Our ward is going through an interesting phenomenon that may or may not be unique: we have too many callings and not enough sisters. My wife serves in the Relief Society presidency, and the bishopric cannot find sisters to help her out with a half-dozen or so callings that must be filled. The apparent reason: all of the women are serving in young women’s, on the activity committee and, most importantly, primary.
Is this a result of new Church rules that discourage men from teaching primary classes alone?
Our ward does not have an apparent lack of men to fill callings. In young men’s, where I serve, we have six active leaders and only five or six active young men. I don’t see any problems with the EQ or HP. The bishopric is well-stocked.
But the women seem pretty overwhelmed. We have eight or nine primary classes, all taught by women. Then we have a large young women’s group. And of course relief society, which (in my wife’s opinion) has a severe lack of women serving.
My wife is thinking of asking the bishopric to have two men serve together as teachers for some of the primary classes. Perhaps this would solve the apparent “no men teaching primary alone” rule and free up some women for the relief society.
My ward is somewhat unique in that we have roughly the same number of active men as women (I have been in wards where there are twice as many active women as men). I’m wondering if any other wards are having problems with too many callings for too few sisters.