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Foreign.
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Lab Live, where every first Friday of the month I get on here, invite all my friends to jump in here and join us as we discuss various topics that have happened in Zion Lab. Now, my primary reason for doing this, I mean it's great to like review these topics and have a good discussion going, which is always cool. But I pushed this out, this recording out to the podcast feed. We have such a large audience on our podcast feed and many of them, they hear Zion Lab and they're like, zion what? And you guys, if you're only engaging with the Leading Saints content through the podcast, you are missing an entire different world out there. Okay, you need to go to leading saints.org Zion. Come on in here. You create a free profile. It's like a social media all about, all about church leadership. We got questions being asked, we do live streams, such cool discussions happening. And we're going to share with you some of those topics, some of those conversations and have a discussion about it further here. So those of you that are tuning in live, wow, we got a good, good crew here. Have this new edition here I'm trying out. You see this? I was sent Christus crystal and just really cool. Looks like the, the symbol, the church symbol, right. And it's pretty heavy. That's like solid glass. And so if this shelf collapses during the recording, that is why. But I'm sure it's fine. It's very sturdy shelf. So I'm gonna get my screen ready here. We're going to review some different posts. I go to the. Typically what I do is I go to the analytics on Zion Lab and I will kind of ask like, or I'll sort it to see which topics were the most popular, had the most comments, had the most likes, those types of things. And so we'll explore, explore some of that today. So we got LeGrand from Morristown, Tennessee. Love to see it. Good to see people unmuting their cameras, making me feel not so alone. It's really good. And I get some of you are like quietly listening in your cubicle at your job and, and I don't have a problem with it. So. All right. And of course I, I gotta mention we are in the middle of the Liberating Saints virtual summit. It is so awesome. I just feel so much energy from these virtual summits. It's been a few years since we've done any virtual summits. I think Covid really knocked my legs out from under me with as far as doing virtual summits, but it's just so cool. I mean I love this content that's going up every day. People are loving it. We're doing a deep dive into all things ministering to individuals who are struggling with pornography. And I'm just so amazed about these experts out there, the people I interview, just the type of content they're putting. Putting forward. So if you're not part of that, definitely jump in. There'll still be a time to see all the, all the content and we'll probably do a. Another round of the, this virtual summit here in a few weeks. I haven't decided yet, but sort of an encore presentation, if you will, and making sure everybody gets a chance to see it. The one thing where our social media is still down. Oh, man, that's a whole nother story. Would bore you here if I went into it. But I'm working with some people who have some inroads into meta so we can get our Instagram and our Facebook back. But it's really not been helpful to not have social media to promote this incredible virtual summit. And so we're not quite getting as many attendees as we usually do. That's just because a huge marketing channel is cut off there. So. But that's just how mortality will do you. It's true. All right, let's jump into some of this. I don't know if there, if you want to put in the chat, you can raise your hand if there's a certain post or topic that you're interested in. Love to explore. I think the place I want to start, a few, a few different posts that I always appreciate. John Shaw's post, he. He talks about the new standard plan for meeting houses. Somewhere a plan, a blueprint was leaked. As far as the church, the church putting out here, I'll share my screen here, standby, just so you get a visual. See what I'm looking at. We'll put this on YouTube later as well.
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All right.
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Sharing my entire screen. So, yeah, John, put this, put this out. These plans, I don't know was, was leaked or something, but they have a new design of the. The meeting house where the sacrament table, there's going to be an aisle down the middle of the chapel with the sacrament table in the middle and then the lectern right behind it. Here's a little pet peeve I have in our culture. When you stand at the microphone, you're not at the podium, you're standing on the podium, you are at the lectern. Okay, I'm just going to put that out there, see if I can create a sway and that we can start calling it by the correct technical name. So anyways, the Lectern. Anyways, that's cool. That's one post. Let me go back here to this other one I want to talk about. We had a post here about the Constitution Fifth Sunday. I'll bring that up. I want to also talk about this one and experience in church. I want to talk about mental capacity as well. Okay, so we had a post in called Constitution Fifth Sunday. How'd it go? Because I knew everybody you know in
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the,
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in the church was, you know, mandated to have this meeting the. For fifth Sunday where you show the video focus, have a discussion about the Constitution. Actually not everybody in the church, obviously the. Those in the United States of America, happy 250 years to all of you that they had this. So I put this up there. How'd it go? Now I, our, our stake actually didn't do this because we had state conference that Sunday and we weren't told to do it another Sunday. So I think we skirted past it. We'll see if it happens. But, and I love this enzyme lab that has this conversation summary because there's 30, 31 comments now. Now I would, you know, I don't want to bore you by going through each one of those comments though. They're, I'm sure they're very fascinating. But it says the discussion. Oh, AI will summarize it for me. Oh, what's it doing here? Oh, it's expanding it. Overall positive experience and respectful tone. Now it's giving me too much text. Let me try something here. I just want the, this is what I want. The discussion about the fifth Sunday lessons on the U.S. constitution reflected a generally positive experience with a focus on maintaining a respectful non political atmosphere. Many participants appreciated the spiritual framing of the Constitution and religion, though some noted challenges such as the length of the video, combining youth and adults and limiting time for discussion. This was also, this was also interest in. Oh. There was also interest in improving engagement through better structured and small group discussion, especially for youth. All right, moving on. So there's this other post, Bryce Bender. I always appreciate Bryce. He takes it to the next level. I'm gonna say. Is Bryce in here? I don't think he is. No, he's not. He always takes the next level. He doesn't just post a question or a thought, like a text thought. He posts a video here. So I think you'll be able to hear this. I will play it.
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Okay, I've got thoughts. I just came back from a coordinating council meeting. So it was like, I don't know how many stakes, 18 stakes. All the wards in those stakes, all of their elders going presidencies and all the Relief City presidencies. So the entire stake center was filled up with these presidencies all the way back to the stage, almost every seat. And the visiting speaker was a sister from the General Police Society Council Board general, Luca board general. And she's, she's did great. And her, you know, male counterpart, if you will, who spoke before her was a stake president just within our coordinating council. Both of them spoke about ministering, both of them spoke about experiences that drive people to a closer relationship with Christ that can happen within religious society, within eldersborne. It was overall a great meeting, but I couldn't help but think and part of it was because the sister began her talk by saying I'm here to talk to the sisters, men, you know, you can listen too, blah blah, blah. And the keynote speak was about Relief Society and it was great. And part of her keynote message though she messaged, she pointed everyone to the tools app and talked about wax poetically about all these amazing resources that are within tools. If you go adults and then women, there is almost a limitless amount of stuff. There's even a podcast for women in the church that's got a ton of great people on there. I might tap into it. I don't know. Looks legit, but there's all these great resources. So being an Elder Square president, I was like, oh, let's see what they have for men. This is cool. I didn't know they had this tunnel. Click over to men. There's a couple of links to some general Father's Day videos and then there's a link to the Bible dictionary about the priesthood. That's it. Nothing else. Like nothing, you know, generously curated curated or intentionally curated or created to talk about men sacrific responsibilities of men at home, at church. None of that has been. Has been made an effort. So it's just, it's clear to me that there's a lot more emphasis happening, more intentionality happening. And I'm sure it's simply because they have a generally site presidency and a whole board of people and that's their job, right? To curate that information and they're doing a great job of it. And I was inspired to hear from her and obviously it's wonderful that almost everything she said was applicable to others for because we do a lot of similar things between re citing others form. However, I, I just am glad to be raising Three daughters in the church. It's a great time to be a woman in the church.
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All right, there it is. Thanks Bryce, for sharing that. And Stuart in the comments says you went to a similar meeting. Anything you willing to unmute and maybe share your perspective, what you experienced there? Again, we're not here to like be critical of the meeting or anything. I'm just, just curious if there's other contexts you're willing to share or anybody have thoughts on that. You can raise your hand or type it in too. We'd love to hear from you. But there is sort of this, this movement of talking more about this. Even Jasmine Rapalai, she posted a, that gave me a shout out in her in a short she did yesterday about, you know, the, the men's experience in the church. Now I'm literally writing a whole book on this. It's my next book about halfway through. We'll see how quickly and get it out. But just the masculine experience in the gospel because it's easy for someone to step back and be like, what are you talking about? Men's experience in the church. Have you heard of the patriarchy? Right. Which I hate that term because it's charged in so many ways. But, but we assume like oh no, only men can be bishops and, and they're in charge. They have the most authority. So therefore men are having a great experience in the church. I think that's a false dichotomy as far as saying that men either have the authority or they don't. And if they have authority then they're, they're, you know, running things. It's a false premise for sure. So let's just looking at and feel free to raise your hand if you have thoughts to share on this. But the summary, there's several comments on this one. Then the summary is the discussion centered on whether men are being overlooked in the church, particularly regarding regarding social connection and mental health support. Commenters agree there is a lack of institutional support on men's needs, leading to challenges in engagement and well being. Many highlight the importance of local elders quorum presidencies in creating opportunities for men to connect while also addressing cultural and familial dynamics that hinder men's participation. The conversation touches on mental health crises, societal pressures and the need for open dialogue and support within the church community. And look at this. We're having open dialogue right here. So hopefully we're, we're helping local and this is a whole discussion. And I've been on Salty since I was actually just talking with Hayden Holm, who runs Salty Saints, he has a lot of this type of dialogue on his channel. I've been on there several times, and often we say, okay, there's. Men's experience is less than ideal even though they have the priesthood. Right. Even though they're the ones that are in charge, even though there's. They're the majority of a ward council. Again, the false premise, and maybe I'll unpack that a little bit. I feel like that's a false premise because even though men are represented more in a ward council, that's only one identifying factor. And we're assuming that all men, the majority men, think alike. And so therefore, if the majority of men are on the ward council, they are going to create an experience that the majority of men like. However, us as humans, as mortals are much more complex than that. Like, why not have the majority of the ward council be extroverts? Or. Or the majority of the award council be introverts? Well, because it's really hard to tell who's an extrovert and who's an introvert. I may appear like a big extrovert because I'm here, I'm talking on a mic, I'm talking to thousands of people at the end of the day, once this is published, so it must be an extrovert. No, I actually, when this is over, I'm going to go lay on this couch behind me and just sort of refuel because this is very taxing for me.
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Right.
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And so I think it's worth considering that there's more going on here than just, oh, well, you're represented in a majority on the ward council, so therefore you should be fine.
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Right?
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There's much more going on with that. And then we then say, well, yeah, if men's experience is less than ideal, then the church should do something about that. Now, I'm a huge proponent. Like, there's something else I want to show you on the app as well. But he's right. You go to the resources in the gospel library and compare it to the women's resources, and it is very limited. Now, why is that a big thing? Is, is the. The. The men. The male demographic is the only demographic. The adult male demographic, I should clarify, is the only demographic that does not have a dedicated advisory council on the church level.
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Right.
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So I get on papal people. I have to say, would it be great, Wouldn't it be great to have an elders quorum, a general elders quorum presidency? I'd be a proponent of that. And then people are like, whoa, Whoa, whoa, timeout. You just don't understand, Kurt. This is the Melchizedek priesthood we're talking about. The general elders corn presidency is the first presidency. Totally get it. Totally get it. However, that is not their primary focus.
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Right.
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Nor should it be necessarily Right. And the council, you could say, well, the Quorum of the twelve Apostles is the advisory council. Great. However, that's not their primary focus nor should it be where you look at the Young Men's General Council, their primary focus is the young men experience in the church.
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Right.
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Or, or the, the release study president, the primary presidency.
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Right.
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All the demographics have a council that meet regularly and they think what does this demographic need? Or I'd be proponent of that. Again, I'm not. I always tread lightly here. I, I, it's so easy to, you know, this is the, the default position people go to is, well, the church should do something about it. The church should change. Right. But I've had opportunity to be in the church office building several times, meeting with the priest and family department, the communications department. And when you meet with these people, they're just like we are trying to navigate this international church. And it's so hard to hyper focus on these issues even in the United States when churches booming elsewhere and their, their issues and concerns are so different. Right. So I always encourage people don't default to this place. The church should change. With that said, it's, it's worth like a local ward leadership to be aware of like yeah, the men's experience is not being thought about on the same level as these other demographics.
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Right.
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And that would cause maybe to be, to be more aware and however, I'm also propone of saying we can't just lay this at the feet of the elders corn presidencies. You should do more, you should do better second hour meetings that are now going to 25 minutes. You should do gatherings, you should do this or that. Right. When in reality, speaking as an elders quorum president who I think has done a pretty good job, of course I'm extremely biased. He's done a pretty good job creating a positive culture, an engaging experience, something outside the norm that isn't just sit in a room and pass around the conference talk and read paragraphs. However, even to that level, many men do not want to engage. They avoid it.
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They.
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Right. And so it's up to individuals sometimes if you feel like you're not having a positive experience in the church, you're, you know, I'm not being fulfilled as a man in this church experience. Well, I can look to other resources. I don't mean leave the church, but I'm just saying maybe it's not the church's job to do all those things for you.
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Right.
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Church should provide ordinances, have Sunday gathering, those things. But it's up to me as an individual to go out and do. Go out and find those resources. So one thing I do is even this morning I was with my F3 workout group, go to F3 Nation. You've seen the interviews I've done with Frank Schwarz about it. Like, that's an example of something that we can do outside of the quorum structure. So let's go to the comments here. Yeah, so it. Marty brings up another point here.
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The.
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That's similar to the lack of church social media accounts dedicated to men. Absolutely. And again, I hope Leading Saints is sort of filling that void of, you know, we're putting content out there that supplement that. It's not all on the church.
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Right.
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So Jacob Thurston, his comments, like, it looks like there's all sorts of technical difficulties. Says he can't get the video. Sorry. But this is what happens. Men in general don't talk to each other, not in any meaningful way. Men are solitary. These are generalities. Men and women don't need the same things. Women love to chat. Again, generalities. Men don't totally agree. Now here's the thing. We, we sort of do this. Like, man, we, we blocked off this hour for you. Like, we gave you a, a gym. This is another like, signal. I'm making a list of these like signals where you're not a priority. Every other auxiliary has a room as a plate. You know, primary room, Relief Society room. Even the youth have their room. Even it may not be labeled.
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Right.
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Oh, Elders Corp. How about the choir seats or going to the gym?
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Right.
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Just these subtle hints of like, you kind of don't matter here. We didn't plan this building thinking of you. Anyways, I'm being a little harsh and, and hyperbolic, but. And so this is what we do. Like, hey, go in there. Like, go do your thing. Go connect, go talk. Oh, they don't talk. Oh my goodness, what are we going to do with these men? They don't talk. When in reality, as it says, women connect face to face, men connect shoulder to shoulder. You get that same group of men in the same gym, but throw a basketball in the middle of them and see how they work together, how they're high fiving and connecting and setting screens and you know, all the things because men connect Shoulder to shoulder. Men connect in service. Men connect in adventure. Not getting in a room and chit chatting. So, so great, great perspective there Jacob. Anybody else? Feel free if you have a thought. Love to get other voices on here. So raise your hand, test maybe test real quick if you can unmute or not. But raise your hand and join us. Love to hear your, your voice. Greg says maybe the Lord's purpose in this is to help men learn to serve rather than to be served. Absolutely, absolutely. I think it's one of those of just like the, oh, what do you call it? The, the pyramid of needs. Right. Where it's like if this is a, you know, you're hope you're coming to this live stream hoping to get something out of it. However, if the oxygen was sucked out of the room that you were in, you would, that would be your primary need. You wouldn't care about anything that I'm saying. Right. The, the hierarchy of needs. Maslow's hierarchy. Needs Anyways. Some philosopher anyways. But. And so I think yeah, you could look at the men and this is where we usually default. Like, well man, like why do you care about your experience? You should just serve. Right? But I think there is some type of cultural foundation we need of being like, man, I got friends here and I feel wanted here. I feel seen here. And then it's like, oh, service assignment. Oh, Bill's going to be at the service. I, I'm in. Right. So I think there that that is the like a, a fair statement. But I think there's just more of that of the foundation and the nurturing that needs to go into that cultural soil that can then present the service assignment that people engage in. All right. Chris says fact. The demographic with the highest rate of suicide in the country is middle aged white men. Men in general are struggling. Yes, there's there yes, they're not women. But why not a timeout for men or BYU men's conference? It just seems that in the larger institution nobody really is concerned.
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Yeah.
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I mean again it's these little signals. We don't need a parade. We don't need. I will even keep using the gym. I actually prefer the gym. We'll sit on the hard chairs, we'll do the conference talks. But like just like a wink and a nod every once in a while or like hey, the church is doing this conference. You're welcome to go. You don't have to go, right? Man, we could do so much. And you know, I know Chris has been to the warrior heart boot camp. Like it is a like even just being a spectator at these, to just step back and be like, oh, look at that man. What showed up in position A and now he's in position C and wow, like he, there's a transformation happening. So very good thoughts, Chris. Thank you. Lots of comments coming and love to see it. Ron, go ahead.
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Just a shotgun blast of thoughts. First of all, with respect to the lessons and the choice, I, I think greater care needs to be taken in picking them. There are great experiences. There are stories that take a whole page out of a three page lesson and it's a great story, but it, but it's hard to build a lesson. Brother. Brethren are not doing much in the way of building a lesson. It's like two, you know, we got one quarter, one third of those who teach, who are doing discussion, who are doing discussion circles. When it comes to lessons, I would say brethren, be careful what you pick. Don't get a, don't get, don't get in love with a particular story or incident number one. Number two, do look at the teachability of the talk and how easy it will be for a teacher to devise a lesson and how easy it will be to, for the class to follow it.
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Yeah, great thoughts.
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Second, second thought, with respect to our rooms, at the very least I would like something done in the cultural hall or wherever the sound gets lost. And I would provide sound reflecting dividers or something to help contain the sign so that it's easier to hear.
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Yeah, that's a great point. And one, one simple hack to do that. I think I remember back in the day when I was little, they had those rolling like walls so you can make makeshift classes. I think the church attorneys got too many those tipping over on children. So. But, but one, one hack that I would suggest if you're holding in the gym. One, always smaller. You know, my primary hack is smaller groups, multiple facilitators and discussion. However, if you are meeting as a class, if you angle the chairs, if you move the chairs into the corner so that. Into one corner so that the teacher is looking at the corner. Right. So what happens? He's doing most of the talking. So it's capturing the sound on the walls that are close to you rather than. Yeah, speaking out towards the greater room.
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Right.
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So, yeah, little acoustics hack for everybody. But yeah, yeah, great thoughts. Any. Anything else to add, Ron?
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I'll probably chime in again later.
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All right, we'd love to hear from you. Kevin says I really miss the priesthood session of General Conference. A great time for instruction for men and boys and a time to bond as father, sons, and discuss the gospel in a normal, natural way. Man, I'm right there with you, Kevin. Man, and I just love the. The old format of, like, all right, we're gonna hear from a few 70s, and then the first preses gonna get up, and you know what? There's gonna be a little spice on their message. And I mean, you know, President Hinckley, he's got topics like, you know, abuse how we treat our wives and gambling. And, man, he just. He came at us in a more loving way, and I appreciated it, but it was great. So, yeah, let's. Let's bring that back. And again, the church is going to do what the church wants. We're not here to dictate or whatever. To me, our best approach is to take ownership and say, like, okay, there's no priesthood session. Maybe every six months, I could institute a tradition in my family, right, where we. We go and do a boys night. And I'm gonna go, you know, whatever it is. There's all sorts of ideas, but really good. Chris says we recently had a new elders Corn presidency. Completely changed the experience culture in elders quorum. Small discussion groups on Sundays, activities monthly. So much better. Local leadership always affects our church experience more than the institutional leader. Institutional church. So true. Right? Like, even if they did change, doesn't mean our local award's gonna shift much. And so the more we can create inspiration on the local level, the better. So, Marty. Go ahead, brother. Can you unmute?
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F
Barely.
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If you can't unmute, we're all lost, my friend.
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F
I just messed up on it yesterday at work, too. So I think another thing to keep in mind is that it. There's no such thing as, like, the perfect lesson that's going to hit everybody equally well. Like. Like, for example. Okay, yeah, we're on Friday now. Okay. Days have blurred for me this past Sunday, I got to teach elders quorum. My elder quorum president. This is what I get for having him as my backyard neighbor, that whenever he has a gap, he's like, Marty, you. You can take over, right? You have ideas, you listen to stuff. And so, you know, I. I did it kind of followed your model, Kurt, of, you know, the small groups, individual facilitators for each group. So we had six groups. I would say probably four out of the six groups really enjoyed it. The other two groups, I would say they did not actively dislike them or hate them, but for them, they're just kind of like, yeah, it is about as in as bad, as good as the, you know, just kind of the standard, standard layout. And I think that's okay. Like, you know, if, like if you're, if you're hitting 80% of the people, I, I think that, I think that's a win like period. If you get, if you're connecting with that many people, with whatever it is you're doing in Elders quorum because there's always going to be some people for reasons, you know, xyz, like stage of life, work schedule, what have you that's just not gonna, not going to connect the way that you would like to. And you know, you can tweak some things. I think you could get that to the percentage, go up a bit. But I think it's just important to keep in mind you're not gonna be able to connect. Not gonna make it be amazing for every single person, every single time.
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G
Yeah.
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B
Great thoughts. Prairie's got a great comment. Prairie, are you in a position to unmute and talk through this? I mean, I'm happy to read it, but be great to hear your voice as well.
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C
Hi. Yeah, I can unmute.
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B
Yeah, go ahead. Love to hear from you.
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C
Well, I just really appreciate you having this conversation. I, it's so on point. It's so desperately needed. I, I see it all around me. I have good brothers at church that I love, but they struggle and I don't think we're meeting their needs. And my husband left 10 years ago and I appreciate our elders Quorum president or over the years that they'll text him or include him on emails and sort of reach out. But there's just something about the format that is so, not just unfulfilling, but probably frustrating because it's going through these motions and it's not meeting their needs. And so he's found another place to have those needs met at another church where they have these men's groups. And I put in the comment, you know, it's called forged and it's at night and it's, you know, they, it's like a concert of worship and then they have hard hitting topics on what men need. And he invites all the guys from our church to join him at that.
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B
That's cool. Yeah, nothing wrong with that.
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C
Yeah, they go and I, I saw a video that I don't know if it's an interview you did with some really awesome elders corn president somewhere who was like, hey, we're putting tables up in our gym space. You know, you poor guys who get slated to the gym and it's like, make the most of it. You pull out tables, make small groups, bring snacks, and jump right into some important conversation. But I don't see enough elders quorums hearing that message that, hey, you can change it up. Hey, you can do it differently. Hey, this doesn't have to be a lecture on the men, because I think that's why it's ineffective.
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B
Yeah.
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C
I have invited our men. I'm the music coordinator and the communications director for our stake, and I have asked our men to prepare once or twice a year to sing. And our elders quorum president was like, I'm not gonna take precious time from the lesson for us to practice a song. And I'm like, I don't think you get it, dear brother. Like, that is a bonding experience. Like, I know not everyone sings, but the power of. We had one brother in a testimony meeting say, hey, I really miss singing this song. Brightly beams our Father's mercy. He's like, it's in the hymn book for men, but we never sing it because it's. We only sing in sacrament meeting, and it's a men's hymn, so it doesn't get picked. And so I. I reached out and had him organize it, and the men were so glad. The entire elders quorum got up and sang. And it was powerful for us in the audience in sacrament meeting to witness the strength of our brothers up there together. And I think they enjoyed it. And I thought, we should do that once or twice a year. And we had this new elders corn president, and I asked him about it, putting him on the calendar to sing in sacrament meeting as a musical number. And he was just flat out, like, I'm not taking time out of the lesson for us to practice a song. And I was like, the song is the lesson. Like, don't you.
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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C
They don't get it. And he's just old school. I'm gonna stand here and preach at you for the whole class. And I'm like, yeah. And that's why people don't want to go. So.
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F
Yeah.
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C
How do we get the message to more local units that they can change it up? And they've got to. Or we're just losing our men too much because it doesn't meet their needs.
- [34:28]
B
Well, you're definitely helping us, Prairie. You're. You're speaking to tens of thousands of people. And when this hits the podcast, so.
- [34:35]
C
And.
- [34:36]
B
And you've inspired me. I think I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna. I'm gonna create a musical number with my corm to sing. And it doesn't. Again, it doesn't have to be anything crazy. I've even seen impromptu Elders Quorum choirs where they just say, we invite all the men up. Just like they invite the primary up at times and say we're gonna sing one hymn together. And it's powerful to hear those, those baritone and, and basses and. And so I love that.
- [35:02]
C
Absolutely. And so many times the women will run the music, though, and. And yet there's so many talented men out there that are not being asked or.
- [35:10]
A
Yeah.
- [35:11]
C
Like having one of them play the piano or having one of them conduct, I'm just like, they don't. I. I just think the more things you can do shoulder to shoulder for the men, the better, because that's where they're going to connect with each other in a worshipful way.
- [35:25]
B
And great discussion. Thank you for having this.
- [35:28]
C
Yeah.
- [35:28]
B
Yeah. Any other thoughts on this or. Before we move on to the next topic?
- [35:34]
A
Okay. So I came in late, got the email and jumped in because we were talking about men and the brotherhood. And I've had the pleasure of experiencing that in some unforgettable ways across the country. Just in the last two weeks, I was in Texas on Father's Day and they didn't have your Father's Day message. They tried to have no lesson. The lesson was gather around these circular tables. And maybe it was the relief society brought in fancy food and Cinnabons. We're eating this at 10 o' clock in the morning and with soda cans. And this was a surprise to me. I didn't think that that would be something out there happening. And there was connection, there was exchanges. And even if we were talking about life on the farm or just talking about what is the next thing they want to do in their life, those are connecting moments. And then last week I was in South Jordan on Sunday and step in the gym, the men's room, where the men meet. Right. We've got the men's room that's in the partitioned off gym with a hardwood floor. But we're not playing basketball on Sunday. You've been there, Kurt?
- [36:49]
E
Yep.
- [36:49]
A
Absolutely.
- [36:50]
F
Okay.
- [36:51]
A
Same gym. And there's bags of chips on the table, spread out and this new teacher comes in and says, hey, I'm going to be doing it things differently and if you don't like it, this is the way I'm doing it. I'm teaching. But we were eating these, these bags of chips and it got our mouths moving. We were talking and in the comment that Prairie had Given about another faith congregation forging people. I believe that we are forged through our covenants and that that is tried. And let us find and seek those ways that we can make the relationships with men stronger. And maybe it's through exercise. You talk about the F3 program, worldwide organization, and that also invites, through the sweat and the tears, the shoulder to shoulder bonding. I'm lit up about it because I have personally experienced it.
- [37:51]
B
Yep, for sure. That's awesome, Mark. Great examples to. To share. I'm glad you did that. Just to put in here, the thing I did, you know, not to deflect or anything, but I guess I kind of am. What I did on Father's Day, obviously, was on a Sunday school week. So I got, you know, asked the war council. Is okay if I gather the men on the second Sunday?
- [38:14]
A
Second.
- [38:14]
B
No, the third Sunday. That's what it was. And we have a. A pavilion outside of our. Our church with a, you know, grass field. And last few months, as the weather's warmed up, we've been meeting there every elder's quorum. So we are out of the gym. We're in the pavilion. It's so nice. The weather's awesome. We're in the shade. Guys can spread out on the picnic tables. So it's been really cool. And so we went out there and I asked everybody in the quorum if you got. If you have a pitching wedge or a nine iron to bring it. And then I went to Amazon and I bought 200 wiffle golf balls. And we just made our own topgolf driving range out there. I had brought some refreshments. And again, this is shoulder to shoulder work. Right. You give them an activity. I mean, most men like golf. And I actually had them pair up with individuals who golfed a lot, with individuals who didn't golf too much. I'm like, all right, just take the first five to 10 minutes and maybe just walk through this. The swing, your. Your swing and the process and how to hold the club and, you know, how to keep your arm straight or whatever it is. And it was cool to see men engaging there. And then it naturally developed into conversation. And so. And I told him it's not bring. You can golf on Sunday if it's just a pitching wedge and a wiffle ball. So anyways, it was great though. Guys loved it. And maybe it'll be a. A tradition. We'll see. Or word is getting to the stake and I will be released soon. We'll find it one of the two. All right, let's. Let's move on from this topic. We got about 15 minutes or so left. I wanted to. Let me go back to my screen. We'll go to this. This one by Josh McClure talking about mental capacity. I actually didn't spend too much time with this, but let's. Let's see what we can learn here. I thought it was a provocative topic. He says, as a bishop or bishopric, the challenge is not always the amount of work. Excuse me, but the continual demand on our mental capacity. How are you finding balance as a bishop or member of the bishopric? And what has been most effective in helping you remain spiritually and emotionally healthy while serving? Now, this is a real thing. I remember.
- [40:29]
A
I.
- [40:30]
B
So I was served as a bishop just short of five years, and then I was called into the state presidency. So I went from being a bishop to the first counselor in the state presidency. And it was so fascinating where, you know, you're in it so much and you got so much demand and things and appointments and, man, it'd be long Sundays, and hopefully you brought a lunch because you're gonna get hungry. And I remember, you know, fighting off sleep, you know, as I'm meeting with somebody who's going through a hard time and. Anyways, it was interesting, the first few weeks of this shift of not being the bishop anymore and being in the state presidency. I came home on, you know, Sunday afternoon and I remarked to my wife, I was like. I had not. I just. I could feel the lack of the mental strain. It was so interesting to experience that. I've been so. I've been swimming that water so long, I didn't realize I was in that water, you know, and so. So it's a. It's a real thing, for sure. The. The summary of the different comments says the discussion centered on managing the mental and emotional demands of serving as a bishop or member of the bishopric. Contributors emphasize the importance of setting clear boundaries, delegating tasks effectively, and maintaining personal and spiritual health through planning, support systems, and professional help when needed. The conversation also highlights the challenges of balancing church responsibilities with family life and the lasting spiritual impact of the calling. Any thoughts on this topic? But you want to chime in either in the chat or raise your hand. We'd love to hear from you. Get some different voices. Be awesome. I'm gonna unshare that.
- [42:13]
A
There we go.
- [42:15]
B
As far as mental strain, and maybe. I'm sure there's. There's a lot of it. I remember seeing that in the. With the Relief Society president. You know, we are in an inner City ward, lots of welfare needs, lots of people just had just, you know, lots of service opportunities. But to the point where, like for instance, as a bishop, I had to make a rule that our war does not help with house cleaning because there was such a demand for individuals that needed help cleaning their house. And it wasn't like, oh yeah, just, you know, let's just help straighten up and do things like, it was almost like put members in danger or could get them sick because the houses in the inner city were just really rough. That. And so when anybody asks, well, could you come help me clean my house? They say, ah, they could blame it on me. Sorry. Bishop says, we, we don't clean houses, so you'll have to talk with him. But anyways, the, the load on relief study present, I remember just each release study present at some point would come in in tears, just being like, there's just so much need and so much to do, right? And so that mental load, you gotta, you gotta check yourself before you wreck yourself, as they, as the old adage says. So any thoughts on this one? Anybody want to share before we wrap up? Great, go ahead.
- [43:34]
G
So this isn't exactly the same thing, but I think it's in the same area. So like you, I served as a bishop and then as a counselor in the stake presidency. And when I was in the stake presidency, there was at least one ward, probably others, but one ward that was an inner city ward in our stake. And those who were active in the church spent an enormous amount of time going and picking up people to take them to meetings and then take them home and picking them up to go get food orders and all kinds of things like that. And it was wearing everybody out. And we had a meeting with the bishop, it was easy to see. And we had a meeting with the bishop who really did not want to do what we were suggesting. But our stake president told him something that I thought was really interesting. He said, he said, listen, he said, particularly these people that you're picking up to bring to church. He said, you have people in your ward who are active who are going to go inactive if you keep making them do this. They just don't have the time and you're taking time away from their families. So he said, let me ask you something. He said, if, if you gave these people that need to be picked up, if you told them that there was a thousand dollar check waiting for them at the church and all they have to do is get themselves there, what would they do? And the bishop said, well, they'd find a way to get here. And our stake president said, exactly. You don't need to bring them to church. You need to help them gain a stronger testimony so that they will bring themselves to church. And I, you know, that's. Like I said, that's not exactly what you're talking about. But, but I think oftentimes we as bishops, as relief society presidents, even as, you know, as elders, quorum presidents and others, we tend to take on ourselves responsibility that rightfully belongs to the other person. And quite honestly, I think there are lots of people, and I think in many respects I'm one of them, who if somebody else will volunteer to take on that responsibility, they're more than happy to let them. But if you don't take on that responsibility, they will step up and take that responsibility for themselves. And we need to figure out what the difference is.
- [45:49]
B
Yeah, great thoughts. And I'll. This. We've sort of gone to, you know, just. Excuse me. Obviously, you know, welfare can. Can be a big strain on that mental load that we're talking about. I think it's worth spending a few minutes with. Here is a book I highly recommend, especially if you are a church leader, if you're on a ward council in a high, like an inner city area with high welfare demand. This, this book was like transformational for me. It's done by this non profit called Aha Process Inc. And they. I went to a local training on it. I've actually interviewed. This was like 2015. I interviewed Philip Duvall about it, but I need to get their team back on the podcast. It's really good resources. As far as doing what. What was Greg was talking about as far as like, how do we understand each other? Because we're almost being in different economical demographics. We. We talk past each other. We often don't. Don't understand each other and anyways, quick plug there for a book worth checking out. But Mark says fatigue is the common enemy of us all. So slow down, rest up, replenish and refill. From Elder Holland's. Like a broken vessel. So true, yet so challenging to remember. Personally, I try to take it one day at a time. Yeah. And setting boundaries. Chris is emphasizing like, that's the thing is you got. And obviously every word is different, but like in the word I was in high welfare ward, I'd get people calling me on a Tuesday night, hey, Bishop, I'm being evicted tomorrow. Crisis, crisis. Like, help me, my family, my, you know, all my stuff. And I would. The boundary I had is like, okay, well, we Have a process. I can only cut checks on Sunday because I'm not going to run to the church every day whenever there's a need to pop up. So you figure your situation out until Sunday and we can talk Sunday.
- [47:54]
A
Right.
- [47:55]
B
Anyways, just those, those boundaries figuring out, like, how can I make this so that every crisis doesn't bleed over to my family life, right? And it's amazing. Just like Greg talked about, like, people figure it out, you know, when they have to, and it's not up to us to, to solve all those problems.
- [48:13]
A
So.
- [48:14]
B
And then the mental load, I think Chris mentioned earlier, just the, the self care, like it's so easy. I call it the calling monster. If you want to give 50 hours a week to being a bishop, you could probably do it. There's plenty to do. You know, 60 hours a week being a really site president, you probably could probably do it.
- [48:31]
A
Right.
- [48:33]
B
And you just got to say, you know, I'm just not going to spend the time and maybe the lesson will be mediocre or whatever it is. Like, yeah, you may not hit the stellar level or hit all the numbers, but at the end of the day, you got to live your life. And these are lay positions where nobody's getting paid. Nobody's. You know that sometimes the, the opportunity for service is sort of outweighing the living your life, right. And so delegating, giving others opportunities or just saying, no, I'm sorry, we can't help you, or I can't give you a ride today, or whatever it is. So. Greg, go ahead.
- [49:09]
G
Yeah, so what you, what you were saying reminded me of something else that, that fits in this discussion. When I was serving as our bishop, we had in, in my ward, there were, I don't know, probably two or three people who were so needy and so desperate and I, I just didn't know how to handle it. So I went and talked to our stake president and, and I'll never forget the, what he told me because it applies in so many different ways. He said, he said in any ward of that size, there are going to be a few people, maybe one, maybe three, you know, but, but they're few who. And the way he described them, he said they are black holes of need. He said you could spend every waking hour you have, you could neglect your work, you could neglect your family, you could spend every moment of time that you have and you would still not be able to fill their need. So what you have to do is, and others have said this in the chat, you have to establish boundaries that allow you to help them, but still leave time and energy to help the other people who you really can help. There are people that you can help and people that you can't help. And he said, don't ignore the people you can help because the others are so demanding and so vocal and so needy that you feel like you got to do everything for them.
- [50:32]
B
Yeah, Amen to that. So true. All right, as we wrap up here, we're at the hour, but before you go, before you log off, I want to share one more thing with you here, let me go to my screen. So in Zion Lab, you can find this on the app too. You click on the spaces option, but if you scroll all the way to the bottom, there's going to be this link saying, become a Zion Builder. Now, here's the thing. Nobody has an excuse of not becoming a Zion Builder. This gets you access to additional content on Zion Lab. Helps us keep the keep the resource going and functioning. Why is this page loading slow? I'll look at that. You know, 250 plus hours of additional content.
- [51:15]
A
Come on.
- [51:16]
B
Anyway, it'll look better on your screen. Maybe I need to look into this. Being subscribed for 15amonth or get free access now. Donor supported. So we don't want anybody feeling like they're limited on the content that they can receive through leading saints. And we have donors behind the scenes who step forward and say, you make sure everybody who wants access to the content gets access. And so please go here, become a zy builder and jump into the. All the resources. There's so many, so many resources. This page has me worried now that it's not loading but and, and become a Zion Builder and help us support the cause of what we're doing here. Keeps us going, gives us, helps us create the content. We do the virtual summits and all that. So become a Zion Builder and let's, let's meet next, next month, first Friday and talk about things that are being posted. Another thing, if you'll do for me, go to Zion Lab right now. Find a specific space or area and ask a question, share a resource. Hey, this is what we did for Father's Day. We got wiffle ball, golf balls and it was awesome and men enjoyed it. And that was just an idea, right? And then next year guys can come on here and they can go to the AI. If you go to the messaging area and ask a question to the AI clerk and say, hey, what questions do you have about mental load or resources do you have about mental load or men's experience in the church and it'll give, give you resources. So we, we need, we need more engagement there. People asking questions, sharing thoughts, perspectives. Make it happen. So those listening elsewhere to this recording, make sure you go to leadingsaints.org Zion and come join the party. There's so much going on, obviously, great questions, great discussion, and so much more that was not mentioned on this episode. So. All right, everybody, thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you over in the lab.