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So I'm recording this on
09/17/2025,
a week after
the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk on UVU
campus here in my county,
Utah County in Orem, Utah.
And, man,
emotion that came from this, the tragedy, the
the stress, the trauma
that everybody experienced on maybe on different levels.
And I tell the story in this, recording
that you're about to hear about how we
approached it as an elders quorum, and maybe
some things to to consider as there's tragedy
that happens in our community, in our nation,
where there's heaviness or there's hurt happening, there's
anger, there's sadness, there's all types of emotions.
How do we handle that at church? What
do we do with that at church? Do
we ignore it and just get to the
lesson and talk about, you know, the doctrine
and Jesus Christ and these things and pretend
like it didn't happen? Or is there a
way we can actually stimulate unity in our
word, stimulate healing, stimulate connection
that maybe
isn't as easy to do when all is
well in the world? Right? So Dan Duckworth,
joined me in the Zion Lab community where
we just had a discussion about this. Me
and him dialogue back and forth. We took
some questions and thoughts and and of course,
we're not experts at any of this. However,
there's so many leadership principles to understand in
this to really,
again, stimulate that connection and unity and to
lead, to lead in those moments of hurt
and that those moments of anger and frustration
and and discord. There's so many places to
lean in here even when it's risky or
it may not go well or how do
I do that? Right? So we we go
through that. I think church has such a
higher purpose than just going to a place
with your neighbors and learning about the gospel.
Like, yeah, that's important. And, of course, the
renewing of ordinances and all that sacred that
sacred process is is crucial. But I think
there's a higher level of why we go
to church, and I think it's, these tragedies
that we experience in our in our communities,
in our, society can teach us a lot
about what church is really for and and
why do we go to church especially when
we hurt. And so I hope this discussion
is not only helpful for this, current event,
this current tragedy, but also for future tragedies
and that we may experience a mortality that
may hit our community, whether it's a death
in the ward, a suicide,
you know, something happening
that just brings trauma to the ward. How
do we handle that well and make it
a healing place at church? So here's my
discussion in a live stream with Dan Duckworth.
Let's jump into it, Dan. Like, I guess
the story behind this is,
and where does where does it start? You
had mentioned something.
We were just kinda going back and forth
about what we're hearing about, you know, the
Sunday experience in different wards. Some had just
maybe read a statement over, you know, the
or reiterated the church's statements that they released,
from their communications departments.
Just read that to kind of, again, emphasize
the, you know, the stand of
our, of the church and the institutional church.
And, I had mentioned, well, actually I'm going
to make it the main focus of my
elders quorum. And so that started a discussion,
but I mean, where's, how do we build
some framing around this? What comes to mind?
Yeah. What comes to my mind is
there's always this constant tension
between what is an institutional response versus what
is a leadership response
when there is crisis or a tragedy or
something like that. And I think that we,
as a church culture, we've been kind of
conditioned to look to the institution to
tell us how we should
approach a situation like this, whether it's a
natural disaster or
a political tragedy or something like that. Or
really any any situation. Right? Even the, you
know, the everyday situations, we look to the
institution church. Yeah. Right. And I think for
me, the core always comes down to the
a leader
intuits the next move
from the moment itself.
Now when I say that, that's gonna sound
a little bit abstract for people, but the
question is always as a leader. So not
a not a called leader.
You know, you maybe you're a Relief Society
president, maybe you're an elder's court president, maybe
you're a bishop, maybe you're not. But if
you show up in the situation and you
feel a call saying something needs to happen
here, there's something going on. And if we
just let the status quo hold or if
we if we let inertia take us where
it's gonna take us, it's not going to
lead us to where we wanna go. We're
not gonna get the outcomes and the results
that we need. And by results, mostly what
I mean is the
unification of the community, the Zion moment that
we can talk about here on, you know,
Zion Lab.
So as a leader,
when you start to feel these tensions in
your community and the disruption that's happening from
current events,
the temptation is to go towards a management
mindset,
which is to return things to peace,
to return things to the status quo, to
return things to predictability and stability.
But leadership looks at it. A leadership lens
looks at it very differently, and it says,
what is needed in the moment?
What do we need to do in this
moment? What can we do with this moment?
So you're looking at the moment itself, and
that involves the values of your community, the
purposes that, you know, the community has, and
the unmet needs that the community has as
well. So what would happen for a group
here in Utah County where the tragedy struck
it might be different than what's needed somewhere
else. Right? So there's not a one size
fits all,
but there is something that has to be
intuitive from this. And, Kurt, this is where
kind of your response comes into play here
because
you felt
something calling to you in the moment saying
something more was needed than whatever you had
planned initially for Elder's Quorum. Yeah. Yeah. And
really, you know, that one size fits all
dream, like, it's not gonna happen. And and
that's the really, that's the only way that
an institutional
any institution can respond is, like, here's our
one size fits all. Like, I hope it
works or it's very vague. Right? And, again,
that's not the fault of the institution. It's
the nature of an institution. Right? That there
Mhmm. There's things locally that we can perceive
or, you know, intuit, like you say, that
the institutional
organization may not pick up on or or
even know to respond to. So in my
experience,
you know, obviously
terrible tragedy at UVU with Charlie Kirk and
and his, his murder there in front of,
you know, thousands of of individuals.
And, you know, here we are just down
the street, essentially, less than 10 miles away.
And I just noticed for myself, like, it
just really took me out. Right. And it's
easy to think like, oh, that just must
be me or, or it was just little
nuances. Like, Hey, I felt like I couldn't
really focus. I wasn't getting a lot done
in my typical day. And so we have
a I'm the elders quorum president, if people
don't know that know that piece of context.
And so we have a text thread, a
group me text thread in our elders quorum.
And so I just put a message in
there, said this was the next day at,
in the morning. 09:30 in the morning, I
said, after such a national political tragedy
happens, so close to home, does anyone else
find themselves spacing out, distracted, and scrolling way
too much? And immediately,
just like message after message. Yep. Yes. Yep.
You know, thumbs up on the
the experience. And one guy says, oh yeah,
I don't even, I don't even have social
media on my phone, but I'm constantly grabbing
my wife's phone and scrolling on that. So
so that was, like, a huge indicator where
I'm, like, I'm perceiving something in me. I
wonder if it's a community experience more generally.
And, obviously, it was a surprise, unfortunately,
that it was. And so and then the
the thought came to me is, like, what
is church for If we can't create a
space as a community to rally together
and, you know, talk about what's going on
and how we're responding to it and how
do we bring the savior into all this
for the the healing. So, anyways, that was
sort of the the moment. Yeah. Before you
keep going with the story, I wanna just
kind of jump on something that you said
there. You said I I was perceiving something.
And I think this is such a critical
aspect of leadership that is overlooked by people
who are trying to perform leadership in terms
of roles and expectations.
You perceive something first because you perceived it
in yourself. Right? You said I'm having a
very human
response to this. Now it could be that
you're having that response because of your own
backstory,
your own
political beliefs, your own whatever, and it could
be that it's not I love that you
then went out to the community,
and you just were vulnerable. And you said
you didn't say, hey. Is any out here
feeling this way? You said, I'm feeling this
way. So you just validate it for anybody
else that if they're feeling that way, you
can jump into this conversation.
You said, I'm feeling this way. And then
you let them jump in and say, yes.
Me too. Right? Now sometimes you don't feel
it yourself.
But if you've been a human being before,
it doesn't take very much to stop and
say, I bet other people are feeling something
right now. Even if I'm not feeling it,
I bet other people are feeling something right
now. And so you could still go out
to the community and say, I was sitting
and thinking about this, and the thought crossed
my mind that some of us, not some
of you, but some of us in this
community,
we might be having an experience with this
even if we weren't there on-site. Number one,
for those of us who live in Utah,
it happened in our neighborhood.
Number two, it happened
in Mormon Land. Right? So the whole world
is sort of associating this with our church,
whether they're saying it or not. That's kind
of a low grade thread going on here.
Number three, it's just the politics of our
time. This is one more among many.
So it's kinda stacking. Right? So you can
go out there and proceed. And then on
a scriptural basis, let's just note, this kind
of leadership
is what the scriptural leaders show us. So
when Ammon
says to King Lamoni,
I perceive
that you are troubled
in your heart.
Mhmm. Yep. That's exactly what you just modeled,
Kurt. And that is
the intuition. You can call it whatever you
want, but that's the holy ghost. Whether the
holy ghost gave you that thought or it
validated that that was a true and good
and worthy thought, that is the holy ghost
with the gift of discernment.
K? So when we talk about these things,
we think we often think way too much
about, like, oh, the gift of discernment is
deciding who's gonna serve and what calling. Now
the gift of discernment,
we would use the word perception in today's
world. It's the gift of perception. I perceive
that there are things happening either in you
as an individual
or in my community
that need to be given a voice.
Yeah. And this is the thing. Like, if
there's any power of inspiration or keys or
things happening here, and it doesn't necessarily happen
to only those who hold that formal, you
know, keys or authority.
But, I think a lot of leaders, you
know, even in or outside of formal callings,
they've had this experience where they're like, man,
I just can't get that person out of
my mind. Right. And I don't necessarily have
a clear prompting of I should go visit
them or whatever, but, you know, I'm gonna
make an extra effort to reach out or
something. And that that perception I think is,
at the core of leadership that we really
have to be tuned into where I don't
necessarily think it's all always, you know, a
clear, direct spiritual prompt, as much as like,
you're just in that cadence of, you know,
you, you want to pick up on those
things that this seem off or not right.
You know? Yeah. So let me give you,
this is a different story of a different
tragedy. So when we first moved into our
ward, there was a suicide in the, in
the house next to us. A 13 year
old boy
took his own life.
And
apparently we were very deep sleepers because we
were not aware of this. The sirens came
in the middle of the night, all the
stuff, and we slept right through it. And
we showed up at church
and had no idea what was going on,
but immediately I perceived that something was wrong.
Just sitting in the congregation,
I'm just sitting there going, something feels really
off right now. And so I texted a
couple of people while I was sitting in
that room saying like, Hey, did I miss
something? Like what's going on here? And then
somebody said, oh, there was a suicide.
And it was so and so who doesn't
actually live next door to us, but his
grandpa does.
And so then, you know, I found out
that it was at the house next door
that it happened.
So now I'm sitting there in that room
and I'm having this really weird experience of
knowing
that a member of our congregation
just took his own life and that his
family is at home right now
grappling with all of the stuff that comes
with that. All of the doubts, all of
the fear, all of the anger, all of
the sadness,
all of that is going on. But we're
sitting here in this meeting as fellow saints,
and it was never mentioned.
Nothing was said. And so I'm having this
dissonance inside of me knowing that there's human
tragedy and human suffering in our body. We
are the body of Christ. It's happening in
our body, and we're pretending
and going through the motions,
running the show the same way that we
would every week. And I couldn't take it
anymore. I didn't have anybody's I didn't have
a calling. I was a nobody in the
ward and just like everybody else, but I
couldn't take it anymore. So in the middle
of the sacrament
with the passing of the bread and water,
I stood and I walked out and I
walked home and I knocked on the door,
even though I was fairly new and, and
these folks didn't really know me. I just
knocked on that door and said, I'm just
gonna come. I'm just gonna be with you.
Right? And blessings were given and prayers were
shared and tears were all the things. Right?
So I just share that as a context
of the same exact thing we're talking about
where a tragedy strikes and it's felt in
the body of the community.
And then what do we do with that
when we're in what is a fairly scripted
and performative experience, like our normal Sunday church
services?
Yeah. And I guess a part like a
very normal experience as we perceive these things
and then attempt to take action or do
something is suddenly we realize there's a risk
in this, right? What if I show up
to the house and they're like, not there?
Like, maybe I shouldn't even bother. Or what
if I make it more uncomfortable? Or what
if they don't want me there? Or or
I was going through this experience going back
to my story of, like, wow. You know,
I don't know if I'm prepared to do
this. I don't know if I can bring
this up in Elder's Corner. Maybe we'll just
go back to the conference talk and, you
know, we'll mention it and make sure everybody
knows to, you know, to to reach out
to somebody, maybe a therapist they need. Right?
And so there is this moment where you
kinda sit in the risk of it or
you're unsure
if I could do this, you know? And
that's where I kind of and, you know,
I must admit, like, I've done a lot
of public speaking, very comfortable in front of
a crowd, very comfortable facilitating
activities and discussion.
And, you know, I'm I literally facilitate discussion
for a living. Right? And so, I wasn't
like totally, you know, afraid of it. However,
I thought, what what resources could I get?
So, and I, you know, most boards have
at least one therapist in it. Right? So,
I reached out to this individual who's a
therapist and I just said, Hey, this is
what I'm perceiving. I explained it to him,
and he's like, you're exactly right. I talked
to another therapist friend, not my ward, but
he said, from the moment that tragedy happened,
the rest of my days, all my sessions
were about that one event. And I'm like,
okay. Like, something,
obviously, you know, it's confirming to me of
that perception. And so and it was interesting
just how he said it's like, I've never
I keep going back to, like, why is
this impacting me so much? Right? And I
kept hearing that from people I talked about.
Why is this impacting me so much?
So having that considering my resources, I thought,
okay, may you know, with his help, he
can be my wing man or I can
be his, and maybe we can facilitate a
discussion. And I kept going back to this
question of why do we go to church?
Like, yeah, we need to take the sacrament.
Yes. We need to renew covenants. Yes. We
need, like, you know, the instruction of doctrine.
But a big part in all the handbooks
is this community component and unity, and this
is a great opportunity
to really lean into that. Yeah. And
before we dive in more to what you
did, I wonder if we can bring the
audience here since we have such a a
great large
audience with us today. I'm wondering if we
can bring them along in the story.
Wondering if you
whether you had a called leadership position or
not, if you were perceiving,
not just for yourself, but perceiving for your
community, if you were having thoughts about
what does this mean for us as a
community and how
how do we respond to this and what
potential suffering or confusion or anger
or apathy might be being experienced
within our body as you were approaching your
Sunday services?
Or maybe maybe you came with a sense
of expectation or hope, like, I hope nobody
talks about this, or
I really hope this comes up, or something
along those lines.
If you can throw something into the chat,
we'll bring some of that in here. Yeah.
And feel free to use that hand raise
button and I'll keep an eye on that.
And there is, you know, Ricky brings us
up this, this dynamic of it wasn't just
like a murder, but it was a political
assassination.
Right? It was it's a, it was heavy
in the politics scene. That's sort of the,
the big red card we avoid, you know,
in a church setting, we can't go there.
Right? And there is sort of this fear
of like, well, what if it turns
political? Right? And we don't wanna try and
navigate that in church meeting. But and that's
interesting because we do, you know, you know,
there's things that you're not allowed to talk
about, which is politics and religion.
Right? And when those two things combine, then
it's like combustion. It's just like, oh, you
know, this is gonna spin out of hand
very quickly.
Now part of intuiting the moment is also
intuiting what you personally are ready to handle
as a leader in a moment. Because I
want you to think about an analogy for
a quick second. When metal needs to be
melted so first of all, say it this
way. When metal needs to be reshaped,
it has to first be melted or at
least softened. The only way to do that
is for it to go into the fire.
Now the problem with putting metal into fire
is that it's going to get contaminated or
lost into the ashes and the coal of
the fire. So it has to have a
container
that allows it to be in the container
and still go into the fire to be
melted and purified so that it can be
reshaped. Now that container is the crucible. We
often talk about a crucible
as though it's the fire itself. It's the
heat itself, but it's not. The crucible is
the container that allows the metal to go
into the fire and to be purified and
reshaped. Now as a leader,
what your role is in any of these
similar situations that we're talking about is you
have to create that holding container
for the people where they can go into
the fire.
The temptation is to say, oh, it's hot.
There's danger in that fire. So we do
not want the people to go there. And
then,
as I think I and others often say,
a crisis is a terrible thing to waste
as a leader. You don't want the crisis.
You don't want the tragedy. But when it
comes, it brings the necessary heat for the
refinement of the community. And it's a terrible
thing to waste. So instead of running from
the fire, what we as leaders do is
we help create that container
for us to go into that fire. Now
what these moments reveal about your communities,
whether it's your quorum or your relief society
or your ward or your stake or your
council or your family
or your neighborhood
or your nation,
what these kind of moments reveal is fractures.
They reveal the fault lines.
So we've gone on through times of peace
convincing ourselves that we're united,
that we're together.
But the truth of the matter is as
soon as these moments come, it reveals that
we're not. And so that's why it feels
dangerous to go into these sessions is because
it will expose
that we're not together, and it might actually
break us further apart.
But the irony is is that only by
going into the fire together
can we heal
and seal up those fractures that exist in
the community. You wanna talk about one heart
and one mind. You don't get there unless
you go through struggle
and conflict and difficulty and crisis
together,
and you have to navigate that together. And
so if the tragedy was in your ward
or in your neighborhood or in your nation,
but it affects your group, you need to
go the leader needs to take people in
there in a way that they can pass
through it safe enough to not lose themselves,
but hot enough
to remake the community.
Yeah. I think that's if there's anything you
learn or perceive from this experience, even if
it wasn't talked about,
you know, why or why what was the
the fear in that? Right? I didn't mention
it here. I didn't I didn't really want
it mentioned. We have some very strong opinions
on either side of the political aisle, and
our war does not have those kind of
relationships
to speak to that. Right? I think that's
a fair statement. And and you're not alone
in that perception. Right? That the typical Sunday
where we just show up and smile and
shake hands and talk about the law of
the tithing and let's go to DNC, you
know, whatever. Like, yeah, we can be decent
people to one another. Right? But there's some
of these areas we avoid, and that's where
that's a good indicator. And I'm I'm self
aware enough to recognize I'm in Utah County,
the one of the most deepest red conservative
counties in the nation. And so, yeah, was
there less risk of me bringing this up
and us being at odds? Sure. I mean,
I'm sure a DC Ward, it's gonna be
a different experience. However, there it's still worth
leaning into that in my opinion. So Yeah.
And I'm gonna I'm gonna bring up something
else now too, Kurt, because what you just
described was the idea that within your group,
there might have been some
unanimity,
some conformity around political beliefs or things like
that. And so it's really easy
during times of tragedy or crisis like this,
what we do is we we fragment,
but that fragmentation,
once you fragment, once you're in your group,
we now retreat
into that smaller, more localized,
you know, more conformed
mindset.
And so that retreating into that group is
also part of the problem.
We allow the tragedy to say, oh, well,
that's their problem. At least we've got it
figured out in our neighborhood.
And instead, what that's doing is it's actually
the fallings might not be within our group,
but they're around our group. So it's actually
pulling us further away
from this bigger thing that we belong to.
First of all, we belong to
you know, you belong to the state. You
belong to the religion.
You belong to the nation,
and you belong to the humanity, to the
family of God.
But as we retreat into what feels comfortable,
and that could be at the quorum level
or it could be at your family level
around the kitchen table,
It's very easy to start to other and
to point outward and to say like, oh,
yeah. Yeah. It's it's but at least we.
Right? And so that's more work that needs
to be done is if that's your group.
You come and you say, hey. There are
people out there. You might not be suffering
from this, or you might be having one
reaction to this, but there are other people
out there who are probably
who, in this case, definitely,
are having an opposing reaction or a differing
reaction
that is
just as legitimate as yours
in terms of the humanity of the experience.
I'm not talking about political ideology.
Yeah. I'm talking about the humanity of what
people are going through at a time like
this. Yeah. And that humanity really is at
the core. Like, how do we go to
that point? We're not saying we're not going
to a political point. We're going to a
humanity point. Regardless of what happened, they impact
people differently. Right? And this, obviously, this is
a, like, a very
specific
heavy,
like, you know, experience, right, that, that happened.
But there could be even other things that
maybe to me don't seem like a, you
know, a catastrophe, but others are responding to
it maybe more negatively.
And so this is where that perception comes
in place. Again, not that it always has
to be a, you know, church, you know,
second hour discussion or sacramenting topic. But again,
you're always perceiving this where you're trying to
say, where's the harm, where's the hurt, and
how can we show up and step into
that? So Yeah. And to that point, I
mean,
this so first of all, I didn't I
had never even heard of Charlie Kirk before
this last week.
I've never heard of him, never heard of
his movement, never heard of his style, never
heard of his politics.
It shows you a little bit about how
I sort of keep myself out of a
lot of the political stuff because I'm not
on social media. That's what my kids have
all told me. Well, if you were on
social media,
regardless of your politics, you would know who
he is. Okay. Well, you know, that's fair
enough. I'm not on social media.
But this same sim or a similar experience
happened in someone's home. Right? This, Democratic couple,
I think it was Minnesota
or Wisconsin, which again shows you I'm not
that tapping, right? Yeah. Minnesota, I believe. Minnesota?
Yeah. Okay. And so That's coming. Anyways That
that tragedy may not have struck the conservative
crowd
because it wasn't their standard bearer, but that
tragedy most likely struck the liberal crowd if
they identified
with those people.
But it should strike all of us
because of the humanity and the national implications
of, well, what does it mean if you
can express an idea and then someone walks
in your house and shoots you for it?
Or what does it mean if you express
an idea and you stand in front of
a crowd and someone shoots you for it?
That's a different story than the story that
we've all grown up and lived in. You
know, that's a story that's lived by a
lot of our fellow saints
around the world. Right? I've got a guy
in my stake here, and I'm gonna forget
his home country, but it's somewhere in Latin
America.
And he was a bishop
in his area, and he was a store
owner and was successful store owner, and he
was being followed home one night. And by
the time he got home, his house had
been overtaken by
robbers, by thieves,
and they basically
took everything from the house at gunpoint
and said, if you ever turn us in,
we'll kill you all. And he left that
night, got his family on a plane and
left and came to The United States. Right?
So
people around the world are living under a
story like this. But for America,
we don't know what it's like to live
under the story. And just like nine eleven
rocked our story, you know, twenty four years
ago, you know, these events are now rocking
our story and we're saying, well, this is
not the place I thought I live regardless
of my political ideology.
Yeah. And those of you, if there's questions
that come up or thoughts, feel free to,
to raise your hand or use the, the
comment box because we'll we're happy to facilitate
that. So the principles I'm picking up on,
Dan, as we move through this is that,
you know, really be aware of that perception.
If you're perceiving something's off, like, again, we
don't sort of, like, go whisper to the
bishop or text them like, hey. You should
do something about this. Right?
Like, hopefully, we feel empowered
to lean into those. You you told your
story. I'm telling mine. Obviously, I'm more in
a formal
formal leadership role, but you wear those perceptions,
recognize that there's gonna be that feels risky.
It feels, uncertain. Right? And oftentimes, that's a
good indicator of the spirit is when it's
like, ah, that doesn't feel right, but I
feel that prompting and that perception.
And then then lean in. Right. And so
let's go to Jeff. Do you have something
to share? Sure. Maybe while we're waiting for
Jeff
and see if he comes on. Yeah, go
ahead. I do think it would be great,
even though you recognize already your situation here
is your situation
here in Utah County. I do think it
would be really
interesting for all of us to hear how
you approached it because I think your approach
was very unique in terms of what we
typically would see in a Latter day Saint
meeting setting.
Yeah.
So, yeah, for as far as my approach
or what I did, so I just sent
out a a message in that, you know,
I think it was
Friday or Saturday.
And I just said, hey. Just so you
know, we're gonna do the elders quorum a
little bit differently on Sunday. I can maybe
let me pull it up just so I
have exactly what I said as I thought
through there. Which while you're pulling that up,
let's just note,
Kurt is creating the crucible. Right? And he's
managing the temperature of that experience.
So just alone by giving them a heads
up, you're already helping to regulate the temperature
of those who are saying, I don't really
want to talk about this. I'm not really
sure where this is going to go. You're
already letting them know we're not going to
surprise anybody. Yeah. And probably gave them a
little bit of a context of what that
was going to be like. Yeah. Yeah. So
I said, hey, gentlemen, FYI, Sunday, we are
not going to focus on conference talks during
elders quorum. Instead, I'd like to take some
time to focus on some teachings of Christ
and also create some space
to process the heaviness that is happening in
our nation and community.
Please make arrangements to be there to support
one another. I only do things by invitation,
so please attend knowing you can participate as
little or as much as you'd like. If
you are in a separate calling during that
time and wish to be with us in
elders quorum, please let me know and we
can make arrangements.
And so, yeah, I kind of prepped the
the audience that that was the direction we're
going. I don't wanna sneak up on anybody
or suddenly make them feel uncomfortable. And we
had definitely more than
the typical
attendees there. There's probably five to 10 more
men
in Elders Quorum. And so from there, I
just thought That is Kurt. Why do you
think that is that you had more come
as a result of that message? Well, I
just think that, you know, just perceiving that
everybody was kinda carrying this around. And and
also just the the culture that I feel
like we've tried to develop in elders quorum,
they knew it would be a safe place.
Right? They've had experience of talking about maybe
heavier things or difficult topics. And so that
safety was hopefully already established in our culture
and knowing that, okay. I'm I'm definitely not
gonna miss this one. Right? So Yeah. I
think that there's a temptation to think like,
oh, it was salacious, and so so they
wanna come and they wanna see the, you
know, they wanna see the boxing match come
out. Right? Yeah. I think as a few
of our viewers here have voiced on the
chat, like, most people don't wanna be part
of the boxing match. They don't even really
wanna witness it either. Yeah. So I think
that if people thought that it was gonna
be addressed in a combative
way or that it might even come out,
and there's some people who might even have
some
anxiety that they're feeling their own past experiences
or, you know, things that they're feeling. They're
like, I just don't even wanna take the
risk of being there. They might not have
even showed up at all on a Sunday
like that and just said, you know, this
is just a Sunday that I don't wanna
be around
these folks.
Mhmm. I think it's important that you send
this message out, you're regulating the temperature,
and it's also important for everyone to realize
that there was
leadership culture building being done
over a period of time. So, this is
what I mean by proceeding from the moment.
So, because you had laid groundwork, the moment
meant something different for you than it might
have otherwise, if you hadn't laid that groundwork.
And so it's not that anybody could just
jump into a meeting and do what you're
about to explain that you did. A lot
of that was the groundwork. And so what
do leaders do during times of peace? And
they lay a lot of groundwork
for moments just like this. And then when
the moments come, you're ready because the crucible
has been being built and formed all along.
It's like, okay, You've got the ship now.
You've got the container. And now that the
fire is firing, we can now go into
it. Yeah. And putting this in the context
of a nonformal leader, like, just consider
how you're how you're doing that in the
the relationship you have with others in your
community. Right? Just those simple moments of stopping
by someone's home, simple moments of chatting in
the hallway. Like, you're you're building this relationship
so they know this is a safe person
to talk with. When tragedy strikes, I can
reach out to this person just to kind
of make it more universal that way. And
the other thing, I think the component to
the lot of people worry about is like,
well, we need this as professional business. Like
we what if I make this worse? What
if I say the wrong thing? I should
get a team of therapists in here. And
that's, you know, kind of where I went,
where I yeah. I think obviously the therapy
and and, that industry knows a lot more
about maybe how to facilitate talking about tragedy.
And that's why I did reach out to
that therapist. However, he had something come up,
a family event that he he, was not
able to be there. So I was back
alone. But my when I go back, especially
to my interviews with, Stephen Shields, if you
haven't listened to those, I highly recommend them.
But he always talks about this concept of,
like, what's the church leader's role? And he
always says, your role
is to drive the hope train. Right? You
just bring as much hope into that meeting
as possible.
And then if they need additional, you know,
professional,
you know, services and things, yeah, we'll get
there and we'll direct them to those paths.
But there's still a vital role of that
leader of driving the hope train. And so
I knew in order to step into that
room, I wanted to have discussion. I wanted
to create a place where if people needed
to decompress from the tension of the experience,
they could do that. But I always knew
that I was always gonna bring it back
to a strong story of Jesus Christ, now
how he showed up, how he healed in
moments of tragedy.
And so I started that meeting with just
and you always have to warm up any
setting. Right? And so we just talked about,
and I got some of this content from
the therapist of my work, but talking about
just different emotions that you may experience. And
I'm not and a lot of times we
go to we go to secondary emotions. Right?
I'm mad.
I'm happy. I'm sad. Right? But why are
you sad? Oh, that's because I'm hurt or
that's because I'm in shock. Right? And so
I just create a a moment for the
elders to kinda just
process in their mind. Because here's the thing,
like, obviously the sacrament
and sacrament meetings are great place to process
at times, but I knew that the vast
majority of these men were sitting with their
young families, you know, coloring pictures or telling
them to sit down or right. So oftentimes
they don't get that chance to really decompress
effectively in sacramenting.
So I wanted to just create five to
ten minutes where we could do that. Right.
So I had them sit. I gave them
note cards just right. I said, put one,
two, three emotions down that have been dominant
this last week since the tragedy happened. Right?
So that took place. And then I just
asked, would anybody be willing to speak to
that? What was that like? What'd you feel?
Right? And then it kind of it snowballs.
Right. One person raises their hand, talks about
it. Next person does. We had men that
were, you can see they were visibly angry,
right? Again, not anybody in the room, but
they just were in that stage of anger.
And by the time they're done with their
comment, you can see that it was a
little bit less angry. Right? One or two
kind of broke down in tears about what
was happening and that, you know, you could
feel the unity
build around those, those individuals.
And then I went into
almost a story, a sermon about, Christ and
the Jairus daughter. Is that I always say
his name wrong. And the woman with,
you know, the blood disease and how that
was a pivotal moment, a moment of emergency.
This daughter's dying. We've gotta be there. And
just how patient Christ was and all of
that anyways. And so definitely sort of creating
that space
to have that conversation,
decompress, share what you're feeling. And it wasn't
that there was no coaching going on, like,
oh, well, maybe you should try this, or,
or have you thought about that? Or when
I feel that this way, this is what
I do. It was just like, we just
wanna hear hear you. Right? And so,
went into the story of, of Christ. And
then this is something we do every elders
quorum, which again, laid the foundation of this
cultural safety, is we always end in a
circle of trust. We have the men stand
up, we get in a big circle, there's
probably 35 to 40 men. And,
we ask if there's anything specific that we
can pray for those, those men. And it
was those individuals who made comments that were
more emotional. I just said, Hey, brother Joe,
like,
how can we pray for you? Right. And,
he'd already sort of leaned into that. And
he was much more open to asking for
support that way. You know, he asked someone
in the court to pray and and just,
so many individuals coming up to me after,
like, they said nothing in the whole meeting
said, I really needed this this week. Thank
you for doing that. Right? And again, I
recognize it could have gone sideways.
There could have been argument. There could have
been so many places gone wrong, but I
I'd rather that happen than pretend like, oh,
let's just open up a conference so I
can pretend like nothing happened. Right? So anyways,
any thoughts come to mind, Dan? Yeah. Well,
why was it worth the risk to do
that? Like, you knew it could go sideways
and it could become something hard to control
and contain. Like, why was that worth the
risk to you? Oh, man. I mean, I
could feel healing happening in the room. Right?
Not that I was offering it or doing
it, but just inviting the savior into that
tragedy
rather than just looking for updates on this,
you know, on a phone or in social
media. And that's the the unity component. Right?
Like, this is the often asked question when
it comes to ward culture or quorum culture
or relief study culture. Like, what do we
gotta do to, you know, stimulate unity? We
we need to be more unified, and we
always go to, you know, let's have a
pizza party. We'll just get together. We'll get
to know each other, then three guys show
up. And it's gotta be every core meeting
experience,
right, where you are stimulating,
like,
authenticity,
vulnerability,
because it's that you know, I always go
back to the scripture. This is both said
in the book of Mormon and the Bible
of Christ
hung on a cross to draw men to
him, like, to draw all men to him.
Right? That it was the moment of the
peak of vulnerability
that drew people to him. So it is
in that practice of vulnerability where we can
draw people together,
and that just creates more strength. And to
me, that is why we go to church.
Well, so let's press that a little bit,
because I think a common
when people hear that you're doing stuff like
this in elders quorum, a common retort is,
Hey, this isn't group therapy.
We're here to learn the gospel of Jesus
Christ. We're not here to, you know, cry
on each other's shoulders and sing Kumbaya together.
So how do you respond to that? Yeah,
absolutely. And it's not group therapy. Right. And
that's why
the focus, the pinnacle was the story of
Jesus. Like it was His healing that was
talked about. What is the redemption He offers
us? Right? And so, again, I just don't
know
why we go to church. Like, if we
go to church to learn things, why can't
you go on YouTube and learn things? If
we go to church
to participate in ordinances, great, that took ten
minutes. You know? So I just feel like
if we're so focused and structured on a
church of community,
there are purpose in that community. There should
be healing in that community.
And everybody felt
redeemed after that experience because it was a
community experience focused on Christ.
I'm trying to look up right now. I'm
going to the handbook
and I'm using the new AI assistant.
Could be dangerous.
There's some specific language
around what the purpose of elders quorum is,
and it's actually the exact same language, not
the exact, but almost exact same language as
it is for the relief society.
Yeah. Okay. So it says the purpose of
the elders quorum is to strengthen faith,
build unity, and support families and homes.
That's the purpose, the stated purpose of the
elders quorum, is to strengthen faith, build unity,
and support families and homes. How is what
you did
fulfilling that purpose?
Well, I'd give of course, I hope it's
fulfilling that purpose, but, you know, I think
when you model something like that, you know,
going back to the strengthening homes,
that father hopefully can go home and do
something similar, right, and start a conversation and
ask for prayer and pray together and those
types of things. So
then the unity is just like I said,
like the a vulnerable experience unifies people. And
then what was the other one in there?
Strength and faith, build unity, support families and
homes. And strength and faith. I mean, to
me, I wanted to model this is in
this crucible experience, this is how we rely
on Jesus Christ. We're not just, like, spouting,
you know, spouting things, platitudes at church because
that's just what we say. Right? This is
actually what it looks like is we turn
to the story of Jesus and remind him
how he showed up for people there, that
he's willing to do that for us. And
is he? Right? And inviting them to to
lean into that. So, yeah, this comes to
mind. I think in a little analogy too
that goes along with that is
when we think of church, if you use
a sports analogy,
you have the practices and you have the
games.
And I think that we often think of
church as being like the practices.
Right? It's not the real game. We're gonna
step out of the real world. We're gonna
take a minute. We're gonna kind of think
through, get ourselves ready. We're gonna send you
guys back out into the real world. That's
one approach and it's valid in some ways.
But another approach is to say, church is
about living
the real thing together.
And are we living life together as we're
sitting in the pews?
Are we living life together as we're in
our Relief Society or Young Women's or
Priesthood Corps meetings? Are we living life together?
And I think that's what becomes so damaging
sometimes to the body
is when we show up and pretend, when
something is affecting the body
and we show up and pretend that it's
not because we're locked into the performance of
so and so had a lesson planned and
we don't wanna interrupt that lesson that they
prepared for. You know what I mean? And
so we get locked into that performance and
into the script, and we ignore what's really
happening within the body. We're no longer living
together. And so as a practice, we become
hypocritical. If you're going to sit in a
room and ignore the reality of what people
are experiencing,
it's now a hypocritical experience, what I call
a plastic experience.
And that can happen as a group going
through a shared tragedy, like the one that
we're talking about as a nation here,
but it can also happen if people are
suffering
individually.
Like, if they're showing up and they're having
one experience and it's not honored, named, validated,
expressed,
seen, heard, touched, all the things
in that setting, in other words, they're having
to show up and be fake in that
setting, They now have to what's called alienation.
They have to alienate
themselves. They're fragmenting internally.
They have to start to silence the parts
of themselves that don't belong here in this
space.
So now all of a sudden people are
showing up at church, and the travesty in
all of this is when our youth experience
this. When they show up to church and
they can't have their real lived experience
at church,
And that's where they learned to perform
a certain role, a certain expectation, a certain
language, a certain attitude at church
versus what the lived
experience is. And it's no wonder that over
time, those begin to separate to the point
where you either have to deny your own
lived experience
and bury that and tuck that deep down
inside of you. And that might be from
trauma
or just might even be like a call
that you feel inside
or a way that you see world through
your own experiences.
You have to tuck that down deep inside
so that you can continue to perform,
or
you have to shed the performance so that
you can lean into this, which generally means
leaving the church and saying, I can no
longer be here because I can't be what
I've become to myself. I can't be here.
Whereas what Jesus in the scriptures is repeatedly
saying is is bring those together.
That vulnerability that you talked about, that authenticity,
like, bring those together as leaders. And that's
a formal leader standing up leading the meeting,
or it's, hey. I'm sitting in this room,
and I can sense the inauthenticity of what
we're experiencing.
And I'm going to step into the breach.
I'm gonna be the person
that gives the real experience in this room
that nobody's asking for and that might
shock everybody, and I have no idea
if I'll be hurt by doing this.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
And this is the you know, I guess
I'll go to this question here. Rick's asked,
how do you unify an entire ward who
is feeling disconnected or a stake? How do
you move the whole organization
and not just a quorum or class? I
have some thoughts, but what comes to what
comes to mind for you, Dan? Well, go
ahead. Jump in. Well, I I guess to
me, this is the
like, who says you have to change? Like,
if it, you know, we we enter different
contexts all the time where there's no unity.
Right? But this is where we can step
in and be that catalyst of that change.
Right? Where let's say, okay. This cute story,
Kurt. You're the eldest quorum president. You have
this experience or, you know, I can't do
that. I don't I don't get to determine
what happens in the second hour. Right? Well,
you could still you can invite people over
to your home. You could, you know, reach
out to people, like, you know, walk over
the home, knock on their house and and
say, are you feeling off like me? Right?
This is where I'm at. Where are you
at? Right? And and it's I wish it
was easier, had the five step plan, but
it's that going back to the principle of
it was looking for those perceptions
that you're feeling and leaning into that prayerfully
and saying, alright, I'm gonna act. Like, what
do I need to do? Right? And it
doesn't always go great. But this is, like,
the constant
struggle of
stimulating culture is that it's messy and it
doesn't make sense, but we can't sit in
the back, fold our arms and say, well,
if the Bishop just got on board, you
know, he could fix this or the elder
court president just did what, you know, Kurt
did, then that'd be great. Like, no, there's
a lot that we have way more power
than we think we we do. And I
would say, I don't know if it's necessarily
your job to shift that culture. You can
be, as catalyst as much as you can,
but we can't grade ourselves on, you know,
well, you know, my ward's not that unified.
Like, well, go find a group in, in
your ward and unify that. Right. So I
it's, it's a tough question. Anybody else have
a thought question, want to speak to anything
you can disagree with us? Again, we're just
two guys,
but,
we're open to that. Steve, go ahead. We
don't hear you, Steve. I know there was
someone speaking when I first jumped on, so
it's not Yeah. I know it's very not
a settings issue. Yeah. Just to kinda speak
to what you just brought up there on
the topic of how do you unify a
whole ward or or stake, I guess what
I'm feeling in that question, which may or
may not be right, is you're not the
bishop or you're not the stake president.
Can you hear me now? Oh, yeah. Okay.
I'm just wondering
the church has has supplied us with circles,
wide e
and as I say that, let me or
in the proviso
that there's
100 and plus
elders, quorum members in our ward, and we've
got 30 that are signed up on circles.
Uh-huh.
Yeah. So answered the question.
Yeah. Exactly. I think the church made an
attempt at having some type of group chat,
but it hasn't overcome the other better options.
So that's why we use GroupMe. Not that
GroupMe is the best, but I've, you know,
some use
Slack or what's the other one? Anyways, but,
yeah, whatever gets the the job done or
some just do a big, you know, text
thread. So
Well, it just comes back down to the
principle of
reading the moment, reading the situation.
So if you're a leader who says, I
just do whatever
ward that's willing to use circles. Or if
you're a leader who says, I'm going to
go to where the people are, I'm going
to gather them in a way that they'll
gather,
then you're going to get a lot higher
hit rate with your communication. So that's just
something everybody has to work out for themselves
of how they want to approach that. Back
on the other idea of, unifying a ward
or stake, and I can see maybe Ricky
is typing in, but assuming that you're not
a bishop or a stake president because you
have completely and wildly different levers
as a bishop, it looks like you were
at point, or as a stake president. When
you are the authorized institutional
leader,
you have levers that you can pull that
nobody else can pull, not even your counselors,
just because people orient you differently. It has
nothing really to do with your formal authority
per se. It's just the way you're perceived
in the community.
So, a bishop
can say something and get a very different
response than if someone else were to say
the exact same thing.
So, as someone who's not the bishop or
a stake president, who's trying to make change
in an organization that you don't have authority
over,
you have to recognize
that
authority and legitimacy are two different things.
So anyone who holds authority ultimately has to
earn legitimacy. They can lose legitimacy that comes
with their office. But legitimacy is not granted
by the institution. Stake president
doesn't give the bishop legitimacy.
The legitimacy
comes
through
the relationship and the trust that you build
with the people. So Kurt was describing a
situation where he said, I I think given
the things that we've done in the past,
they assumed it was gonna be a safe
and controlled environment and that I was gonna
do well with this. That's because he earned
legitimacy
through his previous actions.
Legitimacy is earned though not necessarily through what
you do, but through how you're perceived
by the community.
So if you don't have legitimacy
in the ward as a spokesperson who can
speak for the community, I'm not saying speaking
for the ward as a institution. I'm saying
speaking for the ward as a community. If
you don't have that legitimacy,
you will approach the situation very differently. And
there's there's a whole lot to say here.
That's why I'm kinda stuttering over this. I
don't wanna get too deep. But it basically
comes down to this. Your work as a
leader
is
to disrupt the status quo. And that's what
leadership is. Leadership is creating power in the
moment
through transformative action. So you do the thing
that needs to be done that nobody else
is willing to do. And through that action,
you will start to earn legitimacy from the
people because they will say, oh, you're willing
to bear a cost to do the right
thing, to do the thing we all wish
we could do. And that's why it becomes
legitimate. We all wish this would happen. We
all wish this word was united. We all
wish this thing could be said. We all
wish blah blah blah. And you were willing
to do what I wasn't willing to do
because there was a cost involved. And so
now I start to attach legitimacy to that.
If there's no cost involved, I perceive you
as rogue, as self interested, as dangerous, as
whatever.
But if there's cost involved, I now know,
dude, you're not doing this for yourself. You're
doing this for us. You're doing this for
the we. And here's why there can never
be a how to. And this is
this is the problem with the leadership industry
as it exists today. It's so focused on
telling leaders how to show up and what
to do to solve all these problems. And
it's that right from the get go is
built on a lie. It cannot come down
to that. It always has to come down
to a leader in the moment,
reading the moment,
and that moment includes who you are, the
legitimacy you do or you don't hold, the
talents that you do and you don't have.
Kurt said he's good with public speaking.
If you're not good with public speaking, you're
gonna approach the situation
very differently. You might actually pull in somebody
else and say, I'd like you to lead
this conversation.
So you're constantly
looking towards the moment and all of the
factors, all of the materials, all of the
strengths and the weaknesses
and all that's built in
to that moment. And then your intuition confirmed
by the Holy Ghost
is gonna lead you to that one thing
that you can do. It will feel risky
because if it's not risky, it's not leadership.
You will feel risky, but the temperature won't
be so hot that it feels like it's
gonna destroy you if it goes wrong. Yeah.
And on that note, like, you know, when
it comes to, like, the institutional church, because
as I'm out and about or in different
meetings and more private settings, like, the most
common question
or the most typical discussion I have with
individuals who meet me and have, like, a
private moment with me, they they ask me
a direct question.
They know that again, I'm not in we're
leading states as independent with the church, though
we work with the church and have great
communication with the church. So they know I'm
kind of aware of things, maybe
more inside the church than the the average
member. And they always go to this place
of, like, okay. When is the institutional church
gonna do this more training? When are they
gonna release this? When are they gonna change
this program? When are they gonna fix that?
Right? And just what Dan said, that that
legitimacy, like or with that,
you know, we want the plan. When are
they gonna send the plan to us that
that we can execute? And the the gnarly
thing about leadership is that, like Dan said,
there's no plan. Like, the institutional church, it's
impossible for them to give a plan,
generally speaking,
other than just general policies and guidelines that
way, but they can't give you a plan
of how to stimulate culture or give you
a plan of how to perceive things in
your word. That's where you have to feel
that enabling
power
on yourself and saying, oh, that's because I'm
the leader, and I have to, you know,
perceive these things and and take action. Am
I inbounds there, Dan? Absolutely. And, you know,
just along those lines, the church did put
out a formal statement. Mhmm. You know? And
it's the same statement that we all would
have guessed that they would have written because
what else can you write
when you are the head of 18,000,000 people
across a 100 and whatever number of countries,
what else can you write other than we
condemn this act and
we sue for peace and we, you know,
ask etcetera, etcetera.
But here's the interesting thing, and I wish
I had the quote brought up right now,
but their statement ended with an appeal
to build
communities
of some kind, peaceful communities.
I can't remember what it was. And if
somebody has it, they can throw it in
the chat. But that is a license
to the real leaders among us. It's not
a license to those people who don't even
have the first concept
of what a Zion community is. And there
are many bishops and Relief Society presidents and
elders court presidents and stake presidents who don't
really have the first conception of what Zion
is, a people who are united in one
heart and one mind. But if you are
a Zion builder, because God has put in
your heart
a vision of what it means to have
a Zion family or a Zion board or
a Zion team at work or a Zion
classroom
at school or a Zion whatever that you're
part of. If God has put that vision
on your heart, then you are a Zion
builder. And so when you hear the prophet
of the Lord say, we call on you
to
bring forth communities, I wish I had the
exact quote. I was hoping somebody put it
in there.
Oh, here we go. Okay. We call upon
people everywhere to build communities of greater kindness
and love.
Zion people. This is the prophet without saying
the word Zion. He's saying, we're calling on
you to build Zion in your community.
And what I'm saying to you right now
is
Zion is always a leadership project,
and leadership is not something that can be
assigned.
Management
supervision can be assigned by the institution,
but leadership is a force
in the world that you exert through the
very process we just talked about, stepping into
the breach, doing the hard thing, bearing the
cost, shaping,
creating the crucibles. That's what leadership is.
And any one of us can do that.
It's just we'll have different levers depending on
who we are and the resources that are
available to us in the moment.
Yeah. Shout out to Carson. Thanks for getting
that for us. And I want to go
to another comment Carson said. And Carson says,
I think, there are two concerns to navigate
at church here. Managing strong emotions, pain, hurt,
anger, etcetera, in tragedy. Sounds like Kurt did
this beautifully.
Managing highly charged and contentious differences of political
opinion in tragedy.
This is a common
place that people go of like, well, what
about
the emotional person, the highly charged person, the
person that's responding way too much,
or the person that overshares. Right? And I
have to try and flip that around. Like,
if you're experiencing,
tension with somebody oversharing
something, it's often something going on in you,
not necessarily the person. Right? And I get
there's maybe outliers of I'm sure you've evolved
to have, have a story like that, but
nonetheless, more often than not
the managing strong emotions, that is the greatest
opportunity
for the community to signal
you're okay here. You're one of us. And
there were I mean, there were some strong
emotions like I mentioned. And the way I
responded was, hey, John. Like, we hear you,
man. We're here for you. Thank you for
sharing that. Thank you for being so willing
to talk. Or if I saw people nodding
along with their Sam, there's lots of heads
nodding in here when you're speaking. Thank you.
Well, like, we got you. Right? And that
again, that stimulates safety. That safety,
the more we stimulate that safety, I think
the emotions will stay more balanced or regulated
that way.
And just the highly charged and contentious differences.
I mean, this is, this is the question
of the century in my mind when it
comes to our churches. I know that I
think there's more official statements and this is
why I don't sit in red padded chairs,
during general conference. But we have got to
figure out
how to talk to one another in the
setting of church about these things. I know
we default to this place of, like, oh,
no politics here. We can't talk about it.
You know, if me and my wife had
an issue that we just couldn't talk about.
No, we can't talk about that. Like there's
a problem with our relationship. Right. We need
to get help. We need to do something.
And this is where the leaders in the
Zion Builders step up of saying, no, there
is a way to talk about this, and
we can talk about it and see the
humanity in it and connect. And that will
unify people. We will never reach the peak
of unity until we can do that. We
can never reach Zion until we we figure
out how to do that. And I I
get that it's a tough gig or a
tough road to hoe, and there's no five
step plan. Like Dan said, we have to
perceive these things and lean in even when
the risk is present. Yeah. I love that,
Kurt. That is so beautiful. And I think
that just a quick note. I think you
did lean into number two, even though Carson
was saying you did number one really well.
You may not have had an environment without
that would have been as politically charged as
a different Right. You know, locale. Like, we've
already covered that. Yeah. But you did set
the frame. So number one, you did set
the frame. You said, we're gonna talk about
this in terms of the stories of Jesus
and how he approached these things. And this
is I mean, it's not a guarantee that
that's gonna bring people down, but that's a
one way of saying, like, this is what
we're here to talk about.
Now, Carson, I would just say,
and again, this is not a five step
plan, but let's just do a thought experiment.
Now, if I was in a ward where
I wanted to have this conversation
or in a family where I wanted to
have this conversation
and there was one or two people
that I knew were highly charged and highly
likely to say something that would offend other
people and shut down the conversation.
They may not argue back. They may not
be like getting ready to go to blows,
but it may like stifle what we're trying
to do here, eliminate that safe space that
we need for the number one on your
list, the strong emotions.
I would go to that person first. And
I would say, here's what's gonna happen in
this meeting today. And I would just speak
the truth to them. You have a tendency
to speak in highly charged, highly political ways.
And I know you think you're right. And
I know you think that God has asked
you to convince every single one of us
to see the world the same way that
you see it, but that's not what we're
coming here to do. So I wanna have
a conversation with you, first of all, to
help you understand what we're coming here to
do and to ask you to support that.
Now I want you to know
that if you cross the line, I'm going
to call you out in front of the
group. And I'm gonna say, you're crossing a
line. I want you to know if you
cross it a second time, I'm gonna ask
you to leave the room. I want you
to know if you won't leave the room,
I'm gonna end elders quorum on the spot,
and we're all gonna leave the room. Now
you do that in private because it gives
them a chance to now prepare themselves and
to think through those things and to come
in in the right mindset. But also you
you put them on notice.
They won't be surprised
if you do that in the meeting.
And so
now why would you even take that chance?
Right? If you know that's a possibility in
your quorum, why would you even take that
chance? For the very reason Curt just laid
out. Because we cannot be one body as
long as we have these fractures among us.
And tragedy is the only way to
forge
these cracks back together again.
It's like you were mentioning Kurt this before,
but in the business setting, you know, they
often do team building exercises. We're gonna go
to an escape room. We're gonna go do
a high ropes course, blah, blah, blah, blah.
We're gonna build the team that does almost
absolutely nothing for building a cohesive and unified
team because the paths and the culture and
the expectations
and the dependencies and the trust of that
team is built
through
the difficult times.
And it's only in the difficult times that
those can be rewired and reworked.
So as a community, you have or as
a leader, you have to be willing to
say, it's worth going into this. I'm gonna
do all that I can to build the
crucible, to manage the temperature,
but I might lose control of this. If
that risk isn't there, it's not disruptive enough
to actually do any real work in terms
of community building.
So I might lose control of this. Someone
might say something that offends somebody else. That
is a real possibility.
So do all that you can think of
as you're proceeding
to manage that, build the crucible, bring the
temperature down, all of those things, but then
also just know that that's not necessarily
failure
because you've now just created another opportunity to
step into that breach. Okay? So say it
does blow up on you. Now you have
a chance to go have conversations with so
and so. You have conversations with subs to
come back the next time. Right? You've now
created
a real lived experience in which your group
is coming together. And then last thing I'll
say on this, this, Kurt, is if you
think about
the prophecies
about the contention that will dominate our world
coming into the coming of Jesus Christ,
if we cannot learn how to talk about
these things together, regardless of our political
ideologies,
we are not creating Zion and we are
not prepared
to exist and survive, let alone thrive as
communities
in that world that has been prophesied
is upon us and will continue to deepen
in terms of the contention.
Yeah. And as you were speaking there, I'm
just thinking like there's a lot of leaders,
a lot of wards who try and keep
that beach ball under the surface of the
water as long as they can, and you
can keep pushing it down, holding it there.
But the more tragedy, the more more mortality
puts pressure
on that ball, it's gonna have to come
up and you don't know which direction it's
going. So the the more of these opportunities
you have to kinda release that valve a
little bit and unifying people, then you build
strength that you can handle anything. Right? And
that's that's Zion. You know, I appreciate, you
know, Carson's candidness here is, like, I'm concerned
about the minority of the different opinions feeling
like they don't belong. The two people in
Kurt's class who had different than the majority,
they weren't nodding along. They went home wondering
if they should go to church again. Did
that happen? Maybe. I don't know. Right? But
know somebody in your quorum. Yeah. Yeah. It
is.
Hey. It's Carson. He's in my quorum. No.
But the point being, we weren't, like, pushing,
like, oh, we're all angry, so let's all
be angry. Right? But what we were doing
is witnessing
the hurt in the room.
And so most likely when that person feels
hurt at some point, they can say, well,
that can be witnessed here. Right? I'm not
saying I nailed it. I'm not saying I
pitched a perfect game by any means,
but this effort is worth the effort rather
than everybody just, you know, telling mission stories
as we talk about conference talks. And then
we go home and wonder why we even
hang out with those people.
Yeah. And I think if that was a
real concern that you had, Kurt, you could
follow-up with a message to the group me,
and you could say, I recognize that some
of you might not have
experienced that the same way that I did,
and it might have been hard for you.
And so I would like you to I
would like to invite you to please reach
out to me and share with me if
that experience was different for you than what
I might've thought it was.
And again, you don't treat it like a
one and done. You treat it like this
is a journey that we're on together. And
the more that I can understand you, and
the more you can understand me, the more
we're going to find where we are human
together, and that will become that's the thing
about Zion folks.
Ideology and even doctrine is not the basis
of a Zion community.
It is our shared togetherness as children of
God. When you base a community off of
our shared identity and our shared nature as
children of God, Zion flourishes.
And we have to strip back. I know
it's hard to say in this setting, but
we even have to strip back the religious
ideology.
Jesus met people where they were. He created
Zion with them in a moment,
not because of what they believed about even
about him. He just saw their humanity.
He let them see his humanity. And in
that moment, Zion was created, and that became
the basis for everything they did together.
It's not doesn't mean there's not a role
for doctrine. It doesn't mean I'm challenging the
doctrine or saying it's not true or the
handbook's not, you know, whatever, etcetera. I'm just
saying if you want to have that kind
of Zion experience that we've been called to
build, you've got to learn how to bring
the group to that core
identity. It is the only thing in these
latter days that we will fundamentally share together
is our humanity,
which by the way, when I say humanity,
I mean our divinity as children of God.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. And there's so
many layers to this, you know, like, maybe
there were one or two who felt like,
man, I'm, you know, I'm the outlier here
that my opinions are different. I would probably
guess 90% of the elders in that room,
I have sat in their home one on
one
visiting with them. Right. So there's an effort
of establishing a relationship, but I hope that
if they feel that way, they're willing to
reach out or they know that I'll be
in their home at some point again. Right.
And so there's so many layers of culture
building that to take
into consideration here, but I think it was
just well worth the effort of leaning into
that, even though it could have gone sideways
or even though I could have offended one
or two or, you know, I think it
was well worth the effort. So, Dan, any
final encouragement
as we sign up? Yeah. I think I
think why are we doing this today? Right?
Like, we're doing this
because at Leading Saints,
we have a sense of purpose and mission
that we're trying to help leaders
who have the Zion
vision, who have the Zion mindset in their
heart. We're trying to help them
see how this looks in the real world.
And so when we were feeling this tension
for our own wards and quorums and stakes,
and when Kurt was leaning into this with
the opportunity that he had,
I didn't get a chance to talk about
some of the things that we did here,
but we'll save that for a different
day. We're sharing them not as the prescription,
we're sharing them to open the mindset
and to say,
look at these experiences, look at these moments,
look at these opportunities
with a different lens on. Not the lens
of the standard and the script and the
performance and what's the right thing to do
in the institutional
sense.
The lens of, if we were Zion, what
would we do? Or if I was trying
to build Zion in a moment, what would
I do? And I think that perception, that
spirit of discernment,
we have access to the Holy Ghost and
he will teach us all things that we
should do. And that includes
how to build Zion in this moment, in
this space,
at this time.
That concludes this episode of the Leading Saints
podcast. Hey. Listen. Would you do me a
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episode, you can go to leadingsaints.org
and actually leave a comment on the, episode
page or reach out to us at leading
saints dot org slash contact.
It came as a result of the position
of leadership which was imposed upon us
by the God of heaven who brought
forth a restoration of the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
And when the declaration
was made concerning the own and only true
and living church upon the face of the
earth,
We were immediately put in a position of
loneliness,
the loneliness of leadership
from which we cannot shrink nor run away,
and to which we must face up with
boldness and courage
and ability.