Growth

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Thank you.
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Welcome to another episode of Inside Out.
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My name is Jim Bennett and I'm here as always with the lovely and talented Ian Wilkes.
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How are you, sir?
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Very good, Jim.
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I'm
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speaking from a rain drenched, and I'm not exaggerating there, a rain drenched north of England.
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So I'm on a different time zone and it hasn't stopped raining here for quite a few days.
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So Yeah, we're all a bit wet when we go out, but we're all keeping smiling, keeping positive, and enjoying the British friendliness that exists over here.
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Since I got here, I've been here a couple of weeks, it's rained almost every day.
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Today's been probably the worst, and all last night.
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It's just not stopped torrential rain, and everything's looking green.
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I think people are a bit miserable, actually.
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I think they're looking for a break.
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Yeah, typical British weather.
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All right.
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Well, now that we've given the weather report, we ought to dive into, this is a subject we've wanted to talk about for a while.
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And I really want to get your insight on it because I think you've seen some of the challenges of this firsthand in a way that I haven't.
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So I want to start off with some video from Elder Jeffrey R.
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Holland.
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He was speaking in 2016.
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to a single adult fireside in Dallas, Texas, and he was talking about the biggest challenge that the church is currently facing.
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We're in the midst of incredible growth, staggering growth in the church.
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It's the single biggest problem we have.
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It's the best problem we could have, but it's the biggest.
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We are reeling under the implications of the growth that we have in this church.
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Last Thursday, I've been out here this Thursday.
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I've been with Elder and Sister Holland.
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I've been with Elder and Sister Robbins this week.
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So I missed the temple meeting this Thursday.
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But a week ago Thursday, we created 15 stakes.
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And we're doing that.
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Massamanos every week, more or less.
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It might not be 15, but it's the week before it was 12.
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Sometimes it's 8 or whatever, and it'll be a little uneven.
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But the point is, I mean, we're talking double-digit stakes every week, every week
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of
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our lives.
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Double-digit stake growth every week of our lives since 2016.
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That's very impressive.
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Is it true?
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Because the numbers that I'm seeing suggest that maybe it isn't.
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There was an article in this month, or just last month, that was talking about real numbers in terms of church growth.
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And the growth rate of the church, we have seen that the growth rate has been declining dramatically.
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for a very long time and everybody talks about that, but they still say, oh, isn't this great though?
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The church continues to grow.
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But the problem is the growth in certain areas in the world is masking the lack of growth and even the total collapse to some degree of the church in other areas.
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If you look at specifically the census that the Wall Street Journal brings up.
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It talks about the fact that 1.1, let's see, in 2007, 1.8% of American adults identified as Mormon in 2007.
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This is from the Wall Street Journal.
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In 15 years, that total dropped to 1.2%.
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In raw terms, that's a net loss of roughly 1 million adult members.
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So it's very hard to get our hands on specific numbers because the church counts you as a member of the church until you are 110 years old.
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And most of the people who join the church who stop going to church don't go through the process of taking their name off the records.
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They just stop going.
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They're done.
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And they don't consider themselves members of the church.
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All of those people in Scotland that we found who had been baptized in the baseball baptism program were on the records of the church for decades and decades without even realizing.
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And so these census numbers, I think, are probably the best indication we have because these are people who self-identify as members of the church.
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And according to these numbers, one million fewer people consider themselves Latter-day Saints in the United States.
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Now, if you go to the United Kingdom and you go to all of Europe, those numbers become far more dire and far more drastic.
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There was an article just a week ago talking about the fact that the church is shrinking in Ireland and that there are very few members of the church in Ireland.
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The church has closed 12 different wards in the UK over the past year, four different stakes in the UK over the past year.
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And the numbers in the Wall Street Journal say that the self-identification of Latter-day Saints in Europe has plunged by 18% over the last 10 years.
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So, I mean, those are really stark and startling numbers.
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And anecdotally, they back up what I've experienced in talking to people, people that I still know in Scotland, tell me that there are probably half as many people coming to church as there were when we were missionaries back there in the late 80s.
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And that gets to be really depressing when you think that, okay, we go out there, we're the stone cut without hands that's going to roll until it fills the whole earth.
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And you go to the MTC and they tell you about all of the thousands of people that were baptized in the early days of the church in the UK and that this was just the most fertile soil for the gospel seed to be planted.
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And the field is white, all ready to harvest.
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Let's go out there and harvest.
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Well, 30 years later, 35 years later, the church is half as big.
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And what's going on here?
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That's kind of a broad question, but I'm confident, Ian, that you can answer it.
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Okay.
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I'm not sure about that, but I'll try to dissect it and kind of break this down a little bit.
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So I think the sources there, the New York Times is pretty, well, one of the reliable sources.
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Well, this is the Washington Post.
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I'm reading the Wall Street Journal.
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This is the Washington Post.
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I apologize, Washington Post.
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And so I'd heard that President Haaland regrets making that comment at that particular time because it's quite easy to dismantle and kind of break that down.
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I've looked at some numbers and consolidated some of the numbers.
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And in 2011, there was approximately 14 and a half million people up from about 309,000 people on the previous year.
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That's a 2.19% growth.
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That's back in 2011.
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And when I was just at kind of align this with my experience when I was on the state presidency at that time in Canada.
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We knew the numbers.
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I think we had about 6,000 active members in our stake.
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And it was approximately, if I'm generous, about 1,600 people, 1,500 people that were actually active.
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If you look at the units, again, what I want to do is kind of talk about some of the numbers and percentages.
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and then just kind of line that up with my own personal experience, first-hand experience of the numbers in the stakes and mortars that I've served.
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So with the stake in Canada, about 6,000 people, 1,500 active, and that was back in 2011 when I was just called onto the stake presidency.
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There was about eight units approximately in the stake.
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Some of the units were small, other units were big, in the region of maybe 2 to 50, And some of the smaller units were probably like 30, 40, or 50, some of the small branches.
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I think 1,500 is quite generous in the stake that I was serving at the time.
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If you look at the trend there from 2012, there was some 2.36% growth in 2012 to 14 million, 7 of 8, 2,000 there.
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And so from 2011 right up to...
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2015 and beyond 2019, an average, it looks like, we do the average about 1.5, 1.7% growth.
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2014 was 1.92.
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That was a bit of a bumpy year.
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But when you get to 2019 and 2020, there's a significant drop in the rate of growth.
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So 2020 looks like we have about 16.5 million growth.
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up 98,000.
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That was a 0.59% growth.
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In 2021, there was about 16.8 million.
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I think that's fairly close.
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And that was a 0.85% growth.
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So the growth rate has slowed.
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And I think that's really important to understand.
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So I think the fish is growing, albeit very, very slowly.
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And again, if we If we contextualize that with reality based on our experience, I'm here in the UK, I've been here for a few weeks now, and I'm in touch with quite a few friends up and down the country.
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Some are active, some are not.
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I'm hearing stakes have been amalgamated.
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I think there's something happening down at the Reading stake, some changes down there.
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I think the Watford stake, there was some restructuring reorganization there.
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Some units have come together.
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If you look at Scotland, so I was a bishop in Scotland back in the early 2000s, late 2000s.
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It had our ward at that time, and it was a typical ward, Jim.
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And of course, as a bishop, you know the numbers.
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There's about maybe, oh boy, maybe 800 members on the record.
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And we had about, coming out to sacrament, if we had a good day, we had maybe 65, 70.
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That's pretty good, maybe 80 people that came out on a general stay.
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Now, those numbers in the same ward that I served in is about 35, 40.
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I think the numbers across Scotland from people I am in touch with who serve in state presidencies and have been bishops, et cetera, there's been a significant drop off across Scotland in almost every, well, first of all, every stake in every unit to the percentage of about, at least, if we're being generous, about 24% to 27%.
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I think that number's quite low.
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Some units have closed.
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Other units have remained stagnant.
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But many units have averaged between 30 and 60 people coming out.
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When you and I were in Scotland in the 80s there, late 80s, the situation was dire back then.
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but not as stark as it is now.
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So the reality is that you've got significant decline in members, you've got poor retention rates, you've got challenges to the traditional proselyting methods.
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In the UK now, they really don't want people knocking on the doors.
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You and I used to knock on doors 10 hours a day in the rain.
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They're getting nowhere, frankly.
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The number of referrals have dropped off by 35%, I'm told, across Scotland, across the north of England.
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So the number of people providing referrals to the missionaries have dropped significantly.
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And back when you and I were missionaries back then, it was like pulling teeth to try to get referrals from members.
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There's all different reasons why members didn't or couldn't share their friends and regards to the church.
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This is before the internet, before all the The issues came out.
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And so the traditional proselyting methods have changed.
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It's all gone online now, as you know.
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A lot of it's electronic, digital, et cetera.
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That is a very different experience to trying to bring people in and proselyte them through that way.
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They can't knock on doors.
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There's some rules or regulations around that, security.
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People don't want that.
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And then all the issues now that are very easily searchable, which didn't exist when you and I were on missions.
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In 1994, President Hinckley attended England.
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It was in the York State.
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I attended this regional session.
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It was a priesthood session, actually, across the parts of north of England.
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It was in York, and he discussed some of the challenges facing the church, and he said at that time, that growth was one of the biggest challenges that the church faced.
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And based on, at that time, looking at the stats and the graphs that I got in front of me, it looks like that statement by President Hinckley in York 994 is consistent with the numbers that I'm looking at here that have consolidated across different sources.
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And it looks like that the church peaked in terms of growth and rate of growth And I'm trying to pinpoint this as close as I can looking at this graph.
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That looks to be about 1990 to 1994, 1992.
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So we're talking 31, 30 years ago, where it looks like the church had actually peaked and the rate of growth had actually peaked.
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Since then, the rate of growth has declined.
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And it looks like, looking at the projections here, We're on track, the church is on track in the next short few years to reach a position that I would describe as plateau, plateau, where you may have, was it, you know, maybe seven to the half, 18 million, 0.1% rate of growth or 0.2 or whatever, so pretty much stagnant.
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And then if there's no new people coming in, so no new blood coming into the church, what's going to happen?
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is the the uh potential acceleration of decline is then going to reverse potentially i think this is going to happen all of the gains that the church has made since the restoration of the church right up until the period of time in the late 80s early 90s looking at the graph here where it achieved uh optimized maximized growth And then since then, it's actually declined.
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So I think the church is about to plateau and no new people coming in.
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It translates into more people leaving and the church then reporting at some point in the future, the church is going to have to report.
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Well, they don't have to.
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It's going to report a decline in numbers and you won't do that.
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So it will somehow modify or change the growth criteria and try to present growth in other ways.
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I've heard some things, some ideas or thoughts that they've got about how they can change the metrics for growth and add metrics to the growth to show that the church is growing in other ways.
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Temples is one of them.
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And the church is now, I'm told, looking very closely at the metrics for growth monitoring and measuring temple activity.
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So the number of endowments, numbers of baptism of the dead, portions of anointings.
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If you know, there's a big program where they've got the youth now involved in the temple activity and that's no accident.
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I think that's very much part of the strategy to broaden and widen the the criteria for measuring and monitoring growth brought more broadly beyond, you know, people joining the church.
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And I've also heard they may, and this is quite interesting, quite controversial.
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I don't think it will happen, but I've heard this.
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It could be just a rumor.
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But the church may be looking at measuring the number of people who, on one category, who have actually, the work's been done for them.
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Those names are counted.
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We know that.
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We know that the endowments are counted for them.
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We know the Washington Anointing is accounted.
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This is a fact.
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This is no secret.
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The question is whether they're going to look at that as people joining the church on the inside as a growth metric for saying that the church is growing.
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I see that very, very difficult, very controversial, and very problematic going forward.
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So, in a summary...
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Hearing that
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that's actually going to happen?
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No, I don't think...
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I'm told it will, or it's going to happen.
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I mean, the facts are...
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Look at the facts, because it's a very extraordinary thing, Eden.
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Think about it.
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The facts are that we do measure that.
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Church knows when they go, how long they're there for.
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We know who they're doing the work for.
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We know that they're doing Washington's anointings.
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That's counted.
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Baptisms for the dead, number of endowments.
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All that is counted digitally on the church computer.
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That's a fact.
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That's no secret.
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The question is, if the church is going to plateau, and it is, and then show a decline in numbers, which it will happen, How does it report that?
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Will it report that?
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How does it report that?
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Does it broaden the metric for measuring growth across other areas?
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I think that's absolutely going to happen.
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That's going to be a strategy.
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Will that strategy extend to adding or recording people joining the church from the other side of the veil?
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I don't think so, but other people disagree with me on that.
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And what other areas could the church...
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build in its strategy or incorporate in its plan to show that the church is growing and will be heard and sounded in every, you know, every tongue in the nation.
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Just one other point as well, again, looking at the research up in here, they are actually experiencing quite a bit of growth in Africa.
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Now, I've got somebody I know extremely well, whose name I won't mention, who has just been called to Africa in the last week.
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So I've had a conversation, I've done some research, And the church is committing quite a significant amount of its resources to building the church in Africa.
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And I think we're going to see many, many baptisms in Africa.
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And I think that's one of the short-term saving opportunities, if you like, to save the church, or at least show some rate of growth.
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Because in Africa, the churches, they don't know about the issues as much.
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They're looking to improve the life, of course.
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They're looking to be part of a community.
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They're very receptive towards the church, very receptive towards the missionaries.
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There's millions of people there who are potentially interested in joining the church.
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So if you add that to the mix and all the other elements that I've shared, I think the church will continue for a while at least to show some rates
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of growth.
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Well, I certainly think you're right about that being the strategy.
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And certainly that is the only reason why the church is able to continue to post positive growth numbers.
00:21:02.423 --> 00:21:28.116
And it's also important to recognize the numbers that the church has are much better than the numbers that traditional Protestantism has, that Catholicism has, at least in the United States, all traditional organized religion within the United States is shrinking precipitously.
00:21:29.358 --> 00:21:32.844
And the church has been able to offset some of that.
00:21:33.644 --> 00:21:44.097
Now, the church has sort of wrapped itself in the security blanket of of, yeah, see, we're not doing as bad as all those other guys.
00:21:44.718 --> 00:21:49.703
But what they're missing is that they're not doing as well as some other guys, too.
00:21:50.084 --> 00:21:53.929
We're getting trounced by Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists.
00:21:55.109 --> 00:22:00.496
And Seventh-day Adventists are seeing remarkable growth, more than the Jehovah's Witnesses, more than anything else.
00:22:00.615 --> 00:22:09.205
And probably the reason for that, at least in both of those two cases, is that every member is truly a missionary.
00:22:09.377 --> 00:22:11.279
You know, that's a maxim that David O.
00:22:11.299 --> 00:22:14.303
McKay said during his administration, every member a missionary.
00:22:15.003 --> 00:22:20.869
But the reality is most members sit at home and send their kids off to missions and hope for the best.
00:22:20.990 --> 00:22:23.833
And if they're feeling good, they might offer a referral here and there.
00:22:25.015 --> 00:22:26.676
But even that seems to have dried up.
00:22:27.617 --> 00:22:43.804
And so Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists spend their entire adult lives going out and knocking on doors and going out and trying to make contacts And so they are seeing much better growth than we are.
00:22:45.906 --> 00:22:57.863
So, you know, I was listening to a statistician who was talking on the Mormon Land podcast for the Salt Lake Tribune, and he said that's essentially, that's the solution.
00:22:58.042 --> 00:23:08.637
You know, if the church wants to grow, it has to do what it takes to grow, and it has to get all of the members involved in going out and acting as missionaries.
00:23:09.153 --> 00:23:14.441
I don't see that as a solution because I don't think the members would stand for it.
00:23:16.042 --> 00:23:37.589
But when you start talking about the idea that the church is going to mask the decline of real numbers of people who are coming by claiming that people who have had their temple work done are now members of the church, I think back to...
00:23:38.210 --> 00:23:58.161
the huge, huge debacle of the church baptizing Holocaust victims, church using records of the Holocaust to go in and index names and send them through proxy temple ceremonies.
00:24:00.003 --> 00:24:47.019
Elie Wiesel, I think I'm pronouncing that correctly, who was a Holocaust survivor, spoke out vociferously against the church and the idea that the church was erasing jewish identity by claiming that all of these holocaust victims were now members of the church and the church's response to that which i think was entirely appropriate was to say we do not count these people as members of the church this is a free offering a free gift to them that they are are welcome to accept or reject in the next life, but we would not dream of saying that they are members of our church.
00:24:47.840 --> 00:24:58.156
That would be thrown out on its head if we started to count everybody who has had temple work done for them as posthumous members of the church.
00:24:58.436 --> 00:25:04.185
I think it would be a huge PR disaster, and rightly so.
00:25:04.993 --> 00:25:19.997
And I think that all of the groups that came after us when we were using Holocaust records would come after us again, and they'd be joined by a whole bunch of other groups who'd say, who are you to tell me that my ancestors are now Mormons?
00:25:20.958 --> 00:25:22.079
You can't do that.
00:25:23.281 --> 00:25:26.246
And I don't think we can do that and get away with it.
00:25:27.407 --> 00:25:36.627
I know we have done a number of boneheaded PR moves in the past, This one, I think, is a bridge too far.
00:25:37.368 --> 00:25:44.136
This one, I think, would be so colossally embarrassing that I don't know that the church would be able to recover from it.
00:25:44.738 --> 00:25:49.564
And the thing is, I don't know that it would fool anybody, least of all members of the church.
00:25:50.605 --> 00:25:51.986
You know, we're not stupid.
00:25:52.527 --> 00:26:01.478
Don't tell us that the church is growing when, okay, no one's coming to church, but it's growing on the other side of the veil, so that's all that counts.
00:26:02.273 --> 00:26:04.056
That just doesn't make any sense.
00:26:04.375 --> 00:26:06.738
That doesn't pass the smell test at all.
00:26:07.598 --> 00:26:19.550
So when you talk about Africa being the thing that's going to save our butts, I think you're right in the short term, or at least maybe the midterm.
00:26:20.531 --> 00:26:39.661
But the reason Africa is growing so quickly is that in terms of developing nations, they've got several more years or maybe even decades before the entirety of the population catches up with the developed world.
00:26:39.701 --> 00:26:46.950
And so the kinds of things that worked when we were missionaries 35 years ago still work there.
00:26:46.990 --> 00:26:58.645
I'm sure the Preach My Gospel discussions in Africa do not include any mention of the priesthood band.
00:26:59.329 --> 00:27:02.914
that endured for 140 years.
00:27:04.017 --> 00:27:25.648
And when they get the kind of access to information that is available in the United States, in the United Kingdom, all throughout Europe, all throughout Japan, when they have that kind of level of access, they're going to have the same level of questions and they're going to have the same level of attrition that we're having now.
00:27:26.871 --> 00:27:41.380
And so it sort of, It deeply frustrates me that rather than confront the central problems of why we're not growing, we're looking for band-aids.
00:27:42.140 --> 00:27:43.801
We're looking for short-term fixes.
00:27:44.042 --> 00:27:45.663
And we're looking, hey, Africa's growing.
00:27:45.704 --> 00:27:46.605
This is great.
00:27:46.766 --> 00:27:47.446
That'll save us.
00:27:47.487 --> 00:27:53.753
We can go and stand up in general conference and say church growth this last year was 4% or whatever it is.
00:27:54.575 --> 00:27:55.855
I think that's a high number now.
00:27:57.096 --> 00:28:01.290
And And so we can continue to announce these temples.
00:28:02.192 --> 00:28:04.797
You know, the temples are giving the illusion of growth.
00:28:04.977 --> 00:28:13.390
It used to be that the announcement of a temple was a signifier that the church had grown significantly in the area where the new temple was going.
00:28:14.311 --> 00:28:21.603
Now, the announcements of temples, they come at the end of every conference, and they used to be really exciting, and now it's okay.
00:28:21.643 --> 00:28:27.002
It's a laundry list of projected temples, many of which are not being built.
00:28:27.063 --> 00:28:33.794
I mean, we've had temples announced in China and in Russia that are not going to be built anytime soon.
00:28:33.814 --> 00:28:47.477
And so you get this laundry list of temples and areas that don't have anywhere near enough of a membership base to support them, let alone enough of a membership base to staff them.
00:28:48.458 --> 00:29:02.002
You have people now, lots and lots of couple missionaries now Their missionary assignment, essentially, is to go be a temple worker in a temple where there just aren't enough people locally to staff these temples.
00:29:03.003 --> 00:29:13.420
And so we're doing all of these things to sort of maintain the illusion of the kind of growth that Elder Holland was talking about at the beginning of the podcast.
00:29:14.480 --> 00:29:19.409
But it is an illusion, and it's not sustainable.
00:29:20.190 --> 00:29:22.554
Long term, we have to address...
00:29:23.298 --> 00:29:26.803
the kinds of problems that are preventing us from growing.
00:29:27.825 --> 00:29:31.529
And I kind of want to get into that with you if you're interested.
00:29:32.171 --> 00:29:39.040
I mean, if you were the president of the church, I'd be happy to sustain you, sir.
00:29:39.803 --> 00:29:41.285
You are now president of the church.
00:29:41.786 --> 00:29:44.348
What do you do to stimulate church growth?
00:29:47.334 --> 00:29:48.355
Thank you for that.
00:29:48.516 --> 00:29:52.862
And I want to respond to your other points, but I'll answer that.
00:29:53.185 --> 00:29:54.106
Last question, head on.
00:29:54.186 --> 00:29:56.670
So this is what I would do if I was the president.
00:29:56.710 --> 00:30:00.295
And by the way, Alan Holland does regret making those comments.
00:30:00.575 --> 00:30:08.765
In fact, halfway through his comment, there's a statement that he played, there's a change in his tone, if you've noticed that.
00:30:08.904 --> 00:30:17.455
I think he realizes that this information is going to be dissected in great detail.
00:30:17.496 --> 00:30:21.601
But to your question, here's what I would do, and I would have done this a long time ago.
00:30:21.641 --> 00:30:46.637
I would I would have teamed with other organizations, churches, charities, all kinds of organizations that are involved in humanitarian aid, which the church does to some extent, but more locally, more regionally, to deal with local issues, deal with homeless, deal with back-to-work employment, deal with providing humanitarian services, providing service in the community.
00:30:47.439 --> 00:31:12.317
In the state that I served in, and this is in stark contrast to what the other churches are doing, Those churches in the stake in British Columbia, which is across the entire province of British Columbia, at Christmas time and throughout the year, were all involved, teaming together, partnering together to help the homeless, open the buildings, befriend the homeless, feed the homeless.
00:31:12.993 --> 00:31:19.681
feed the homeless, open the kitchens, open the cultural halls, and allow the homeless to come into their buildings.
00:31:19.721 --> 00:31:21.182
And they were feeding them and defending them.
00:31:21.261 --> 00:31:32.212
And there were other people that provided outreach services that came into the church buildings and provide a whole range of professional medical support.
00:31:32.673 --> 00:31:36.537
Every church that I could see in our state had been doing this long before I got there.
00:31:36.576 --> 00:31:38.098
The same in Scotland, by the way.
00:31:38.159 --> 00:31:40.161
I remember coming out of a...
00:31:42.337 --> 00:31:51.071
hotel in Edinburgh, just down the road from Spilor and Collington Road near the mission building office there.
00:31:51.752 --> 00:31:56.381
And there was a big sign on the bus stop just down the road there coming from Edinburgh.
00:31:56.881 --> 00:31:58.344
And it was a big outreach program.
00:31:58.364 --> 00:32:00.406
And all the churches in Edinburgh all teamed together.
00:32:00.426 --> 00:32:04.614
Church of Scotland, the Catholic Church, the Evangelical Church, the Joe's Whit run there.
00:32:05.134 --> 00:32:07.057
And they were all working together to help the homeless.
00:32:07.278 --> 00:32:08.119
And this is a few years ago.
00:32:08.140 --> 00:32:11.211
I remember looking at that poster And there was no reference.
00:32:11.511 --> 00:32:12.192
I looked twice.
00:32:12.252 --> 00:32:15.175
I was very disappointed to see no reference to our church.
00:32:15.896 --> 00:32:30.874
And then going back to the British Columbia experience, where every year and throughout the year, churches and charities were all coordinating their efforts to help a whole range of people with different needs and issues and opening up the buildings and providing voluntary support.
00:32:31.374 --> 00:32:32.255
And what were we doing?
00:32:32.275 --> 00:32:33.195
I think it's what we were doing.
00:32:33.676 --> 00:32:34.478
We opened a building.
00:32:35.170 --> 00:32:46.346
And I was in charge of this, by the way, or at least I was partly responsible for this and felt very helpless to change this despite best efforts.
00:32:46.405 --> 00:32:47.026
What did we do?
00:32:47.467 --> 00:32:51.732
We laid out all the tables and we put Christmas ornaments on the tables.
00:32:52.594 --> 00:33:00.786
And people were invited to come into the building and walk around the cultural hall and look at the tables that were beautifully adorned.
00:33:01.185 --> 00:33:14.827
And they would see all these different Christmas ornaments, trees and globes, you know, some Santas there, some other art, you know, Christian art that they brought in with lights and Christmassy things, etc.
00:33:15.449 --> 00:33:17.573
And it was all adorned with, it was beautiful.
00:33:17.653 --> 00:33:19.134
It was pretty amazing.
00:33:19.556 --> 00:33:22.461
But what did he do to, you know, to help the people in need?
00:33:22.901 --> 00:33:25.506
And we did absolutely jack squat.
00:33:26.049 --> 00:33:27.392
So you're asking me what would I do?
00:33:27.612 --> 00:33:37.949
I would be engaged in direct active immunity service, opening up the buildings across the world, providing a resource to organizations across the world.
00:33:38.269 --> 00:33:53.833
When I was the bishop in Scotland, we were the only ward in Scotland, for a fact, and certainly most parts of the UK, where we opened a building, Jim, to a biannual, so it was every year, twice a year, blood transfusion event.
00:33:54.273 --> 00:34:01.375
So we opened up the building, they came, they set all the equipment up, and we had hundreds of non-members come into the building and give blood.
00:34:02.096 --> 00:34:05.425
And people who had never stepped foot into a Mormon church before were coming in.
00:34:05.465 --> 00:34:09.438
The other events that we did at the same time, we did two major events.
00:34:09.634 --> 00:34:14.539
Young Drivers Challenge events with the Dalkeith Police Station, which was adjacent to the building.
00:34:15.061 --> 00:34:19.485
And all the police officers and all people and organizations involved in young driver safety came in.
00:34:19.525 --> 00:34:23.992
They set up the stands and the booths and they had presentations and videos in the cultural hall.
00:34:24.492 --> 00:34:31.021
And again, we had hundreds of people coming to the building who otherwise would not have come into Mormon Church.
00:34:31.541 --> 00:34:40.304
So if I was the prophet and if the prophets listened to this, use the missionaries and the members to get involved directly in serving the community.
00:34:40.945 --> 00:34:48.815
If you don't want to knock on doors, like George Whitney says, fine, because it is very difficult and it's not productive to knock on people's doors and to preach to them.
00:34:48.855 --> 00:34:49.576
They don't want that.
00:34:50.255 --> 00:34:53.800
They don't want to be preached to and they don't want a stranger coming into the house.
00:34:54.521 --> 00:35:04.132
What they do want is an organization locally who cares about them, who can help them, who can maybe go to some shopping for them or cut their hedge or...
00:35:04.769 --> 00:35:13.498
or the lawn, or do some kind act of service, or put on a food drive, a food event, et cetera, which the church does in certain parts.
00:35:14.079 --> 00:35:35.903
So with all the extraordinary resources and billions of dollars that the church has got, with 130,000 missionary force and millions of members who are active, and just think about the reactivation possibilities of inviting people, not just to come up to church, but Would you help us in a food drive?
00:35:36.125 --> 00:35:39.389
That's a very different proposition than coming out to sacrament.
00:35:39.909 --> 00:35:42.753
You know, will you come out to sacrament or would you come to a baptism?
00:35:43.554 --> 00:35:51.425
You know, it's difficult for people who've not been in the church to come back into an environment which they might not feel comfortable or even ready for.
00:35:51.465 --> 00:35:56.172
It's a very different situation or proposition.
00:35:56.552 --> 00:36:04.692
We invite them to participate in a community-wide outreach or service service initiative.
00:36:04.751 --> 00:36:06.474
That's a very, very different experience.
00:36:06.954 --> 00:36:08.014
And it's very Christian.
00:36:08.034 --> 00:36:08.936
It's very Christ-like.
00:36:08.956 --> 00:36:09.916
That's what Christ was doing.
00:36:10.317 --> 00:36:11.458
He wasn't in the church.
00:36:11.478 --> 00:36:16.342
He wasn't in the buildings, stuck in a room and talking about stuff.
00:36:16.402 --> 00:36:18.525
And his church was without walls.
00:36:18.565 --> 00:36:24.371
It was out in the community, blessing and healing and feeding and building and befriending.
00:36:24.411 --> 00:36:26.652
He was out there with the homeless.
00:36:26.813 --> 00:36:27.514
We've lost our way.
00:36:27.534 --> 00:36:52.340
And I think the biggest thing the church can do improve its reputation, restore some of its credibility, which has lost a lot, restore some of its integrity, which has lost a lot, is to mobilize its significant resources that it has in the Buddhist, more than many other organizations out there, frankly, across the world, and get the members involved in direct active community service.
00:36:52.782 --> 00:36:54.744
I think that's the biggest thing they can do.
00:36:55.144 --> 00:36:56.666
I would love to be a member of that church.
00:36:57.168 --> 00:37:01.554
And I am a member of that church, but only sporadically.
00:37:02.081 --> 00:37:19.369
When the church does things like that, I'm a broken record when I talk about when the church rally around us, when my daughter had her injury, the left her paralyzed, and our ward descended on our house and fixed everything up and made us dinner and remodeled her room and did all these things.
00:37:20.572 --> 00:37:34.916
I was just in awe of how quickly and how easily, I guess easy is the wrong word, but there isn't There isn't another organization out there that has the capacity to do that.
00:37:34.936 --> 00:37:40.585
I mean, we already have the capacity to do all of those things that you've described.
00:37:41.405 --> 00:37:49.637
And I absolutely agree with you that that would do far more for grace, for missionary efforts.
00:37:50.297 --> 00:37:58.949
You know, when the Savior was talking, I mean, everybody quotes the Savior in his last injunction to go out and preach the gospel to the world.
00:37:59.650 --> 00:38:03.474
Throughout his ministry, what he kept saying was, you are a city on a hill.
00:38:03.594 --> 00:38:06.217
Don't hide your bushel under a candle.
00:38:06.237 --> 00:38:08.440
Don't hide your candle under a bushel.
00:38:09.922 --> 00:38:11.525
Let your light so shine.
00:38:12.686 --> 00:38:15.809
Let your good works demonstrate who you are.
00:38:15.829 --> 00:38:18.092
By their fruits ye shall know them.
00:38:18.773 --> 00:38:27.423
And if the church were to produce the kinds of fruits that it was capable of producing, we would see, I think...
00:38:29.442 --> 00:38:39.594
I think we'd see transformations that we wouldn't be able to handle, the kinds of things that Elder Holland's talking about, like just staggering growth.
00:38:40.094 --> 00:38:40.275
Yes.
00:38:40.596 --> 00:38:55.454
The idea of an organization with the resources that the church has devoting the vast majority of its time to actively improving people's lives...
00:38:56.034 --> 00:39:14.210
And I'm not talking about improving their lives by teaching them things, but by feeding them, by giving them medical care, by doing things that have a tangible, objective benefit to their lives.
00:39:16.132 --> 00:39:18.155
I think that could revolutionize the world.
00:39:19.036 --> 00:39:22.418
I think there's this huge opportunity.
00:39:22.739 --> 00:39:24.000
This is a wake-up call.
00:39:24.621 --> 00:39:25.822
This is an opportunity.
00:39:26.434 --> 00:39:29.960
This is not, oh gosh, we're shrinking and what do we do?
00:39:30.681 --> 00:39:35.329
Well, let's just double down and do it harder and shrink slower.
00:39:35.349 --> 00:39:38.835
That's not the solution.
00:39:39.295 --> 00:39:45.226
So anyway, I'm just sitting here as you're talking, cheering you on and saying amen.
00:39:45.565 --> 00:39:46.447
The power
00:39:46.989 --> 00:39:49.132
and the transformation of actually helping people, right?
00:39:49.452 --> 00:39:54.431
Why do I know this, that I'm not the prophet, and And why doesn't the church know this?
00:39:54.713 --> 00:39:55.554
Why can't they see it?
00:39:55.574 --> 00:39:59.199
Why do we know this and see this and the church seemingly doesn't?
00:39:59.259 --> 00:40:00.840
Or they do, but they're not prepared to act on it.
00:40:01.181 --> 00:40:37.173
Just to your point earlier, I can't think of an organization which is so well organized, so well structured, so much potential, so much capacity to be with so many resources that can lead virtually everyone I'll pace almost every other organization in delivering real help and support to people who are struggling in a way that absolutely strengthens and improves their life at a fundamental level.
00:40:37.735 --> 00:40:43.362
And the other thing as well, Jim, and I've seen this firsthand and I've experienced this in my own life.
00:40:44.423 --> 00:40:53.427
If you help somebody, And you're there, and you love, and you show your love through action, and you feed them, and you befriend them, be a real friend like Christ was and is, right?
00:40:54.027 --> 00:41:01.137
And you help them out of a problem, and you improve the life, and they're grateful for it, and they shed tears with you, they hold you and hug you.
00:41:01.657 --> 00:41:08.346
When someone comes to them and tells them that Joseph Smith, what are they going to say?
00:41:08.365 --> 00:41:10.307
Or they pull down the church or criticize the church.
00:41:10.728 --> 00:41:13.150
They say, well, maybe, maybe there's some truth in that.
00:41:13.871 --> 00:41:15.153
But the church helped me.
00:41:15.777 --> 00:41:16.398
It saved me.
00:41:17.119 --> 00:41:17.780
It supported me.
00:41:17.980 --> 00:41:18.501
It fed me.
00:41:18.641 --> 00:41:19.340
It befriended me.
00:41:20.041 --> 00:41:21.342
And I'm one of those people, right?
00:41:21.983 --> 00:41:39.960
I see many, many issues with the church, but I have never discounted or disqualified or canceled out all the goods that the church has done for me on a very personal level in my life.
00:41:40.721 --> 00:41:41.782
How can I do that?
00:41:42.483 --> 00:41:56.021
I'd be dishonest if I didn't acknowledge kindness and service that the members in the church have extended to me in extraordinary ways that have transformed and improved my life.
00:41:56.320 --> 00:41:59.965
I'm here really because of the goodness of the church.
00:42:00.586 --> 00:42:12.985
So I think that's really important that, you know, if the apostles are listening, the general thought is this, just get together, listen, you know, don't follow, I mean, this is...
00:42:14.402 --> 00:42:15.983
No secret what we're talking about.
00:42:16.023 --> 00:42:17.925
We're not the only ones with these ideas.
00:42:18.186 --> 00:42:20.449
The ideas didn't originate here.
00:42:23.092 --> 00:42:24.853
Suggestions and ideas, recommendations have been around for a long time.
00:42:25.313 --> 00:42:34.184
But bring them into meeting, have a serious discussion and get yourselves, you know, aligned up and focused and use your resources and see the potential for transforming the church.
00:42:34.204 --> 00:42:38.849
And I think it's a huge game changer if somebody could lead this at the apostle level.
00:42:39.329 --> 00:42:42.514
and see the vision and hopefully get some inspiration.
00:42:43.295 --> 00:42:45.818
Why is it we see it and sometimes they don't?
00:42:46.199 --> 00:42:50.286
I just want to go back to some of the points that you made earlier because I think they're important.
00:42:50.306 --> 00:42:53.771
And I want to touch upon COVID just briefly because I think COVID is a major factor.
00:42:54.170 --> 00:43:02.923
We saw a very dramatic impact from COVID on the church, attending church, et cetera, all the regulations.
00:43:02.983 --> 00:43:12.222
Every organization was impacted, religious, business, Every government institution was impacted directly and very significantly.
00:43:13.164 --> 00:43:19.931
And in terms of our church, and it's not unique to our church, basically, you couldn't go.
00:43:19.951 --> 00:43:20.692
You couldn't go to church.
00:43:20.731 --> 00:43:22.253
You couldn't be there in person.
00:43:23.034 --> 00:43:26.277
And nobody was prepared for this.
00:43:26.338 --> 00:43:27.139
There's no process.
00:43:27.159 --> 00:43:27.860
There's no systems.
00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:29.641
The church wasn't along.
00:43:29.661 --> 00:43:44.717
There were very few organizations out there that really could have foreseen, frankly, the significance of the impact of COVID I don't think anyone that I know could foresee the dramatic impact COVID had on their business or on the church.
00:43:45.177 --> 00:43:54.005
But what happened, there was a significant falling of a cliff, if you like, a drop off in people attending churches.
00:43:54.606 --> 00:43:56.407
And what happened is they attended them online.
00:43:56.427 --> 00:44:15.199
And what I've seen in our state, and I've seen a lot here, where people didn't go to church for many, many months, over a year, I think that was maybe 15 months he hadn't been to church or couldn't go to church for the rules, et cetera, depending on the regional or the country rules.
00:44:15.960 --> 00:44:17.681
And they kind of got used to being at home.
00:44:17.742 --> 00:44:19.204
They just didn't go to church.
00:44:19.985 --> 00:44:24.309
And there was a percentage, and I don't know the numbers, but there's a percentage that never went back.
00:44:25.110 --> 00:44:26.753
They just decided not to go back.
00:44:27.813 --> 00:44:32.300
And COVID for them perhaps was a reason not to go back.
00:44:32.519 --> 00:44:36.985
Or during COVID when they're at home, and I heard this happen quite a bit, they're online.
00:44:37.634 --> 00:44:54.057
more online than they ever have been, and they're researching something for a talk or they're studying, and they come across some material more frequently, perhaps, than they would have done previously by researching some material for a talk, et cetera, and they spent more time in the home on the computer.
00:44:54.099 --> 00:45:02.972
They discovered issues or came across issues, and that's actually led them down a rabbit hole, and that's one reason, I've heard with some people at least, why they decided not to go back.
00:45:03.512 --> 00:45:30.974
I said earlier that the church measures all the stuff that's going into the temple, And there's many, many people who go and do the work for their ancestors, whether they be Jewish or Catholic or whatever, and they come out of the temple and they share with someone, the bishop or someone else, and they've had a prompting, Jim, they've had a revelation or a feeling or some inspiration that their family member, including Jewish family members, joined the church.
00:45:32.074 --> 00:45:41.449
And the bishop or the state president or the family members have had the same experience or have at least acknowledged that, and the response often is, well, they're now members of the church.
00:45:42.309 --> 00:46:04.956
So if the work's been done for these people and there's a feeling or a revelation or some inspiration that the person that you've done the work for, your ancestor, who you are connected to in a very personal way, has joined or accepted the message and the baptism, the question is, are they a full member of the church.
00:46:05.016 --> 00:46:07.360
If you look at the doctrine of the church, they are.
00:46:07.380 --> 00:46:14.108
If you look at Moroni, we're baptized in the name of Christ, which is what we do in the temple.
00:46:14.469 --> 00:46:14.969
No difference.
00:46:15.230 --> 00:46:15.951
The authority is there.
00:46:16.472 --> 00:46:17.494
Baptizing by proxy.
00:46:17.753 --> 00:46:18.375
They haven't got a body.
00:46:18.394 --> 00:46:21.518
That's why they've been baptized in the name of Christ by the power of priesthood.
00:46:22.079 --> 00:46:30.510
And if they accept the message and the gospel, technically, doctrinally, historically, they are members of record.
00:46:31.112 --> 00:46:31.913
Whether the church will...
00:46:32.961 --> 00:46:38.530
measure that or account for that in its statistics, I think it's highly unlikely.
00:46:39.231 --> 00:46:42.757
But I think the Africa strategy is bang on.
00:46:42.797 --> 00:46:43.458
That's what I would do.
00:46:43.498 --> 00:46:50.971
So going back to your question, I would focus huge resources on service and I would build 10 new missions in Africa.
00:46:51.291 --> 00:46:51.612
Back to you.
00:46:53.414 --> 00:46:53.635
All right.
00:46:54.317 --> 00:46:54.876
There you go.
00:46:55.489 --> 00:47:02.938
It's interesting that you're talking about these people that have these promptings that people on the other side of the veil have accepted the work.
00:47:04.699 --> 00:47:12.327
Right now, we're recording this right after the sentencing of Lori Vallow.
00:47:13.527 --> 00:47:15.010
Does that name mean anything to you
00:47:15.070 --> 00:47:15.530
in Canada?
00:47:15.550 --> 00:47:15.971
It does.
00:47:16.490 --> 00:47:16.871
Interesting.
00:47:16.992 --> 00:47:24.731
I've researched or learned about Lori in the last two days since Learning about the sentencing.
00:47:24.952 --> 00:47:30.619
It's a horrific, awful, awful event.
00:47:31.280 --> 00:47:32.842
It is a horrific, awful event.
00:47:33.563 --> 00:47:43.516
And it's very clear that Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow Daybell are just horrific people who've done horrific things.
00:47:44.516 --> 00:47:51.166
But she was given the opportunity to make a statement at the time of her sentencing.
00:47:51.873 --> 00:48:00.807
as she spent the entire time talking about her promptings, that the children she murdered have visited her in prison.
00:48:00.827 --> 00:48:09.360
Her son has an adult spirit now, so when he put his arm around her as a spirit, he was very tall.
00:48:09.561 --> 00:48:11.945
I mean, she's describing him as...
00:48:12.525 --> 00:48:13.487
I'll listen to this.
00:48:14.007 --> 00:48:14.849
Yeah, yeah.
00:48:15.170 --> 00:48:17.693
You know, Chad Daybell's first wife...
00:48:18.369 --> 00:48:21.835
who he murdered so he could marry Lori Vallow.
00:48:22.976 --> 00:48:28.023
They were picking out wedding rings while the first wife was still alive.
00:48:29.184 --> 00:48:35.914
Apparently, according to Lori Vallow, Tammy Daybell is now one of her best friends.
00:48:36.074 --> 00:48:37.155
She's come and visited her.
00:48:37.836 --> 00:48:52.896
So when you open the door to the idea of personal revelation, having institutional weight, you open Pandora's box.
00:48:54.438 --> 00:49:10.233
I have no doubt in my mind that many good people have been through the temple and had remarkable spiritual experiences and had experiences with their ancestors and all of these wonderful things.
00:49:11.615 --> 00:49:17.313
I am not calling into question the legitimacy of those personal experiences.
00:49:17.954 --> 00:49:26.204
I am calling into question the wisdom of allowing that kind of personal experience to bear institutional weight.
00:49:26.784 --> 00:49:36.114
Because if a decent person tells me about a real experience that they have, how do I measure that against the Lori Vallow?
00:49:36.976 --> 00:49:39.760
When Lori Vallow comes to me and says, hey, guess what?
00:49:40.400 --> 00:49:44.777
My children that I murdered are They've accepted the gospel on the other side, too.
00:49:44.918 --> 00:49:48.101
So let's make a note of that, shall we?
00:49:49.184 --> 00:49:55.351
I don't think the church ever wants to be in a position where it has to listen to those kinds of lunatics.
00:49:56.333 --> 00:50:02.181
And that's what would happen if the church were to sort of rely on those kinds of personal experiences.
00:50:03.123 --> 00:50:10.733
I think the church has been wise in terms of how they've polled members to essentially keep those to themselves.
00:50:11.393 --> 00:50:24.170
When something is that spiritual and you've had these kind of remarkable experiences, all you do when you just sort of throw them out there is you're hurling your pearls before swine.
00:50:25.572 --> 00:50:26.273
Don't do that.
00:50:27.175 --> 00:50:29.737
And I think that's wise counsel.
00:50:30.458 --> 00:50:32.521
And so, I don't know.
00:50:32.641 --> 00:50:37.568
I mean, your prescription, I agree with it.
00:50:37.829 --> 00:50:41.173
And I also think it's great that we're growing in Africa.
00:50:41.697 --> 00:50:44.161
I don't want to take anything away from any of that.
00:50:44.181 --> 00:50:58.588
The thing I want to do is create a circumstance that is sustainable, because I don't think the kind of African growth that we're seeing is a sustainable solution for the long-term problems.
00:50:59.208 --> 00:51:11.887
If Africa's growth is masking declines in Europe and in the United States, That's not a sustainable model, because all that means is that Africa is behind.
00:51:11.927 --> 00:51:28.565
The same kind of stagnation that has come to the United States and to Europe is eventually going to come to Africa too, unless we find the solution that really solves this.
00:51:28.846 --> 00:51:51.655
And I absolutely believe that One of the reasons the Lord has reestablished the church, and one of the reasons why we call this the kingdom of God on the earth, is that we have a responsibility and a charge to build the kingdom of God on the earth.
00:51:52.697 --> 00:51:55.641
And the way you do that is you make heaven on earth.
00:51:56.541 --> 00:51:59.646
And the way you make heaven on earth is you care for people.
00:52:00.193 --> 00:52:13.429
Beyond boundaries, beyond membership records, you create a circumstance where the church becomes synonymous with service, with kindness.
00:52:14.050 --> 00:52:17.034
Right now, when people think of Mormons, they think of polygamy.
00:52:17.135 --> 00:52:25.626
They think of, you know, I knew a Mormon once, and maybe I liked that person, but they always kind of kept to themselves or whatever else.
00:52:26.210 --> 00:52:36.143
There are all kinds of perceptions about the church, perceptions that need to be overcome when we try to get these people to join the church.
00:52:37.106 --> 00:52:47.440
And those perceptions will be overcome in a hot minute if what was synonymous with the church was, oh, the Mormons, well, they're the ones that run the homeless shelter down the street.
00:52:47.920 --> 00:52:51.206
They're the ones that run the free health care clinic down the street.
00:52:51.777 --> 00:53:08.556
You know, if they're the ones that do all of these things that are improving people's lives, then yeah, then all of a sudden worrying about the kinderhook plates or some other kind of whatever in church history, it doesn't matter.
00:53:08.637 --> 00:53:10.539
By their fruits ye shall know them.
00:53:11.519 --> 00:53:18.588
And the fruits of the church can be so much sweeter and so much more remarkable than they are currently.
00:53:18.708 --> 00:53:20.030
And I would just love...
00:53:20.673 --> 00:53:21.655
to see that happen.
00:53:21.715 --> 00:53:39.342
And that's where I would, and yes, I would continue to grow in Africa, grow wherever we can, but transforming the fundamental mission of the church into a service organization that blesses people's lives on a day-to-day level.
00:53:40.664 --> 00:53:42.047
I think that's the answer.
00:53:42.146 --> 00:53:55.010
So when I am called as president of the church, I will make my first—well, I'll make you my second counselor, but if the money's right, maybe I'll bump you up to first counselor.
00:53:55.590 --> 00:53:56.172
We'll see what happens.
00:53:56.231 --> 00:53:59.416
If you're called as president of the church, you don't have to call me into the first presidency.
00:54:00.498 --> 00:54:01.701
So we'll see what happens.
00:54:03.764 --> 00:54:05.387
Yeah, I think—go ahead.
00:54:05.427 --> 00:54:05.927
You go ahead.
00:54:06.548 --> 00:54:10.675
No, no, I'm just—that's— I think you've articulated really well.
00:54:10.715 --> 00:54:18.769
You're describing—you know, I'm on the outside, but you're describing— how Christ would operate if he was here, right?
00:54:18.789 --> 00:54:21.896
That's exactly what Christ did.
00:54:21.936 --> 00:54:26.588
It's exactly what Christ would be doing, albeit in modern times, right?
00:54:27.371 --> 00:55:07.525
And so when I contrast that, listen to you, and see where the church is going and the resources it's spending on defending itself on this and that and all these apologist groups and masking this but just the time and effort they must be exhausted they must be sick to the back teeth and having to defend on almost every front yet the answer the solution or one of the solutions it's not the panacea but one solution to transform it is to go back to something really simple it's like The most obvious is standing in, you know, right underneath the nose, right?
00:55:07.824 --> 00:55:08.525
It's not.
00:55:08.706 --> 00:55:10.128
It just seems like to be head trouble.
00:55:10.148 --> 00:55:10.809
They cannot see it.
00:55:11.369 --> 00:55:14.233
It's to engage in the type and level of service that you talk about.
00:55:14.494 --> 00:55:16.777
And if they want to measure that service, great.
00:55:17.237 --> 00:55:23.826
You know, how many charity events or outreach events or homeless outreach and how many homeless they've saved.
00:55:24.226 --> 00:55:32.117
from the cold and how many the Fed and how many medical outreach people they've supported.
00:55:32.358 --> 00:55:35.423
They want to make it like, great, do it, absolutely.
00:55:37.407 --> 00:55:43.836
But I think, going back to an earlier point, I think we don't see...
00:55:44.056 --> 00:55:49.525
I see it probably a little bit more from the conversations I've had, but I think...
00:55:49.954 --> 00:55:57.202
you probably don't fully see the significance of Africa from what you just told me.
00:55:57.262 --> 00:56:12.619
If I understand what you just said, I think that if the church were to build the number of missions in Africa, and I'm hearing that it will, you're going to see that, I won't use the word mask, I'd use the word counter.
00:56:13.219 --> 00:56:21.036
So these declines, these slow rate of growth in North America, Europe, UK, Europe's really bad as well.
00:56:21.697 --> 00:56:32.710
I think it's going to offset, to some extent, mid-term, not even short-term, we're going to see some mid-term growth, and I think Africa's going to counterbalance some of it.
00:56:32.791 --> 00:56:35.134
I really do, because I think they are going to be building those missions.
00:56:35.454 --> 00:56:39.500
And we're talking about also Indonesia, and we're looking at the Caribbean places as well.
00:56:41.682 --> 00:56:46.929
But yeah, if you add all that up, if they were to do that, and they were to focus on service, and...
00:56:48.322 --> 00:56:53.552
for all these that we talked about, you would see the church transform.
00:56:54.293 --> 00:57:12.317
And imagine how many people would be retained in the church, and imagine how many people would want to be part of an extraordinary organization who's mobilizing all its resources to help people in real terms, and not just getting up So many times I did this, and I did it myself.
00:57:12.858 --> 00:57:19.905
I'd get up and talk or in a lesson or in a conference, and we'd talk about how great service is and Christ wants us to serve.
00:57:20.286 --> 00:57:22.047
But the reality is we didn't really serve.
00:57:22.548 --> 00:57:23.969
We didn't go out very often.
00:57:24.010 --> 00:57:25.592
It was a lot of self-service.
00:57:25.612 --> 00:57:28.275
We looked after our own at times.
00:57:28.355 --> 00:57:29.336
Even that wasn't great.
00:57:29.396 --> 00:57:30.958
We didn't do our own teaching.
00:57:30.998 --> 00:57:33.681
We did it out of duty at times, if we're being honest.
00:57:34.081 --> 00:57:36.304
But we weren't really engaged in the community.
00:57:36.344 --> 00:57:40.110
We were really helping people to the size and scale that we really could.
00:57:40.391 --> 00:57:40.871
Not really.
00:57:40.911 --> 00:57:45.657
We were talking about it, you know, and how blessed we are to understand the principle of service.
00:57:45.677 --> 00:57:46.900
But a lot of us didn't really.
00:57:46.940 --> 00:57:48.681
We just didn't, from my experience.
00:57:48.702 --> 00:57:49.983
We didn't do it, really.
00:57:50.565 --> 00:57:52.146
So, yeah, you've asked the question.
00:57:53.208 --> 00:57:54.309
I think there's some of the answers.
00:57:54.389 --> 00:57:55.351
Why can't they see it?
00:57:55.451 --> 00:57:55.992
I think they do.
00:57:56.112 --> 00:57:58.355
But I think they're lost, Jim.
00:57:58.394 --> 00:57:59.617
I think the leadership is lost.
00:58:00.617 --> 00:58:03.021
And hopefully they'll listen to this.
00:58:03.554 --> 00:58:07.539
And if you're listening, follow our advice and counsel.
00:58:07.639 --> 00:58:08.521
Don't act as creditors.
00:58:08.561 --> 00:58:13.108
We're not bothered about, you know, crediting our Inside Out podcast.
00:58:13.248 --> 00:58:14.068
Not bothered about that.
00:58:14.489 --> 00:58:15.371
Don't mention our names.
00:58:15.411 --> 00:58:16.231
Don't care about that.
00:58:16.733 --> 00:58:17.293
Just do it.
00:58:17.554 --> 00:58:19.516
Just do the service because it's the right thing to do.
00:58:19.556 --> 00:58:21.940
And because it's the Christ-like thing to do.
00:58:21.980 --> 00:58:26.367
And because if Christ was here, for goodness sake, that's what he would be doing, right?
00:58:26.927 --> 00:58:28.108
And just be open and honest.
00:58:28.550 --> 00:58:29.811
Go build your missions in Africa.
00:58:29.851 --> 00:58:31.373
Go baptize people.
00:58:31.713 --> 00:58:38.003
and make the church a wonderful organization in the way we described, where people will want to be part of the organization.
00:58:38.224 --> 00:58:48.699
And then you've got something good for them to come into instead of an organization that's trying to cover stuff up and mask this and mask that.
00:58:48.760 --> 00:58:52.786
Just be authentic and just follow this
00:58:52.846 --> 00:58:53.887
advice, this counsel.
00:58:54.588 --> 00:59:00.257
Well, I'm not sure we're going to get very far if we're relying on the church.
00:59:00.833 --> 00:59:01.896
to follow our advice.
00:59:01.976 --> 00:59:03.358
But there is our advice.
00:59:03.378 --> 00:59:04.400
There is our counsel.
00:59:05.300 --> 00:59:10.829
And we are out of time, but I appreciate very much your answer to that.
00:59:11.010 --> 00:59:19.603
And I think the fact that both of us got very excited in a very positive way suggests to me that we're on to something.
00:59:20.304 --> 00:59:23.048
So we'll keep talking about this in future episodes.
00:59:23.309 --> 00:59:25.052
One last comment,
00:59:25.072 --> 00:59:25.793
if I may, real quick.
00:59:25.932 --> 00:59:26.213
Sure.
00:59:26.561 --> 00:59:27.623
I would describe...
00:59:27.663 --> 00:59:28.644
This is not my...
00:59:28.844 --> 00:59:31.748
It was described to me by a general authority during the training.
00:59:32.550 --> 00:59:34.211
The church is a sleeping tiger.
00:59:34.231 --> 00:59:39.438
A beautiful animal with extraordinary power.
00:59:39.559 --> 00:59:40.239
The tiger.
00:59:40.260 --> 00:59:41.943
The tiger, right?
00:59:42.483 --> 00:59:43.143
But it's asleep.
00:59:43.885 --> 00:59:56.041
And I think Inside Out can be a facilitator in waking the great tiger up and realizing the full roar, the full potential.
00:59:56.449 --> 01:00:06.650
So, Sleeping Tiger, if you listen to this, wake up and be that powerful animal of extraordinary power that you can be.
01:00:06.949 --> 01:00:07.251
That's it.
01:00:07.952 --> 01:00:08.353
All right.
01:00:08.393 --> 01:00:08.934
Amen.
01:00:09.275 --> 01:00:13.061
So, until next time, we'll see you on Wake the Tiger.
01:00:13.081 --> 01:00:13.744
Wake the Tiger.