When I was in high school, I served for several years on my
Stake Youth Committee. This committee –
which was composed of two high school students from each LDS congregation in
the region along with the regional adult leadership of the youth program – was
supposed to meet regularly to plan monthly activities for high school students
in the area. In theory, the high school
students on the committee were supposed to take a key roll in the
deliberations. In practice, however, it was the adults who ran the show. The teenagers in the room were mostly there
to fill empty chairs. We rarely felt
empowered to make decisions, and would often show up only to discover that the
few decisions we were allowed to make had been overturned or forgotten by the
adults in between meetings.
On a few occasions, our deliberations became quite heated,
with the teenagers and adults in absolute opposition to one another. We would bicker ad nauseum about some
particular subject until, after 45 minutes or so, the teenagers would waive the
white flag – not because we had been convinced but because we realized our
opposition was futile. We didn’t really
feel like we had a say.
I do not bring up these experiences to bash those leaders
that I worked with almost a decade ago. On
the contrary, they were righteous men and women who were trying their best to do what they thought was right. Did they do so
imperfectly? Of course. But, so did I. I mention it only because those early
experiences in Church leadership instilled in me two beliefs about how the
Church operates that have turned out to be completely false:
(1) The Church hierarchy in wards and
stakes is one big agree-fest. Adult
leaders never disagree about anything
(2)
This unanimity is won because those in auxiliary capacities just shutup and do
what they’re told.
After I graduated
from high school, I enrolled in the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill where I
attended the local singles ward – a special LDS congregation composed entirely
of single adults from the ages of 18 to 31.
While there, I was asked to serve first as President of the UNC
Latter-day Student Association and later as president of the Durham Stake
Institute of Religion. In these capacities,
I had the privilege of serving closely with regional ecclesiastical leaders and
served on the Institute of Religion Advisory Committee – a committee not all
that different in form from the one that had so frustrated me as a teenager.
But the results were entirely different.
In addition to myself
and my counselors, this committee included a member of the stake presidency
(who I will call “President Peters”), the high counselor in charge of Institute
(aka “Brother James”), and the stake Institute director (“Brother Johnson”). I
do not think I could have selected three individuals more different had I
tried. President Peters was a general
contractor. He was a man of few
words. He liked guns and trucks, and was
one of those people you were never quite sure if they were kidding. Brother James was professor of public policy
at Duke University. He was eccentric and
energetic, and played viola in the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra in his spare
time. Finally, there was Brother Johnson,
a career seminary teacher. He was a
“feeler,” with a big heart, who frequently got teary-eyed during lessons. To my shock and amazement, Brother Johnson
was a convert to the Church, who had grown up a hippy. As a teenager he had long hair, did drugs,
and played in a rock band.
With such distinct
backgrounds, it is unsurprising that these men frequently disagreed during
meetings. At times the exchanges were
pointed, but never became hostile. The
goal was not only unanimity, but unity and on several occasions when an
agreement could not be reached, President Peters would suggest we table the
issue, and each personally take time over the next month to ponder and pray
about the subject and seek the Lord’s will.
When we would reconvene, unity was achieved through humility, mutual
respect, and (above all) a desire for each of us to know the will of the
Father.
This attitude of
mutual respect extended even to me and my counselors, even though we were at
least twenty years younger than each of them.
They had faith in our ability to receive revelation, and considered us
to be equal members of the committee. No
decision was reached until each of us, including the undergrads, were on board.
This attitude is not
unique to the Durham stake, but rather is the patter that the Lord has set for
the government of his Kingdom. Way back
in 1831, the Lord instructed the Presiding Bishop as follows: “And now, as I
spake concerning my servant Edward Partridge, this land is the land of his
residence, and those whom he has appointed for his counselors . . . Wherefore,
let them bring their families to this land, as
they shall counsel between themselves and me. For behold, it is not meet
that I should command in all things for he that is compelled in all things, the
same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward.”
(D&C 58:24-26).
Years ago, I read an
article which quoted President Eyring’s description of his first interaction
with this sort of Church governance:
As
president of Ricks, he attended his first meeting with the General Authorities
– including the First Presidency. He
approached the meeting with eyes trained by years of research on how decisions
are made by groups of people in business and government. As he watched the meeting in Salt Lake he
thought, “This is the strangest conversation I have ever heard. Here are the
prophets of God and they are disagreeing with an openness that I had never seen
in business,” he recounted at the Church press conference, noting that in
business people are careful about what they say and to whom they say it.
During
the course of the meeting, however, the conversation began to converge upon
what appeared to be a single opinion.
“I
saw the most incredible thing. Here are
these gifted people with different opinions and suddenly the opinions just
began to line up. I thought, ‘I have
seen a miracle.” I had seen unity come
out of a wonderful, open exchange that I had never seen in all my studies of
government or business or anywhere else.”
But
President Eyring didn’t know there “was another miracle coming.”
Just
as he expected President Harold B. Lee, who was conducting the meeting, to
announce the unified decision, he was surprised again. Instead, President Lee said, “I think we will
bring this matter up again some other time.
I sense there is someone in the room who is not yet settled. And he went on the next item.”
President
Eyring was pondering the exchange when he witnessed a member of the Twelve walk
past President Lee and say, “Thank you.” President Eyring knew the person
wanted more time to learn and ponder.
It
was then that President Eyring realized that, in the Church, it is possible to
have a “different, more effective approach to decisions in groups.”
“This
is what it claims to be,” he said. “This is the true Church of Jesus
Christ. Revelation is real . . . even in
what you would call business kinds of settings.
We can be open. We can be
direct. We can talk about differences in
a way that you can’t anywhere else, because we are all just looking for the
truth. We are not trying to win. We are not trying to make our argument dominant. We just want to find what is right.”
Let us all strive to
be honest seekers of the truth and to govern our wards and stakes according to
this inspired model. It is sometimes easy to criticize from
the cheap seats local or general Church leaders when they make decisions we
find foolish or short-sited. But, as I have grown older I have found that the
vast majority of leaders I have interacted with are striving to follow the
Lord’s admonition. I was annoyed for a
long time at those leaders who I felt disregarded my opinions while I served on
the stake youth committee. I do not know what was in their heart, but I do know
what was in mine. I viewed those
meetings as an us vs. them, and I was trying to win. Perhaps the leaders could have done a better
job of listening to us, but I certainly could have done a better job listening
to them.
In Moses we read that
“the Lord called his people Zion because they were of on heart and one
mind.” Let us always remember that
achieving this sort of celestial unity – which must be our goal – will require our humility, and not just the humility
of those with whom we disagree.
