Guest Post: Boundaries at Church

Guest Post by Megan Buhler

Six months ago I asked to be released over cleaning the ward building.

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Yesterday we cleaned our church building. My husband is in the Elders Quorum presidency and every 2 months it is his responsibility to clean the building. One-fifth of the families in our ward are assigned to show up to help.

We’ve cleaned a lot of church buildings in 20 years of marriage. When we were first married my husband’s calling was building cleaning coordinator. Despite many efforts to invite people to help, we cleaned the building alone almost every week. With 2 bathrooms and only one ward meeting in the building, we could get the building clean enough in 45 minutes. My husband would grab the vacuum and start vacuuming the chapel. I would walk through the building emptying trash cans and looking for anything out of place or that needed more attention. Then I’d clean the bathrooms while he vacuumed hallways and entry ways.

We have cleaned so many buildings over the years, trained our children how to help, and now that they are teenagers they are efficient at cleaning buildings, too. My 11 year old loves to mop – he fills the bucket on his own and mops kitchen, bathrooms, and the gym and then cleans up the mop. My teen girls start with the bathrooms – one refilling supplies, the other cleaning toilets, counters, and mirrors.

Our current building is lot bigger (5 bathrooms!) and a lot messier (2 wards). Still, the 5 of us can do a basic clean in an hour. Not everything gets done on the list – no dusting or wiping down water fountains or cleaning glass entry doors – but it’s usually good enough. If other people show up, more vacuuming, dusting, and windexing happens.

The issue is that our current ward expects the cleaning crew to also set up all the chairs. Chairs in the overflow, chairs in the relief society room, chairs in the elders quorum room, chairs in the primary room.

By the time my kids and ME finish cleaning, we are done. Setting up chairs is just too much.

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A year and a half ago I was called into the Relief Society. It wasn’t handled well. My husband was in the Elders Quorum Presidency and I was in the Relief Society Presidency. We have a teen daughter with significant mental health issues including suicidal ideation and previous attempts. Church is not working well for her. She usually doesn’t attend. If she does, she usually goes home after sacrament meeting. There were frequent clashes between my calling, my husband’s calling, and our daughter’s needs.

However, cleaning the building was the first straw and the last straw.

When I got called, at our very first presidency meeting I brought up the issues with cleaning the building. And I had solutions to offer. 1. Separate cleaning and chair set up. Why do they all have to be put away every week? Have the auxiliaries set up their own chairs Sunday morning. Have the youth set up the overflow Sunday mornings. My family can clean the building by ourselves but we can’t clean the building and set up the chairs. 2. Announce which families are cleaning through Relief Society as well as through the Elders Quorum. We have all the dates for the whole year. If those get on my calendar, my family will be there. If they only get on my husband’s calendar, it is likely only he will be there – if even that. Let the women know what weeks their families are assigned and maybe people would come help.

Nothing happened. I continued to bring it up regularly. Nothing happened. The Relief Society President eventually mentioned it to the bishop who squashed it without discussion. I got a link to the list of cleaning assignments and sent it to our secretary asking that it be included in the weekly Relief Society email. It didn’t happen. I brought it up in our meetings at least once a month for a year. I always led with solutions and I got nowhere.

Of course, my husband thought I was wrong to raise the issue and we should just do it without complaining. But it was an issue. We were willing to help but no one was listening to my concerns. Or my limits.

At tithing settlement, the Bishop asked if we had anything to talk about and I brought up cleaning. He didn’t even let me finish my sentence. He was rude. He was dismissive. He blamed my husband for not doing a good enough job getting the word out. He insisted no other group had a problem getting people to come which was untrue.

Apparently he listened to other people complain at tithing settlement that the building wasn’t getting cleaned well enough. So rather than look at the current system – and maybe take the suggestions I had been making for an entire year – or coming up with a new system, the Bishop assigned the Relief Society to add deep cleaning activities every 6 months.

When the Relief Society President informed us in our meetings that was the plan, I expressed concern and frustration. Why not fix the system? Or start a new system? Why dump a whole bunch of extra work on the Relief Society? It wasn’t up for discussion. The Relief Society President had agreed and that was the end of discussion. Despite me advocating for improving the current system for an entire year, she just agreed. With no discussion.

So I asked to be released.

I have felt unheard in this church for 30 years.

I am tired of being told what to do.

I am tired of not being listened to.

I am tired of always being asked to do more than I am willing to do.

I am tired of the constant conflicts – having to choose between fulfilling my calling or my husband’s calling or meeting my child’s needs. Choosing between this meeting or that meeting when both are required by my calling and both are ridiculous, unnecessary wastes of time.

I am tired.

So, what are the solutions?

Well, I highly recommend not having a calling. It has been amazing to show up at church. I still do a lot of service – minister, cook for funerals, help members pack and clean, bring cookies to activities, clean the building every 2 months… but I’m mostly choosing what I do and what I don’t do.

I love the community and the service of my Mormon faith, but I’d like to change the top-down, no questions attitude and the assumption that we’ve all consecrated everything to the church so there are no limits to how much they can ask. I’d like to see people pushing back on unnecessary meetings and unnecessary assignments. Of course, paid church cleaning would be amazing, but that is outside of the control of the wards and stakes.

What do you think? How do you set boundaries at church?

Megan lives with her husband, 3 kids, and a puppy in Taylorsville, Utah. She loves books, working at an elementary school library, and is a member of too many book clubs.