailer with the beastly 4yo who doesn’t want to ride yet.
At any rate, I give all extraneous church meetings a thumbs down. My husband was just put in as Sunday School pres and he gets Ward Counsel EVERY Sunday. Our new bishop likes meetings.
Just imagine how great it’ll be in a few months when your new bishop realizes how ridiculous that is and decides to go every other week instead! Then, your husband can take the “forgot it’s fast sunday” game from the post and apply to ward council meeting. “Oh, what’s that you say Brother 2nd Counselor Thompson? It was Ward Council Sunday? I thought that was next week–since this month has 5 Sundays, right? My bad!”
I love the idea of combing the youth and primary from two wards at church.
I’m not sure if the 3:45-6:45 or the 8:30-11:30 schedules were the worst I ever had. Wait a minute–3:45 was a singles ward, which meant that we could all go out of town for the weekend and still be back for Church. Maybe that was OK after all.
Sadly, he’s not a new bishop, just *our* new bishop. Since we just moved. So he has a long love of meetings. -_-
The Sabbath does not begin until one hour before Sacrament Meeting, whatever time that is. So it is written, so it shall be done.
When I was a sophomore in college, before mission service and still not totally committed to this whole Mormon thing, our student ward started at 2:30 pm. I’m not even bleeping you. 2:30.
2:30.
ErinAnn,
Well make him send his counselors each 1x per month. We all know that they have fairly little else to do for their calling, right?
Wow, imagine if ahjeez WAS bleeping us!
It would be [bleep].
I don’t get your comment, Steve. I feel like you’re not giving us the whole picture here.
Can no one help that dog with his heavy 1pm church burden? It’s [bleeping] [bleep].
He looks like he’s sitting in a chair. Maybe like a Bishop’s chair? I’m going to name him Bishop Dog. Those eyes reveal that Bishop Dog carries an enormous burden.
Bishop Dog sees into your soul and knows the massive, heavy burden you carry. Won’t you help Bishop Dog?
You shouldn’t generally modify a bleeped out word with “bleeping” since you don’t want to suggest that the adjective is sharing the same lexeme as the modified bleep. Nobody swears like that. Jeez.
Take it to Bishop Dog, ahjeez. Or don’t, actually. Bishop Dog has enough on his plate.
That little pooch could just as well be a [female dog].
I’ve been in 1pm church for a solid decade. Let that sink in for a minute. YSA. My resentment is curbed somewhat by my open acknowledgement that since none of us have young children, it really is less awful for us, and half the ward still manages to be late for church anyhow. But my appreciation for 1pm church really blossomed after I started to think about the Sabbath as a day to express my thanks for the work God did on the other 6 days. I like to go on walks in the morning with the dog (hey, it’s still walking even if some of it’s vertical) and enjoy nature before I have to go sit in the sensory deprivation chamber that is your average LDS meeting house. 1pm church also gives me plenty of time to find another church to go to in the morning so I can worship, sing, and learn something new before heading to said sensory deprivation chamber.
If “forgetting” it’s Fast Sunday is wrong then I don’t want to be right.
For a blissful two years about a decade ago, we had church from 9:00-11:30am. Best time ever–not just because we were home by the end of the first quarter of the morning football games, but also the 2.5 hour block made things so much leaner and focused.
Worst time ever? Sacrament meeting from 4:30-6:30pm, back in the days before the block. Pitch black outside when we started in winter….and not an iPad to be found to make the time go faster.
So more church is the solution? I’ve never come so close to wielding the bannination stick for a friendly comment in my life…
I’ve never been threatened with bannination before! Does it still count as church if there’s a rock band and donuts?
1:45-4:45. Plus, I have to take the bus which gets me there at 12:40 and doesn’t pick me up until 5:13. So, yeahhh. Evil.
My junior year of high school church was at 8 am, and I thought that was the worst thing ever, especially to a night-owl adolescent who already had to deal with early-morning seminary. The next year we switched to 3:30pm and I realized that was much, much worse, especially in the winter when it got dark around 4:30 or 5. I was the chorister and picked “Now the Day is Over” as the closing hymn for sacrament meeting, and from the looks on everyone’s faces as they realized it was dark out and we still had 2 more hours of church they agreed.
Petra, the picture you just painted is pretty much the saddest thing ever.
We had church from 3-6 for two years in a row. I was in the primary. Trust me. It’s much worse than 1pm. When we changed to 8am I told my husband, “oh. I don’t hate church. I just hate 3pm church.”
Scott–I hear Episcopal churches never have services in the afternoon. Just sayin.
I’ve only had the late slot for church once, and it almost was the death of my activity in the church. We no longer have three units in our building, but just our family ward and a singles branch. The singles like the 11:00 slot so they can sleep in, so we take the 9:00 slot. I actually prefer the early slot; I’d be happy to go at 8:00 if I could. Because let’s face it, it’s football season, and the games start at noon!
I hate 1pm church too, but what I really want to know is how some of you are getting a 2.5 hour block? What do I have to do to bring that glorious schedule to our ward. (Two hours would be better, but I’m not going to press my luck.)
Amen to all the post, the comments and don’t get me started. I have 3 more months on the 1-4 block and I may die before I get parole.
Kristine, why don’t you promote your distaste for English Mormon pilgrimages elsewhere?
Hey, Hiding From the Stake President (clever alias), I know you and you’ll be happy to know that rumor has it that next year you are reclaiming the 9:00 block that we have so enjoyed. Our bishop has been doing some polling as to whether we would like sacrament meeting first or last on the 1:00 schedule. Does it matter?
We alternate to the 1pm time slot every other year. And I enjoy it. I get every Sunday morning to relax. I’m not going to my parents’ home; I’m not going to my in-laws on Sunday morning. I catch up on my journal writing. I edit some of video I’ve taken of the boys’ sporting events. I do some indexing on Family Search. We listen to music. Etc. Morning church is nice, but because we’re out in the afternoon I often get roped into going to the in-laws early and so I lose time that I would have had to do the things I’ve listed above. Fast Sunday’s not a big deal because . . . well, because I’m a grownup now and I can deal with it. There are people all over the world, including in my community, who are literally hungry. All the time. While it’s not always easy, I figure I could be hungry for a few hours, knowing I’ve got food in my pantry and I’ll be fine.
I have to admit, I have never had sacrament meeting last, but I hear mixed reports. Some say its the higher and holier way…others complain that the kids are so burned out by that time that it ruins everything. Has BCC properly polled the readership for further knowledge on the topic?
For 2013, we had 9:00 AM church, and our bishop had a revelation that we needed to have sacrament meeting last because the sacrament ordinance was so important that everyone needed to be there on time.
The results:
1) priesthood and primary teachers were routinely 15 to 20 minutes late for the 9:00 AM classes, leaving the Primary presidency constantly scrambling for subs.
2) somewhere between 25 and 40% of families left after the sacrament was administered. Afterall, they’d just finished the most important part of the week.
3) Sacrament meeting was taking place _exactly_ during naptime for any kid under the age of 5 (which is about a third of our ward). If those families hadn’t left, their kids were so cranky that there was no such thing as reverence in the chapel, much less the ability to hear anything over the constant screaming.
I’ve never heard a positive comment about having sacrament meeting last (at least for at the 9;00 AM block). But believe it or not, that irritations didn’t even register on the list of reasons I was overjoyed when that bishop was released.
I have 1pm church every other year. I like it because I prefer Sundays without alarm clocks, and it’s easier to keep the Sabbath when I don’t have an entire afternoon with nothing to do but nap and hide from home teachers.
Could be worse! As a kid I remember having to attend at 3pm until they split the stake. I’ve ben attending late church 1:00pm onward for many years now. Why? YSA. Unless we have an institute building, we are always given the crappiest time slot. And you may shrug that off because our routines are simpler sans kids. However, we also tend to be starting out, working overtime to make ends meet on just one crappy salary, or we are given the bad shifts on the way to good shifts. I lived for a year and a half with no church ties, and no church friends because if I wanted to keep a job and pay the bills I needed to be at work at 12pm. So I attended the first two meetings at a family ward and never got to attend my own. This happened often in another city where many of our members worked in medicine and started out with tiring evening shifts, starting about 3pm, too early for our late church.
So yes, late church sucks, but feel grateful you only have to do it for a year every four.
we go to church at 3:00 … in the AFTERNOON. which means, for our calling (Nursery) we get those little adorable tykes from 4 to 6. Just, ya know, their nap/dinner/need-their-mommy time. It’s honestly one version of hell on earth, even though we love those little monsters. SO this 1:00 pm nonsense, yeah… that would be a dream.
Strange isn’t it how it people see things differently. When my family joined the church in the early 70’s our ward did not start its meetings until the afternoon. That was because a significant number of members did not have transport and the local bus service did not start until lunch time. if I remember right Priesthood was at 2pm, Sunday school 3.30pm and sacrament 5.30pm? – this was in the days before the consolidated meeting schedule. We would not get home till c7.30. Yet my memories are all positive. As a teenager I welcomed the sleep in that I could have. A lazy breakfast and then I would do my seminary (we did homestudy with a weekly class) at the kitchen table while my Mum was preparing lunch and dinner. In no time at all it would be time for church and the chance to socialize with our friends. After church if there was no fireside we would come home for dinner and then after relaxing it would be time for bed. I have always missed those happy times. It was so easy to keep the Sabbath as church took up most of the day, with plenty of times to see friends too, but perhaps it was just that we were converts rejoicing in the witness of the spirit and that feeling of redeeming love.
I bare my testimony that this is the truest post ever written. I once had church at 2:30, and it was dark when we got done during the winter. IT WAS HORRIBLE!
I currently have 1 pm church with sacrament meeting last, which is the worst schedule ever. I don’t mind going to sacrament meeting, but I can only take so much of RS and SS. At least when sacrament meeting is first, I can plead a headache and go home after it. But how do you have a headache that lasts until 2:40 pm and then miraculously goes away? I mean, I do it anyway, but people are becoming suspicious.
One of the things I hate the most about 1pm church is that it makes it impossible to get anything done. With morning church, you get out at noon, eat lunch, take a nap, and can still get some reading/writing/housework done. With afternoon, there is some unseen yet tangible force that make it IMPOSSIBLE to do anything prior to noon, because you always have this impending doom that, “I can’t start anything, because soon we have to start getting ready for church.” It’s THE WORST.
“Episcopal churches never have services in the afternoon. Just sayin.”
Well of course not, Kristine. Episcopalians are sipping mimosas in their pastel polo shirts and well-pressed khakis before noon. It’s all spelled out in the Book of Common Prayer, under the section An Order for the Holy Brunch: Rite One.
Nice one, Mike.
And when it was evening, I said to my wife, This is a chapel, and the time is now past; send the children home, that they may go into the kitchen, and get themselves victuals.
And my wife said unto me, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.
And I say unto her, We have here but five Cheerios, and two Starburst.
She said, Bring them hither to me.
And she commanded the children to sit down on the floor, and took the five Cheerios, and the two Starburst and gave the Cheerios and Starburst to me and me to the children.
And they did all eat, and were filled: and I took up of the fragments that remained and there were some Skittles and Lucky Charms.
And they that had eaten were about one child, beside the girl.
Miraculous.
My ward use to alternate meeting times from year to year with the other ward in our building. We overlapped times so we could combine our Primary and YM/YW. The they decided to combine the wards, so now we do 9 am every year, sacrament meeting first (which is preference). Right now we do have another ward in our building as their ward is being remodeled (actually I think its being torn down and rebuilt). So we will have them for awhile, but THEY have to have the afternoon shit.
Such an apropos typo, Sharee.
We had 3:30 church for a while when I was growing up, and it was affectionately nicknamed “midnight mass”. When I was in a YSA ward we always met at 2:30, and I had a visiting teachee who was consistently late/never showed because she overslept.
Sharee wins.
Having a late church from 3-6 PM at as a YSA was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I met my husband for the first time then. He was new and didn’t know that his stake had Stake Conference that day so he stayed at the institute and waited for the last ward of the day to meet and stayed at a ward break-the-fast afterward. The rest is history. However, with children late church is an abomination.
That was no typo, that was truth.
For years our ward met at 10:00 am in a one-ward building. Then our stake was dissolved and we were moved into a previously-existing stake. The new stake seemed oddly flummoxed by our meeting time. “Ten o’clock? You meet at ten o’clock? That can’t be right.” They were dumbfounded. It was like we were flouting the divinely-appointed pattern for church meeting times. Stake visitors seemed completely unable to grok a 10:00 start time. They were repeatedly arriving an hour early. The stake tried to get us to start at 9. The bishop resisted. I overheard one member of the stake presidency insisting to our bishop that the handbook specified a 9 am start time for all units except those on the afternoon schedule in a multi-ward building. “I’ve never seen that in the handbook,” the bishop said. “You’ll have to show me where that is.”
Finally, the stake president issued a decree. Henceforth our ward would meet at nine o’clock, just like everyone else in the stake. It was just too hard for stake visitors to keep track of our confusing and seditious schedule.
“You can’t go anywhere, you can’t do anything.”
Sleep in, nice indulgent breakfast with muffins and dark hot chocolate, leisurely read of the Chicago Trib, listen to a BYU devotional or something in the bathtub, and we still manage to be 10 minutes late for 1 o’clock church.
Young kids + late church = nightmare
Teens + late church = paradise
I have teens. I love the 1pm schedule. Sleep in. Maybe a heathen mountain bike ride. Brunch of bacon, sausage, eggs, etc. Bake some cookies.
I mean, it’s Sunday. What are you going to do with your afternoon anyway?
Woke up this morning, grateful for 1p church. I can watch the entire Ryder Cup before having to leave. This blessing I receive once, every four years. Then, it’s back to hell for the next 207 weeks.
That cheerio/starbust parable was classic. I was tearing up before I could finish.
I feel like this is one thing where the vote of the people should rule. Me, I’d vote for 7 AM church. I don’t care that our kids would go in pajamas and half asleep. Anything to have the whole Sunday to relax. Unless of course you have diligent home teachers. They would be alloted the 10:15-10:30 time slot because I would insist that 10:30 AM is the start of our holy time, aka doing nothing.
“But you can’t let them go outside and get all dirty and rowdy because it’s Sunday, and we don’t do that, right?”
I grew up a city boy, but now that we have moved to the outskirts of town and have chickens, goats and pigs, I have realized that the early Saints did not, could not, have avoided getting all dirty on Sunday morning. So now we don’t worry anymore about whether the kids run around outside before our 1pm church.
I assume, then, that you also ride your horses to church? ;)
I’m married to Left Field. Getting to church is a challenge for me for any number of reasons, but that arbitrary and capricious 9:00 a.m. start time is my line in the sand. I’m expecting our former bishop (now in the Stake Presidency) to assume the Stake Presidency in 2016, and when he does, I’m going to lobby hard for a 10:00 a.m. start. He held the line on the 10:00 start for a solid 18 months, bless him. He’ll listen to reason.
The reason for the 9:00 start is entirely to do with the convenience of stake visitors, in case they may need to go to Ocean Springs, too. NOT.OUR.PROBLEM.
This isn’t (only) about me. There are people with a LOT more faith than me who don’t make it to church on Sunday because 9:00 is too darn early. They feel super guilty about it. Fortunately, I overcame guilt with my depression.
Once my kids were old enough, I liked afternoon church. I haven’t been in a building with more than one ward in a dozen years, though, so that hasn’t been on the radar.
I’m assuming the 9 a.m. start time for Ann Porter is due to travel time?
I should clarify: The 9 a.m. start time is “too early” for Ann due to travel time.
KC has it exactly right, imo. The only thing to add is those fortunate to live close to a chapel have it a little easier. I can be home by 4:05/6/7/8, in time to catch the end of the early slate of NFL games. It’s like a Mormon sponsored Red Zone for the early games and plenty of time to enjoy the 4:00 pm games.
We have 1:30-4:30 church indefinitely. I have had 4 kids during the umpteen years we’ve been stuck at that schedule. Shockingly, I’m still active!
No, 9:00 a.m. start time is too early because I don’t like to get up before 8:30 on Sunday. If there was a good reason for it (another ward meeting later) I would take my turn grumbling through it for a year. The stated reason for the 9:00 a.m. start is so if someone from the stake wants to visit both us (west end) and the late ward in Ocean Springs (east end) on the same day, they can drive to both. It’s nonsense.
I have zero patience with the adherents of the cult of the early riser.
Every ward/branch in my stake is the only unit in its building, and every one starts at 10am. It was the same was in my previous stake, except that two wards shared the stake center and I don’t know their rotation schedule. To me, 10am is just right. I was in a 3pm ward many years ago, and have done 1pm a number of times.
“I have zero patience with the adherents of the cult of the early riser.”
And I have little empathy for those who for no reason other than personal preference can’t get up before 8:30 a.m. If I sleep past 7 a.m. I have a headache for the rest of the day.
I’m with Ann – the idea that early-risers are more righteous is silly (I know it’s in the scriptures, but I’m not convinced it’s doctrine.) I have advanced arthritis and mornings are extremely painful. Even before I had arthritis, I never felt human before noon anyway – no matter what time I went to bed.
I certainly wasn’t making the claim that early risers are more righteous. I was responding to the attack on those who are ok with getting up “early” (it’s actually later than we have to get up for work during the week). Remember, Ann said she has no patience for early risers. Why not just say, “It’s not for me” and leave the attack out of it?
Mike, I didn’t say I have no patience with early risers. My teen son is a “lark,” and it’s great – zero struggle for early morning seminary! I said I have no patience with “adherents of the cult of the early riser,” which is not the same thing at all. If you want to get up early, that’s awesome. And I’ll get up early if next year I don’t have to, but this year it’s my turn. But if on the so-called day of rest the only reason I have to get up early is for YOUR convenience, that’s not OK.
If you want to get up early, cook me breakfast. I’ll get up at 8:30 and eat the lovely breakfast you cook, shower, dress, and we can be at church by 10. Except church starts at 9, for no other reason than the convenience of the three men in the stake presidency. Not.Cool.