Welcome, everybody. This is Kurt Frankem with Leading
Saints, and this is our monthly Leading Saints
live.
Now,
it should be noted that I'm actually gonna
push this to the podcast feed every week.
And,
because I think it's
the the the struggle that we're in right
now as a leading saints organization
is, combining these two worlds as far as
the the podcast, which has been sort of
our flagship for for so many years,
and then Zion Lab, which is quickly becoming
our flagship,
platform and in in experience
in the leading saints world. So if you're
listening to this and you're like, Kurt, what
are you even talking about? What is this,
you know, Zion Lab? So,
this is really in the last twelve months
has really
come hot on the scene
with Leading Saints where what we discovered is
that, you know, content's great, and we'll always
continue to produce content. I love doing interviews.
That'll always be a thing.
I love interviewing people about their callings and
doing how I leads. But what happened is
I would put this content out there,
and people would be excited about it, and
they want to have a platform where they
could discuss it. Okay?
And so I wanted to create,
we wanted to put together a online community,
so we looked at various platforms to do
that. We found one called Circle, and now
we've converted that into a Leading Saints app.
So wherever you're listening to this, if you're
listening,
recorded the recorded version, you can just go
to the show notes and find the link
for the the Leading Saints app, and it's
both in the Apple Store and in the
Play Store
for all
devices. Right?
And you or you can just go there
and search for Leading Saints. You'll see their
familiar red logo, and you'll download
Zion Lab. And so this is I just
really
invite you and encourage you. Like, I know
you probably have a lot going on or
you're on social media, you're scrolling, but
think how much better use of your time
it is to find a platform like,
Leading Saints where you can come on and,
you can scroll through content that actually has
maybe a little more substance than a funny
meme or or garbage that you see on
regular social media. Right?
And and there's some fantastic,
discussions happening
in, Zion Lab, and we invite you to
then take the next step of asking a
question or putting a thought out there, writing
a short article if you want or a
short thought
about some dynamic or the other. And just
to give you like, a lot of these
stuff is
ranges from, like, super practical
to,
to, you know
or or really kind of,
niche in about certain topics. So,
for instance,
I posted I was talking to somebody who
serves on a high council, and he just
mentioned I asked him what he was what
his responsibilities
entailed, and he mentioned he's over the blood
drives
in
a,
in a, in in a stake, right, organizing
blood drives. And I thought, you know what?
Nobody's really brought that up as far as
best practices related to blood drives. So I
went into Zion Lab and created a post.
He just said, hey. Everybody out there who's
had experience
organizing a blood drive or if you have
any ideas,
what what are some best practices?
And,
let's see if I can find that post
here, or I can simply come in here.
Let me there we go.
Type in blood drive,
and it will pull up
the post
blood drive best practices.
There's already five comments on there. And so
that way, you know, in a year or
two, when somebody discovers Leading Saints, they join
Zion Lab, and they think, oh, no. I've
got this responsibility
of blood drives.
I can go into DesignLab
and search or use the AI clerk and
say, hey. I have to organize
a a stake blood drive. What are some
ideas there? And
it will then lead you to that post
where there's already comments, there's already discussion going,
and it's cool to see discussions that happened
three, four months ago that actually pick up
some additional steam
by people finding it and leaving another comment.
And so it's just this really dynamic experience.
So I really invite everybody
to jump in DesignLab
and start engaging,
start participating, or you kinda sit on the
back row and kind of just monitor
and observe
different discussions going on there,
but really just super dynamic and a strong
tool. This is the future of Leading Saints.
Again, we'll always do the the podcast, the
interviews, and things like that.
But this is really where a lot of
great discussion
is happening. So
we're gonna go through,
just in this brief episode. I don't know
how long I'll be yakking here,
but we are gonna go through
some of the more popular content
that happened in the last month. And I
do these leading saints lives every
first Friday of the month, and we invite
people to join live, listen in, make comments,
or they can, watch it later, make comments
there. And then I'll push all of this
to
the Leading Saints podcast feed as well. Now
with that said, an additional,
caveat with how Zion Lab works is we
have our Zion Builder
experience as well, where,
if you pay $15 a month
to,
to support our ongoing effort here at Leading
Saints, you'll get an extended library, extended features,
including
the AI Clerk, which the AI Clerk is
probably my favorite thing about Zion Lab where
you I think most of us are pretty
familiar with ChatGPT or other
AI,
platforms at this point where you can go
in there and ask specific questions. So
I'm just gonna give you an example. I'll
look up here.
I can see some of the different questions
that people are since I'm on the admin
side. Oops.
Some of the questions that people are asking,
One of them being, hey. I want to
I how can I learn more about unrighteous
dominion? Right? And it's
someone typed that in, and it gives two
sources. And then, I actually saw this earlier
and thought, oh, you know what? I need
to get my Tony Overbay interviews
into Zion Lab. If you haven't
heard the Tony Overbay interviews about,
we
and synonymous with unrighteous dominion
is,
is, you know, the more secular term narcissism.
And,
Tony Overbay, who is a licensed therapist, really
dynamic, really articulate,
therapist, we have a long two part discussion
about narcissism and unrighteous dominion and tyrannical leadership
and these things phenomenal. So I inserted that
too. So now it's in the AI database
to,
to draw upon. Right? So we're constantly adding
some of our, long archived,
content to make sure it's in the in
EnsignLab so that the AI clerk is pulling
from that database as well as you ask
questions. Now this AI clerk,
that alone makes it worth that of contributing
$15 a month to leading saints through Zion
Lab.
But there there's also a, additional content libraries.
Right? If you want if you're called as
as a bishop, as a really sighted president,
and you wanna really do a deep dive
on content,
you know, there's a lot available to,
free individuals,
free members,
but there's
10 x more available to the Zion Lab
Builders. Now here's the thing. I never want,
any
function or
resource of Leading Saints to be held back
from those who can't afford it. And so
we have sponsors who have,
prefilled sponsorships
to to those who maybe can't afford it
or the it's not in the budget right
now. So
please
jump on one of those sponsorships.
We actually have
twenty, thirty, 40 that aren't being used right
now. So please jump
on those sponsorships and
benefit from the content. You get all of
the, the features of being a Zion builder
even if you're a sponsored
Zion builder. So and, of course, those who
can't afford it, it means a lot. It
goes a long way. So,
this, again, I don't mean this sound like
a a sales pitch as much as I
just wanna make you available, especially the podcast
audience who maybe more passively
waits for a new podcast to drop,
that, you can
you can jump on there and,
access more content and have a better experience
in
Zion Lab. Okay?
So,
few other just to give you another
let's see.
And it's funny some things, people ask. So
anyone saying that the church is,
trialing a one hour church. Right? This is
the one of the latest rumors. Right? I
think if we ever go to one hour
church, I guarantee you there will be a
thirty minute church rumor that goes around. I
really don't think there's anything to this one
hour church rumor. If you are,
if you are in the pilot program for
one hour church, will you reach out to
me? But I guarantee you, every time I
hear about these rumors, it's always,
well, no. My cousins, sisters, friends, brother, like,
you know, they're they're piloting it. Like, I
don't believe you. It's gotta be a firsthand
experience, and then I'll believe you. So,
anyway so you get asked all sorts of
questions. And and the AI clerk says he
couldn't find any information about the church trialing
a one hour church service. If you have
more specific details or context, please let me
know. So
you can literally ask anything. Right?
Taking, this person that's taking the the sacrament
at home during general conference. Right? And the
area clerk says that the practice of taking
the sacrament at home during general conference weekend
is not officially
documented in the church. Jesus' handbook or guideline
is essentially not that's that's not a thing.
So,
I'll do a few more here.
Can you point me to some resources on
the topic of providing welfare in a Christ
like way? Love it. And it gives a
few links here,
leading and teaching you through strong example. There's
also the,
content about
administering welfare that every bishop should,
be familiar with. So, anyways, that's how the
AI Clerk works.
You also have access to our deep library
of virtual summits
and,
you know, additional content has a lot of
live streams. They kind of they go behind
the the Zion Builder wall as if you
will, and and only after a certain amount
of time. So if you want access to
our full library, those things. But, again, we're
not trying to hold back anything from anybody
in the Leading Saints audience because we have
sponsorships
standing by ready for you to benefit from
them. And if you need if you need
help, you can just message me in Zyon
Lab. So at least go in there, download
the app, create a free profile, and just
start poking around using it. And
and try the, you know, upgrade to the
Zhiyun builder even if it's just for a
month. Try it out, see if it's worth
your your investment there. And, if not, let
me know, and we'll do our best to
make it even better as time goes on.
And we'll get better as time goes on.
In fact, another feature we're hoping to roll
out this week is we are going to
have a separate podcast feed
for all Zion Builders. So why would we
do that? Well, we have so many live
streams going on during the week that it's
way too much content for me to flood
the the traditional podcast feed with. And so,
but those who want to listen more of
the traditional podcast,
you know, way with subscribing to a feed
and using Apple Podcasts or a, you know,
Pocket Cast or whatever app you use to
consume podcast content. You'll be able to subscribe
to that as a design builder. And so
the minute we get done with a a
certain livestream that maybe you weren't able to
attend,
you can automatically listen to that recording on
the go on your way home from work
or
at during lunch or whatever it is. Right?
So that just more and more value and
resources
for for Zhiyun Builders. So
with that said, now that you're all just
excited to jump in and,
use Zion Lab, let's look at some of
the popular content in the last,
in the last month of of March, what
was talked about, things going on. And, hopefully,
again, those of you who haven't used Zion
Lab, you'll see the value of being in
this conversation and download the app, you know,
managing the notifications so that you know when
new conversations are happening. And we would love
your input and perspective.
And, so many people learn so much, and
it enhances their calling. So,
so I'm just looking at
at the popular post, and
surprise to no one is a post I
did called changes to the Sunday meeting schedule.
Okay?
Now I I think my brother sent me
a text when this dropped. Was it was
it Monday when it dropped? It was really
random time when it dropped. Right? And sent
me the link, and so I quickly jumped
on Zion Lab and posted the link to
get the conversation going. And lo and behold,
since I posted it four days ago, it
has 46 comments. Right? Lots to consider, lots
to talk about. And I'm sure you've heard
a lot about these Sunday changes on different
podcasts or
or online on social media. But Leading Saints
is the only place you're gonna hear from
from maybe a leadership context or a really
administrative context.
And so, you know, there's definitely a different,
a different flavor to this. So and let
me maybe I'll share my screen here.
Let me make sure the get the right
windows open.
Okay. I'll share my screen so you look
see what I'm looking at here.
And
alright. There we go.
So as you see, this is the post
I did. 46 comments, four likes, and, you
can go on and on
to read through those. Or there's an AI
function that it will give you a conversation
summary.
So let's read that and kinda give us
a flavor, and maybe I can I can
pontificate off of some of the some of
the content there or
some of the discussion points that people have
been leaving in the comments?
So, says the discussion centers on the recent
changes to the Sunday
meeting schedule, particularly the shortened class times
and the elimination
of pre lesson counseling.
Members express mixed feelings.
Hasn't had been the theme of these changes.
Mixed feelings by everybody involved,
about the impact on teaching teaching quality, community
building, and engagement. While some appreciate the opportunity
to see quorum and classes weekly and believe
shorter lessons can be effective
with proper preparation.
Others worry about the loss of meaningful discussion
time and the challenge of fostering vulnerability
and connection
in the compressed format.
Okay. Let let me just,
talk about a few of these
a few of these points that are referenced,
like the
teaching quality,
the community building, and engagement.
Where on the flip side, some see as
opportunities to see quorums and classes more often,
right, weekly, and believe shorter lessons can be
effective with proper preparation.
So, this is
obviously interesting,
an interesting,
you know, update to the meeting schedules, which
again take don't take effect until September 6.
When I saw it, it's one of those
things. Like, anything new, you're like I think,
naturally, we're, like,
skeptical
of anything new or changes. Like, wait a
minute. Like, wasn't the old way fine, or
why are they doing this? What's the motivations?
Are there any hidden motivations?
Right? I don't know. That's where my brain
goes to do sometimes. So I'm, like, immediately
kinda resistant. Like, ah, like, why are they
doing that? Right? And, really, back when
they made these changes or went to two
hour church, they really kinda have those two
options. Right? They could go to an alternating
schedule,
or they can go to a split schedule
like they're they're doing. And now we tried
the alternating schedule, and,
maybe there's some benefits. Obviously, more time in
in class and those things, but now we're
trying to split schedule, and I'm open to
it. I'm that's the one thing of Leading
Saints, the the stories you hear on Leading
Saints that constantly goes to this place of,
like, you know what? Try something different.
Consider all of the the wide spaces in
the the handbook that there's a lot that
you're not given direct,
you know,
prescriptive
direction on. And so I love to find
those wards and organizations that are trying something
different that are still within the boundaries
of of the handbook, but it's different. And
they're maybe seeing more positive results and hopefully
inspires others to try things. Right? So I'm
always game to try something new. Let's see
how it goes.
There is sort of this weird,
I guess this,
I need to share. I was on the
the quick show with Greg Matson, and we
talked about revelation,
inspiration, both personal revelation,
you know, profit revelation, those types of things,
and how that impacts our personal experience as
a a Latter day Saint. Keep reminding myself.
I need to make note of that to
to post that. But,
because a lot of people are framing the,
this,
you know, this new change to a split
schedule as revelation.
Now
Barnaby
goes to, well, what do you mean by
revelation? Right? So many of us think that,
you know, I I just don't see it
working in a way where, like,
president Oaks sat up in bed one night
and is like, we must do a split
schedule. Now he may there may have been
nudges and promptings that lead them one way.
One thing I have learned with working so
closely with the church is that
is that these things don't this isn't like
a six month process. Right? It's not like
president
Oaks, you know, was called the as the
prophet, and then he had this revelation of
do it, and then it it's it's out
now. A lot of these things take years
in the making and lots of counseling meetings
and and pilot testing and things like that.
And that's just in my opinion, that's just
how revelation works. Right? So you can frame
it as revelation,
but also
to
it would be naive in my opinion to
think that, like,
you know, if Christ is at the helm
of this church, then he is also
somewhere in the cosmos putting together this, infographic
about, you know, to reveal split schedule,
church. Yeah.
Anyway, so that's maybe neither here nor there.
But I guess it in the in the
announcement
of this split schedule and,
you know, one thing we really avoid and
it's just not our
our
our MO here is we're not overly critical
of the church as an institution. We're not
overly critical of individual church leaders or how
they're doing things. Right? That I think that
that would generally be inappropriate.
And so if this comes across like that,
it's not the case. But I went I
I kinda wish there was a paragraph in
the announcement or two
just sort of articulating,
getting everybody on the same page of what
is the purpose of church.
Because I would say the bare bones purpose
of a church is to renew
our baptismal ordinances or or, you know, or
or baptism baptismal covenants,
as individually. Right?
And but that only takes
fifteen minutes, ten minutes, sometimes, right, depending on
your word size.
So in theory, could we just, like, show
up and
just take the sacrament and go home? Right?
But, of course, you know, there's scripture out
there as far I'm thinking of Moroni six.
Right? There's lots of scripture as far as
encouraging
the the church to gather and to pray
together and exhort and sucker one another and
so forth. And so, yeah, there's maybe more
of a purpose for church there.
But I I don't know. Like, because I
think, generally speaking and maybe I'm projecting my
own experience because this is this is my
experience. I typically go to church, one, to
to renew more ordinances, which is really, you
know, pivotal for me. But two, I go
for community.
Right? I go to be among the saints,
to connect with them, to,
I go to see my friends and and
not just see my friends and hang out,
but to have, like, deep doctrinal discussion, right,
or
or bear testimony one with another or
see faith witnessed. You know, see somebody talk
about a tough week, a tough trial, and
how Jesus Christ is showing up in their
life
for that trial. Right? And so
that's that's kinda why I am that's why
I go to church primarily. Right?
I would also and and this new split
schedule kinda makes that more difficult. Right? We
have less time in class, less time, like,
hallway time, transition time with the five minutes.
Though maybe that there's a lot of that
community, if it's done right, in my opinion,
and it can be done right,
you can still stimulate
significant,
community
in the church
or in your, you know, Sunday schedule.
I think another where my mind goes if
if you're really pushed, like, why else do
people come to church? I would say for
gospel instruction to learn the doctrine. Right? And
I think in every,
purpose statement of whether it's the Relief Society
or the elders quorum or the youth or
whatever, like, there's always this mention of
learn doctrine.
And so, yeah, we definitely go to church
to learn doctrine. But, again, the new schedule
kind of makes that a little more difficult,
right, with these shorter class periods. Right? So,
again, this isn't meant to be, like, a
criticism or this will never work or whatever.
I'm excited come September to give this a
try.
I'm just kind of curious, like, from the,
like, the brethren standpoint or even the institutional
standpoint, like, how do they define church? Like,
what are we trying to accomplish here? Because
I feel like if they put that forward
and really help us understand that,
more more likely,
more wards
and stakes will have a more positive experience
because of that. Because they we're all on
the same page of, okay. This is what
we're trying to accomplish here. So I would
love individuals to either comment on this on
this post,
or this video, this live stream or this
live it is a leading stage live. It
is a live stream even though you're probably
not listening to it live.
Or come into Zine Lab and share your
comments. And maybe I need to start another
feed,
another post on that as far as, like,
what is the purpose of church. Right?
And that's and I always love doing this.
Whenever I have a question like that, I'm
thinking,
what is what would the AI say on
that? So I'm gonna go the AI clerk
for those Zion Builders, it's in the messaging,
the direct messaging area. So I'm gonna ask
here,
why
do Latter day Saints go to church?
And it'll take a minute,
but it's gonna go through all of our
content, see if there's any discussion there, any
content or podcasts
shared. So here, let me share my
screen.
And
here it goes.
Alright.
So it says, Latter day Saints attend church
for several reasons
rooted in their faith and religious practices.
Worship and sacrament, attending church provides an opportunity
to worship God and partake of the sacrament,
which is a central ordinance to the Latter
day Saint worship. It allows members to renew
their covenants with God. Okay?
Community and fellowship.
Church attendance fosters a sense of community and
fellowship among members. It provides a supportive environment
where individuals can connect, serve one another, and
strengthen
their faith together.
The next reason is learn and grow. Church
meetings offer opportunities for learning and spiritual growth
through teaching lessons and discussion. Okay? Next one
is service and callings.
That seems valid. Attaining the church allows members
to fulfill their callings and serve others.
Service is a fundamental aspect of Latter Saint
beliefs. Love that. And then lastly, it says
spiritual renewal.
Regular church attendance helps members feel spiritually renewed
and strengthened. It provides a dedicated time and
space
to focus on spiritual matters and receive inspiration
and guidance. So, yeah, that's interesting. Not that,
you know, this is an AI, not that
you should take it as gospel, but,
but,
that would be worth considering. Like, okay. Like,
how can we how can we worship more
in this context
in in this new schedule?
How do we strengthen community and fellowship? How
do we learn to grow service and callings?
Like, would will this mean, like, there will
be more callings available? I think I think
a lot of people are mentioning that just
because of the
the, you know,
the opportunities for more teachers
to rotate through. And then how do we
just create a place of more service and
spiritual renewal? Right? And that that that'll be
tough one is is we start this in
September. How do we make it so we're
not just running through the schedule? Because it's
gonna feel like that, at least for the
first little while until we acclimate to the
schedule of, like, woah. Like, Sunday schools are
already over? Like, wow. Okay. Here we go.
Right. Woah. Like, we're going home already.
So
I think those more transitions like that make
time
feel like it's it's going it's going faster.
So,
anyways, that's a good thank you, AI Clerk,
for doing your AI stuff.
Let me go back to
changes for sending me schedule. I won't spend
too much more time on this, but,
I think those are my general thoughts. I'm
getting I'm getting more people. I had a
a a short, real go out, short video
about,
that that references how I approach elders quorum
as an elders quorum president.
And to me, this is going to to
me, the this approach I've been doing is
is gonna
become, I think, more reason to give it
a try.
And the reason I say that is we
do this so
and, again, I'll do this on another episode
where I go into detail, but here's a
quick summary.
Every week, we have we have about,
I don't know, 30 to forty
forty men in our quorum. And I always
forget them how the math, but it usually
ends up being there's
four or five or six
individuals
that we reach out to every week and
say, hey.
Will you be ready to facilitate
a discussion
among
four to six men
and pick a a general conference talk that
you can speak to about, you know, in
that in that discussion.
And so, you know, they say, yes. I'll
I'll do that and come come prepared. So
they'll they're now one of five or six
facilitators
in Elders Court.
And then the reason why this is so
important because everybody's concerned about the twenty five
minutes. Like, people lollygag. They're just, like, you
know, taking their time in the halls. They
get into a conversation. And even now, we
have a ten minute,
a ten minute,
you know, transition time between sacrament and the
second hour. And there's still people that are
ten minutes late to,
to that second hour, right, which I don't
necessarily fault them because I know that they
are having a discussion in the hallway, and
it's not like they you know, to me,
that that's gonna do a lot,
though it's great to have them in in
class as well. Right? And so a lot
of people are concerned, like, how are we
gonna get to it. Right? And nobody wants
to be like the hall monitor, and though
that may not be a bad idea as
far as, like, you know, shepherding people to
class.
But
the way that I do this is that
I've already have these five or six people
that are prepared to facilitate the discussion.
So when I get five people that walk
into elders quorum,
hey, guys. You you're the group. Right? Go
go over to that corner and get going.
Right? And so for them,
they started right after, right, you know, four
minutes after sacrament meeting or five minutes, you
know, depending on when they all get there,
and they're off and running. And the next
group comes in. Alright. Hey. You five.
You're in this other corner. You get going.
Right?
And then we get you know, then the
the rest come pretty quick at that point.
And so they're already going. They're not waiting
for the majority of the class to get
there to start.
They're off and running. Now if you're do
it the traditional way with, you know, rows
of chairs and you're gonna have one instructor
for the class, yeah, you can jump in
and get get started as quickly as possible.
And I would recommend that because then, you
know, it actually helps people acclimate to the
new experience. Like, oh, like, yeah. They're they're
taking this serious. They're they're gonna jump in
and get going. Right?
But then
with the structure I do it, we got
people that are lingering in the hallways and
they come in as they do. And I
just, when they walk in, I kinda make
eye contact and point to a certain group.
They know, oh, that's my group, and I'll
just go in and join wherever this the
discussion is going. So I'm really
not worried about as far as speaking as
an elders quorum president. I'm not too worried
about how this is gonna impact our our
schedule or learning time or whatever. We're gonna
get right into it. And, you know, obviously,
we're gonna shorten shorten it down because we
typically have
forty five, fifty minutes
to, in Elder's Chrome currently. So we'll have
to shorten some things down. But the bulk
the majority of it will be that general
conference discussion. Right? And, again, the reason I
do this, there's so many components. And, again,
I'll do a
a more
dynamic or more,
a longer episode
about this topic. But
imagine, like, think about your elders quorum or
your release site experience, and you say,
on average, what would you guess is the
percentage of of people in the room that
actually make a comment and have, like, an
engagement in it? Right? And how many of
those are maybe on their phone? You know,
what percentage are on their phone or sort
of not locked in?
And I would guess,
10%.
Okay. Maybe 20% of people are making comments.
And and it does depend on your the
size of the group. The larger the size
probably depletes that percentage of people participating because
it just becomes more intimidating for people to
make a comment or so forth. Right? Or
one person feels comfortable and they make two
comments, three comments. Right? But the beauty of
splitting them up into smaller groups
is be is to,
it
skyrockets that
participation percentage.
Well, participation
percentage
because now they're in a group of five
or six guys.
Now they are more comfortable making a comment.
And not only do they make the comment,
but it feels more personal.
And, man, it is so beautiful to watch
these men open up. Right? And I'm not
claiming this is perfect or, you know, every
person engages or whatever.
But I've had there's one instance few weeks
ago where
one one guy in the circle I was
in was saying, you know what? I just
had a really tough morning, like, get the
family. He's got young kids.
Get in the family of the church, and
I told myself, I'm just gonna go to
elders quorum
and just sort of not
participate. Right? And he's sort of newer in
our words, so he didn't he didn't he's
not as familiar with this this approach.
And then he came comes in the elders
quorum, and he sits in the circle. And
he's like, but now, like, I just I'm
surprised how much how much I am talking
because I was not in a good place
when I walked into elders corp. And he
he made a lot of comments,
you know, during that day, which would have
never happened. They're so easy for people to
hide on the second and last row
of of elder squirm or Relief Society because
they can just scroll or go somewhere else
or sort of passively listen and no. Or
they make the assumption, oh, people don't wanna
hear my perspective anyways. Right? So, anyways,
I think that
is a good summary of that post. Obviously,
this is a big news in our world,
especially in church leadership where we're administrative
administration
focused a lot. And so,
yeah, changes to meeting schedule. And then there
were additional,
and I won't go into this. I feel
like I belabor the point, but there's additional
posts that have popped up.
Let me find that. One is about,
you know,
as far as teaching goes,
Kevin Jones, he made a great post.
Oh, it's in the teaching space because there's
different spaces. Right? So you subscribe in Zion
Lab. You pick what spaces you wanna hear
about. So if you're a guy and you're
not you don't need to hear anything about
Relief Society, you don't have to join that
space. You're welcome to if you want. But,
so in teaching
just read this. I think this is really
helpful.
Scrolling. Scrolling. There's just so much discussion going
on here.
Oh, this I went too far back.
Righty.
How to increase
teachings challenges.
We have questions to ask. I wonder if
he moved it or,
well, this is silly. Anyways, he talked about
the I'm just
Here he is.
It was a good discussion posts. Here we
go.
Okay.
He said he made a comment or a,
post called
making the new meeting adjustments
work.
So with the church announcement of the meeting
adjustments, they gave the following initial reasons.
To support members in their efforts to be
lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ, the adjustment will
strengthen gospel learning in home and congregations
throughout the world. And maybe this was alluding
to a little bit that kind of that
paragraph I wanted,
but, again, I think it's speaking more generally.
Says, also, gathering weekly in every class helps
deepen
deepen gospel learning
by connecting it more closely to personal family
study, said president Paul v Johnson, Sunday school
general president. It also enhances the spiritual support
that members get.
And then this is Kevin speaking. My big
takeaway
is that the adjustment will strengthen gospel learning
in homes and deepen gospel learning by connecting
it more closely to personal and family studies.
I'm curious of your ideas of how you
might structure
your teaching to make this happen. You see
the power of posts like this? I just
it gets me giddy because so for so
many years, it was up to me to,
like, go out and find the person, interview
the person,
and there's just never enough time nor did
I have capacity to do that. Right?
And so
this discussion happened without me even worrying about
it. Anyways, that's beside the point. So there's
14 comments,
and the AI summarizes that the discussion centers
on adapting teaching methods to align with the
new meeting adjustments and emphasize
strengthening gospel learning at home and enhance personal
and family study.
Commenters explore shifting from lecture based instruction to
more interactive discussion focused meetings
to support home center gospel learning. There's also
attention to inclusively
ensuring that lessons
meet the needs of diverse class members while
fostering meaningful connection
and shared experiences.
Yeah. That and, again, what a great resource
to have, right, if you're if you begin
to struggle
with the teaching dynamic. So and this is
the other thing with my approach, and I'm
not trying to make this standardized in the
church. It's up to you, your own revelation.
This is what I found to be super
effective.
But when we talk about limited
class time, like, how do we do twenty
five minutes?
When in reality, my elders quorum
is more likes,
I don't know, five hours long. Like, what
do you mean it's five hours long? Because
we've duplicated the discussion happening. Two people can
comment at once because one's in one group
and one's in the other group. Right? So
if you need more time, then just split
up into into more groups and get the
discussion moving quicker. That way, if somebody wants
to make comment, they're like, oh, we got
ten minutes left. They're, you know, why even
raise my hand? There's not gonna be enough
time for me. Right? The so these small
more, focus groups, make that possible. So you
can either try it. It either works or
maybe someday, there'll be a new handbook paragraph
called the Kurt Frankem teaching style,
you know, paragraph that says, do not listen
to Kurt Frankem's idea of splitting up, you
know. Anyways,
it's just so effective. So effective, guys.
Alright.
That's enough. I don't know. Is it enough
about,
the new teaching schedule? There's just so much
to consider, and there's gonna be more discussion
as September approaches. Feels like forever away. I
mean, we have to go through a whole
summer. Right?
But, it'll be here before we know it.
Some other things.
One hour a month that is changing my
relationship with the youth in our ward. K.
This is cool.
So I love seeing these when people get
on. They don't just ask a question, though.
Please get on Zine Lab, ask a question.
Love to hear it. But here's, Grant Stuckey
who talks about,
says in his word, I've been doing something
that has been wonderful experience for our youth.
We call it BYD,
Bishop's Youth Council or sorry, Bishop's Youth Discussion.
I think that's in the
I wanna say that's in the handbook. Like,
generally, it's encouraged. Right? On the second Sunday
of every month, we invite the youth to
our home for an informal discussion.
I imagine many bishops are doing something similar,
and I would love to hear the details
and nuances of how others approach it so
we can continue refining the experience. I mean,
these I know this sounds like just a
simple paragraph, but it just I wanna weep
when I hear this stuff that together, we
have a place like Zion Lab to come
together
and refine and learn from one another, and
a bishop in Magna, Utah is gonna influence
a bishop in Massachusetts.
And
and
Zion's growing and building is just beautiful. So
this it's so fun to see this that
somebody sharing their experience but also asking what
others are doing. So about a week before
BYD, my wife and I sit down together
and talk about
what topics might be most helpful for the
youth right now. We ask ourselves questions like,
what do you feel the youth need to
to discuss as a group? What challenges are
they facing lately? What gospel principles might strengthen
them right now?
Once we identify a topic, we start thinking
about how to present it in a way
that sparks discussion rather than just delivering a
lesson.
We ask questions such as
what questions could open meaningful conversation? Is there
a short video clip, photo, or quote that
could introduce the topic? Is there an objective
lesson that might help principles? Right? He goes
on and on. I haven't even read a
quarter of of what he talks about. But,
man,
for a bit I'm just man, I feel
kinda robbed. My time as bishop, I didn't
have this.
Right?
I didn't have many youth in my ward,
but I was in inner city ward. It
was an
a trip for sure.
The AI
conversation summary says the comments reflect
strong support and appreciation for the Bishop's youth
discussion initiative,
highlights its positive impact on youth engagement and
relationship.
Contributors
share their own experience and ideas for fostering
meaningful youth discussion,
emphasizing the importance of safe space spaces, involvement
of bishopric,
thoughtful topic selections. Practical considerations
such as meeting frequency and timing are also
discussed to optimize participation.
You guys, this is so cool. And I'll
just tease you with the rest,
some others that were really popular.
Is your elders quorum and recidi
psychologically
safe? This is actually a throwback article that
Ryan Godfrey sent in red. Man,
This is it should be required reading. We
all of our podcast episodes are in here.
Right? So if you have a question that
was talked about in a specific podcast, the
clerk the AI clerk is gonna
pick up on that through the transcript and
and point you towards this. So
so
valuable.
There's even this one.
Let me see if this is an old
one.
It is
oh, yeah. Someone posted general conference predictions and
wish lists.
So just fun everything from fun conversation to
really practical conversation to spiritual conversation
to inspirational conversation.
So I'll cut it off there. And, and
let me make let me be clear here
as far as, like, becoming a Zion builder,
like, that $15 a month goes to us
continuing
our efforts, with Leading Saints. And I made
a video at the end of last year
of 2025,
lending you we've had some funding shortfall. So
even if you're like, you know, like, girl,
I don't have time to get into Zion
Lab. I don't have time to read these
comments. Even if AI summarizes them,
would you still please become a Zion Builder
so that, because we haven't we're we're not
out of the woods, with this funding shortfall.
And so,
we could really use your help, and we
have some plans coming. Maybe
in the next few weeks, you should hear
about it, but we are,
we're getting back into the virtual summit,
business as far as getting some great online
conference content
and bringing in experts and doing deep dives
on topics like helping individuals overcome pornography,
to mental health, to helping individuals through, who
who've questioned their faith,
to teaching, and, man, there's so many. I
wanna do a whole AI virtual summit. That'd
be so cool
to really dig into how can we leverage
AI in appropriate way,
to enhance our leadership, to enhance our teaching,
to enhance our culture experience at church. Right?
So please become a Zion builder. And, seriously,
if you can't
if you can't,
put together that 15 a month,
please just take a sponsorship. It's at the
bottom of that page to upgrade,
and just do it. Like, we want as
many people in this and benefiting it. This
content,
just ones and zeros on some server somewhere
unless we are engaging with it and using
it and asking questions and and doing it.
And so we wanna make
your job
as a church leader, as a Zion builder,
as a Latter day Saint, just
so easy. And to do it not just
so that it's easier, but it's that it's
done in community.
You feel like you know some other saints
across the world and you're in this together.
We're building Zion. It is so cool. It
is so cool to build Zion because there
are people everywhere in the church that are
going in the temples, making that fifth covenant,
the law of consecration, dedicate your time, talents,
and everything that the Lord has given you
for the building up of the church of
Jesus Christ. And
a lot of us think, like, well, I
don't know even where to start with that
or, I'm the activities day leader. Isn't that
good enough? Or no. But so many are
feeling this internal
revelation, this inspiration, this invitation
to say, hey. We need you to to
build Zion, and I have have a way
for you to do it. And Zion Lab
provides the community
the support to do it in. And so
join us on the on the front lines
of building Zion. It's so cool. So please
reach out to me directly. The best way
to reach me, seriously, it's as good as
texting me, is to go in DesignLab
and send me a DM, and it comes
right to my phone. My phone buzzes, and
I see it. And unless I'm on you
know, busy with something else, I'll I'll respond
pretty quick. So at least at least within
the day. So I do have a life.
But thanks everybody for joining.
Please jump into the resources here and benefit
from them. We'd love to see you in
Zion Lab.