On Sunday our high councilor spoke during Sacrament Meeting. It was an excellent talk that I feel should be shared with as many people as possible. Personal information has been removed, but otherwise the talk is here as it was given. Italicized emphases in the text were used in the written talk from the high councilor.
I’ve been in this ward for a while now, but since this is a ward where many people come and go, I will briefly introduce myself and my family. [Talks about himself]. [Talks about his wife]. You don’t see her here because about 10 years ago she decided to leave the church. She joined the church in college, then after several years decided she no longer believed in it; so I guess you could say she had conversion experiences in both directions. [Talks about his children].
For the first few years we lived in this ward, I got to serve in the young mens presidency. I love that calling, but I’ve since been called to be a stake high councilor. That’s why you’re having to listen to me today. As part of that calling I get to sit in council with the stake presidency. I guess the conventional thing for me to do is to tell you that the stake president loves you. He hasn’t yet said that to me explicitly, but I’m pretty sure it’s true. I’ve observed him to be a man of remarkable faith and a very kind heart. I think we’re in good hands.
Every time I give a talk in church I feel obliged to begin with a warning, so here it is. I do not consider myself an expert on spiritual matters. I plan to share ideas that I hope will be helpful and inspiring, but please take them for what they are: the opinions and ideas of a guy who isn’t totally sure he knows what he’s talking about.
On top of that, I’ve chosen to speak today on a tricky topic, and I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to collect and structure my thoughts. So please bear with me, and try to listen with a forgiving attitude.
Many years ago I served a mission. It was a transformative experience for me. I was a proud, thick-headed kid, but through steady work and service I learned some profound lessons about the gospel. Most importantly, as I served people and tried to help them turn toward Christ, I was given glimpses into how much our Heavenly Father loves his children. Detailed memories have begun to fade, but the overall experience and its effects on me are still things that I deeply cherish.
Of course, not all of the experiences I had on my mission were positive ones, and as an entry point to my topic I want to describe a negative experience I had in the missionary training center. We had fairly regular meetings with general authorities of the church, and it was typical in those meetings for a choir to perform a song or two. My boys can tell you that I like to sing, but they can also probably tell you that I’m not especially good at it. Certainly I have no training, nor can I read music. But I decided to join the choir one week with my companion (who actually was a good singer). Early in the first practice, the choir leader said something about how baritones should sing this part, and basses should sing that part. I leaned over to my companion who was seated next to me and said “What should I do? I’m not sure if I’m a baritone or a bass.” At this point a missionary seated in front of me turned around with a scornful look on his face and said “If you don’t know that, then what are you doing here?”
I’m sure you can imagine how I felt. But I’m not telling you the story so you can feel sorry for me and my hurt feelings. And in fairness, the missionary had a point. But I want you to think about the message he was delivering: You do not belong here.
What I want to talk about today are the ways that we, as members of the church, might sometimes send similar messages to each other, albeit in more subtle ways than in my MTC story. I’m afraid much of what I’m going to say might seem like rambling, but let me begin by trying to be clear about what I’m trying to talk about. The gospel of Jesus Christ is one of inclusion: our God aims to save and exalt all of his beloved children. Ironically, the Church of Jesus Christ sometimes feels like one of exclusion: when people aren’t sure if they fully believe or belong, they often feel like they are being pushed out. What I want to talk about are some reasons why people start to feel like they don’t belong, and offer some suggestions for how we can make sure our church is a more welcoming place for such people.
When I talk about “people who wonder whether they belong here,” I’m not referring to some separate group of doubters or sinners. I suspect most, if not all, of us have felt this way before. More to the point, I have felt this way. And I don’t mean “I once felt this way a long time ago, before I became enlightened and gained a perfect unshakeable testimony.” I mean I have felt this way within the past month. So please understand that I am speaking about these issues from a place of empathy. And please allow yourself to hear what I’m saying as a message to you and about you, not just about “other people who don’t yet have a testimony.”
One of the main reasons that people can feel like they don’t belong in the church is that they don’t believe the doctrine as easily as others seem to believe it, or they don’t see the doctrine the way the majority of members seem to see it. One of my favorite social psychology experiments was one conducted by Solomon Asch in the 1950s, aimed at understanding conformity. Subjects in the experiment were brought into a room with seven other participants. However, the seven other participants were “confederates” – they were in on the experiment. The participants would be shown a card with a line segment on it, and another card with three line segments on it, and each participant was then asked to say which of the three line segments was the same length as the one on the first card. The answer in each case was fairly obvious: it wasn’t hard at all to tell which segment was the same length. The seating was arranged so that the true experimental subject always answered last. In the first round, the seven confederates would each in turn give the correct answer, followed by the subject. Then they’d be shown another set of line segments, and again the seven confederates would each give the correct answer, followed by the subject. But in the third round, all seven confederates would unanimously give the wrong answer: for instance, they’d all say that line segment A was the match when in fact it was obvious that line A was too long. This would put the true experimental subject in a dilemma: should he agree with what seven people in front of him so confidently reported? Or should he answer based on what his own eyes clearly told him? I won’t belabor this by telling you about the results of the experiment – I’m sure you can guess that there was a high rate of conformity. But I want to tell you about my favorite part. When I first read about this study, I saw a picture that was taken during the experiment. In the picture, you can see the eight participants seated around a long table. Seven of them look completely calm, and one of them is leaning forward, squinting and straining at the picture of the line segments, with his mouth open and an utterly perplexed look on his face.
What is my point in describing this to you? Well, at church I have occasionally felt like that 8th guy with the perplexed look on his face. Sometimes it has felt like everyone around me is saying stuff that seems a little crazy, and then reassuring each other about how right they all are. And how do I feel when this happens? Like I don’t belong here. And I suspect that some of you have felt the same way.
Our discussions in church sometimes seem geared toward achieving agreement and consensus. Surely there are some basic principles we all expect to agree on, but we should try not to be uncomfortable when others voice opinions that differ from our own. When Jesus called 12 disciples, I doubt he expected them to be clones of one another. We get glimpses in the New Testament of the disciples’ different personalities: Peter is passionate, Thomas skeptical, James and John were thought to be bold and quick-tempered. I imagine that this group of disciples didn’t always agree with one another, and I like to believe that in some ways Jesus wanted it that way.
As members of the church, we tend to get especially uncomfortable when someone expresses serious doubts about the gospel or the church, or shares opinions that conflict with standard doctrine. This is natural, but unfortunate. Everyone struggles with faith, but it is sad when those who are struggling feel like their voices aren’t welcome, or their opinions a threat. Instead of being treated with patience and empathy, they feel like they are being told “if you don’t believe it, then you don’t belong here” – or, even more insidiously – “if you don’t believe all of it, then you don’t belong here.”
How can we make church a place where everyone feels welcome, including those who are wrestling with doubt? I think a good place to start is with empathy. I once heard an apostle give a talk in general conference, directing the talk explicitly toward those who had doubts about the church. The way I heard the talk, the message could have been summarized as “To those of you who have doubts: What’s your problem? Get over it already.” I’m sure that’s not the message that was intended. But it made me think about how important it is for people, myself included, to feel validated – to be told yes, some things are hard to reconcile, and you are not alone.
If we want to be more empathetic toward people who struggle with faith, or more forgiving of ourselves when our own faith falters, a good place to start is to recognize that the Lord appears to have intended for us to struggle. In church culture we like to use the language of certainty: we are taught to say that we know the church is true, and we like words like “perfect” and “firm” and “unshakeable.” But, in my opinion, an honest assessment of our relationship with God must admit that it involves a great deal of mystery and uncertainty and confusion. We’re told that if we’re unsure, we can just ask Him in prayer to tell us it’s true. But for many of us the answers to such prayers don’t come easily; inspirations, if and when they finally come, may be “dimly perceived” and difficult to interpret. I recently read a commentator who suggested we understand this not as evidence of God’s indifference, but as a way in which God poses the important question: “What will you do now?”
If we start with the premise that God is mysterious and that faith takes time and effort to cultivate, we will likely have more patience with our own doubts and those of others. If someone expresses a skeptical or unorthodox opinion in Sunday School, we won’t shift in our seats and think of how we can say something faith-promoting to offset the deviation. We won’t panic and call a meeting to discuss how to fix the problem, fretting with furrowed brows that “she doesn’t have a testimony, and she’s already 13!!” We’ll simply recognize that even if the person is at a different place than we are, he or she is traveling on the same highly nonlinear path that we are. And if we’re prompted to respond, it will likely be to express empathy: maybe simply saying, “Ah, I know what you mean.”
I also think it’s important that we not assume faith crises are the consequence of sin or neglect. Sometimes when a person’s faith faltered and he or she fell away from the church, I have heard people say “she must not have been reading her scriptures” or “there must have been some sin in his life.” It is likely true that, on average, people who stop coming to church read their scriptures less than people who do come to church. But correlation is not causation. People who diligently study the scriptures can still have crises of faith. But the real danger in these attitudes is not simply that they’re inaccurate; it’s that they’re dismissive and disrespectful to people who are genuinely struggling, with a sincere heart, to find and understand truth. If we convince ourselves that faith crises only happen to people who are doing something wrong, the message we’ll be sending to people with doubts is “if you’re not a believer, I’ll infer you’re a sinner.” This is not likely to make them feel welcome.
You may have noticed an implicit premise in what I’m saying, which is that we should want everyone to feel welcome at church, including those with doubts and concerns about the church. And it’s possible you’re asking yourself, “Well, do we really want them here? We’re here to nurture our faith. Do we really want to increase the number of skeptics in our congregations?” My response to these questions is, first, too many skeptics is not a problem we’re likely to have. For now, at least, we’re too good at driving them away. Second, with the possible exception of people who come to church to willfully antagonize, I think the answer is an emphatic yes: we should want everyone to be here, and we should want everyone to feel welcome here. Did Christ associate only with the faithful? He ministered to believers and unbelievers, to the sinful and to the repentant. You may say “Well – he was the Son of God, so his testimony was too strong to be shaken by anyone’s unbelief.” But I suggest an alternative: he was the Son of God, so his love was too strong to be shaken by anyone’s unbelief.
I’ve talked about how people who have doubts can feel pushed away from participating in the church. Another threat to our sense of belonging is a perception that we’re not as righteous or as spiritual as everyone else. Ours is a church with many programs and prescriptions, many dos and many don’ts. It’s hard to keep up with all the things we’re supposed to be doing, and easy to feel like we’re not measuring up – especially if it seems like everyone else in the ward is doing everything right. When someone in church talks about how sweet it was to sneak in some family history work in between dropping off dinner for a widow and preparing a family home evening lesson, and all we can remember from last week was how many swear words we said under our breath, how do we start to feel? Like we don’t belong.
A missionary companion of mine once told me that when he gave priesthood blessings, the words came to him in inspiration so clearly it was like reading the words off a scroll. To help me understand what he meant, he said it was like the scrolling of the prologue in the Star Wars movies. I could have reacted to this by thinking “how blessed I am to have a companion who is so attuned to the Spirit!” But mostly I just thought “Wow, I’ve never experienced anything even close to that. I guess I’m really lousy at this spirituality thing.” In other words: maybe this isn’t where I belong. I mention this to set up a simple suggestion: when we describe our spiritual experiences, we should be modest and honest about the nature of those experiences. We may be tempted to exaggerate them, thinking that embellishment will amplify the faith-promoting effect; but in fact this can have exactly the opposite effect. It can make people doubt the validity and worth of their own less dramatic spiritual experiences. Relatedly: if we “know with every fiber of our being” that something is true, I suppose we should go ahead and say it. But if not, we should never pretend. As Sister Wixom said in her talk during the most recent general conference, the ward should not be a place to “put on a perfect face.” If we present our true, honest selves, then those around us will feel comfortable being their true, honest selves. And it’s the true honest selves that the Lord loves, no matter what stage of spiritual progression we are at.
I believe that Jesus Christ lives and that he loves us. I believe that he loves us in spite of, and perhaps even because of, our faults and foibles. I believe he understands our struggles with faith, and expects each of us to travel a different road to redemption. My prayer is that we’ll treat each other with love, patience, and perspective as we travel our respective roads.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
I recorded the last 2/3 of the talk (after the first 1/3 I knew I wanted a record of it). After church I was given a written copy of the talk from the RS President, who got it from the high councilor. There are very slight variations between the text and the audio, but none of significance. The recording starts near the paragraph above the first picture.
[iframe width=”100%” height=”450″ scrolling=”no” frameborder=”no” src=”https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/202299658&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true”]
Geoff Nelson
Geoff was born in Northern Utah and raised primarily in Central California. He received a BS in Biomedical Physics from Fresno State, a MS and PhD in Bioengineering from Stanford, and is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Utah working as a Clinical Medical Physicist. He served his LDS Mission in Donetsk Ukraine. He's married and has two boys and two girls. He is currently the ward organist and primary pianist.
All posts by Geoff Nelson
An excellent talk. Thank you for sharing it (and thank the high councilor for delivering it).
Excellent post! Thank you for sharing it.
Powerful
Wow! Thank you so much for sharing this.We need more high councilor’s and upper leadership who can echo these things. I believe that is the message Christ would want.
This is the talk I wish I had heard from my High Councilman on Sunday. However, I suspect I would have been a bawling mess. This is the most beautiful, faith affirming thing I have read in a long time. Jesus loves me, faults and all. He wants my true self. Nothing else matters. Thank you, Geoff, for sharing.
This is an incredible talk. Full of love and empathy. Wonderful, thank you for sharing this. It kind if makes me think of Alma’s discussion with the poor people when he talks about starting with as little as a desire to believe. We need to put forth conscious effort to be welcoming and loving to those who may have very little faith or no faith, but have love and a desire to be part of our church. If we can accept and love people wherever they happen to be without laying upon them expectations that they should accept and believe everything that is said over the pulpit or in Sunday school, we can be enriched by the variety of experiences and personalities in some wonderful people. The doubt’s of others should not be something to fear, or worry that it will weaken us as a whole or individually. But they will strengthen and enrich us. Our beliefs should be able to stand up to criticism and scrutiny.
“As members of the church, we tend to get especially uncomfortable when someone expresses serious doubts about the gospel or the church, or shares opinions that conflict with standard doctrine. This is natural, but unfortunate.”
This is a fine talk, but it fails to make a very important point: those with doubts and questions about church teachings, policies and yes, even doctrines, often turn out to be right. One of the great myths perpetuated within the church is the notion that what is taught as doctrine in the church never changes. This is nonsense.
Our doctrines have undergone frequent revision, and will likely undergo further changes in the future, although we have a tendency to engage in revisionist history when this occurs by labeling a previous, now discredited “doctrine” as a former “policy.” The priesthood ban is one such example. If you want gain a true appreciation as to how what we have taught as doctrine has changed considerably over the years, read Professor Harrell’s fine book “This is My Doctrine: the Development of Mormon Theology.”
So, when we encounter someone with real doubts and sincere questions, we shouldn’t simply say: “Well, I will still love and accept you even though you don’t think the right way.” Instead, perhaps we should feel uncomfortable and humbly ask ourselves, “Maybe this person is on to something and MY existing opinions need to be reexamined.”
The opposite of courage is not fear, it is conformity. And nobody said it better than General Patton: “If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”
Thank you for sharing this. I truly have hope that more talks like this will be given to more congregations, but sometimes (like last Sunday) I feel like it it so far from now.
I hope he gets to keep his calling. That is a talk we could all hear over and over. Thank you for posting it, and as others have said, please thank him for giving it.
Beautiful. Simply put. It’s a harsh reality this need to affirm that the emperor is wearing clothes even when we can see he is naked.
Timely and paradigm shaking for the majority of the audience I assume.
Impressive and courageous.
Love it.
Wow, wonderful talk.
To be honest it gives me pangs of regret… Last year I resigned from my calling in the stake high council because I felt my doubts or flat-out non-belief caused a conflict with my personal integrity.
I felt I couldn’t present myself as ‘that guy’ while feeling the way I feel.
But maybe I should have stuck it out and tried to muster to courage to do what this brother did, i.e. use his position of influence to extend a loving hand to the closet doubters in his stake?
Thought provoking.
Eric Facer,
@ Eric Facer. The high councilor clearly wants to point out that the doubters are often right. His example of the “confederates” and the lines not only paints True Blue Mormons as wrong, but also as intentionally deceiving others.
Wow. If we could have this given at conference! Wow. Thanks so much for passing this along.
Let the Spirit breathe. Let it grow. Let it flow. Let it change you in wonderful, mysterious, and incomprehensible ways. Let the Spirit work within you even when you don't understand or see the point. Enjoy the experience of the journey because it the journey, not the destination, that holds the greatest value.
Well said!
Eric Facer,
loved this. so much.
This is pretty amazing. I'll bet its the best thing you read today.
he mentioned welcoming our own insecurities, but i think that was the most important. i believe the adversary makes us defeat ourselves when we doubt, fail or struggle; or worse we convince ourselves we need no change and are superior to others when we have ostensible success. what an uplifting example to know how our Lord included everyone, no matter what their belief or condition.
Any chance one could get the name of the high counsel member. I ask because I reposted this explaining I love this talk and two people don’t believe that it was writtenby a high counsel member. If he spoke it up to the pulpit, why not share his name or what ward or stake?
It was given in the Madison 1st Ward in Madison Wisconsin. I didn’t talk to the high councilor before posting this, so until I hear back from him I’m not going to post his name.
This is fake. An "unnamed" high councilman? How do we have the exact transcript from the address? Not a single scripture shared? Not a single quote from any GAs? A high councilman still sharing mission experiences to base his entire remarks around? A topic he stated he "chose" to deliver and not one that the Stake President assigned? This is clearly a fabrication of remarks that someone "wishes" would be shared in sacrament meeting, but likely never was. Ask for proof people.
@ Geoff Nelson – That’s cool! I was born and raised in Madison (though I have not lived there for 20 years).
@ Brady Smith – You make excellent points that should be considered when determining veracity, but to say that it must be a fake or could never be given is perhaps too bold. I figured it was given in DC or the Bay Area, but Madison is a college town so that makes it more believable in my opinion. Additionally, a President Wixom address from General Conference is referenced and we cannot minimize the contributions of our female General Leaders.
@ Geoff & Brady – Are you giving your real names? (I am) I’m not used to conversing over the Internet with others who give their real names.
Geoff Nelson,
Brady Smith,
I don’t know if it matters, but I was there at the Madison 1st Ward when the talk was delivered. So between me and Geoff, you’ve got two witnesses.
Geoff Nelson,
You didn’t talk to the high councilor before posting this? Can I ask you to share how you acquired the exact transcript of the talk? Do you audio record your sacrament meetings? In the spirit of sincere doubt and honest acquisition of truth I hope you consider my request for more substantial verification. Thanks!
Brady,
I have an audio recording of the last 2/3 of the talk. About 1/3 of the way in I knew that I wanted to have a record of it. At the end of church, the RS President approached me. She said that my wife had told her that I had recorded the talk. She also loved the talk and approached the high councilman after Sacrament meeting and he gave her his typed copy that he’d read from. She went to the church library and photocopied it and gave me a copy. So I have most of an audio recording of it, and the copy of his manuscript. Again, when I get a response from him (I’m beginning to wonder if I got his current email address) if he’s ok with it I’ll update the post with his name.
Geoff Nelson,
Thank you. You’ll understand why this may seem suspicious. Maybe posting the audio file would be cool to verify at least 2/3 of the talk. People do the same thing with GAs. They write something inspiring and then attach Elder Holland’s (or someone elses) name to it and people just believe. It’s too easy these days.
It’s good to verify sources. I’ll try to get the audio posted in the next couple days.
Jared Madden,
Yeah, that’s my name. Here’s my facebook (I’ve been on a facebook hiatus for over a year so there aren’t a lot of recent posts). Here’s my residency page (with a wedding photo of me from 10 years ago).
I’m not really sure what proof people are ever going to be willing to accept. Even if I get an email back from the high councilor and he says to post his name and his comments about his family, will that convince the people who doubt it actually happened?
Isn't Sister Wixom, the General Primary President, considered a General Authority? Or were you looking for a quote from a man…
brady,
I added the audio.
And what if it is fake? Good thoughts, right?!
Wow. Miss the message much? Let's say it is 100% fake. At this point I don't care, as these are the words we should be hearing and speaking to each other. Ponder it. You might save a soul and a life.
Wow, I'm so glad you were able to discern this. But, by the way, when I was a high councilman I was able to chose my own topics most of the Sundays that I spoke. So, of course, I just made things up to make people feel good.
Michael D. Struiksma I should have chosen my words better. I should have said, I am suspicious of this and I would like to have this verified.
Lindsey Holman Smith Of course she is a GA. I actually missed that part, or must have skimmed over it. He only quoted 5 words after all. And even her quote doesn't help to substantiate this philosophy of inclusion. I just find it helpful and more convincing when people can validate their philosophies with established Word of God.
This talk rings true but untruthfully portrayed. There is no reason to keep the names concealed. There is nothing here to need to protect the speaker. The authur should face the good advice he has suggested but thrown out second hand to not have to be known, and allow us, also continually trying to improve, to take what we need for ourselves and accept the authur for his participation and thinking.
Thanks for sharing this Geoff. What an excellent talk!
One of the most inspirational talks I have ever read. Thank you for sharing this.
One of the most inspirational talks I have ever read. Thank you so much for sharing this.
A lesson we should constantly remind ourselves, is that everyone at church is a sinner. So it isn’t bad to conclude that others are sinners, as long as we are empathetic and understanding because we realize we are also a sinner. A “small” sin will keep anyone out of the presence of God as much as a “large” sin will. We should all rejoice together in the love and atonement of the savior Jesus Christ. The only real way to do that is to recognize constantly that he really is saving us, every day.
On the other hand, not acknowledging that there is work to be done by everyone to become better doesn’t do favors. Jesus does say that we should sin no more. We really should study and ponder our scriptures more regularly. We really should stop swearing under our breath. As we supposedly promise weekly when we take the sacrament, we should always remember Jesus, not just when we think how much other people need him because their sins are “greater” than ours. Are we following him or not?
The more we focus on the savior, the more love and empathy we’ll have. If we want to focus on understanding someone else’s sins and failings, we could do that pretty completely by joining them in the sin or failing we want to understand. That wouldn’t help anyone.
The beautiful thing is that we can be better, through repentance and the enabling power of the atonement. The wonderful thing is that Jesus makes it all possible. The marvelous thing is that with his help, He knows we can do it.
My husband has lived in Wisconsin for quite some time and has mentioned how real the meetings are. There isn’t room for culture, they have the ‘boots on’ kind of faith that can only come in the mission field. What I appreciate about this talk is the relationship it has to the parables in the New Testament. Whenever we meet our true selves, a crises of faith ensues. It is God’s work and glory to save us but many times, we believe by our works, appearance, ego, development we enter the Kingdom. This talk demonstrates that where we are is a place to begin again and through the love of Christ we can be transformed and only through His grace be saved. Geoff Nelson,
Thank you. I needed this today.
Brady,
I’m a third witness. 🙂 I was there, too.
Cam
Sarah Reed,
Beautiful talk! For those who are concerned about the authenticity of the talk, who really cares where the message came from. Truth is truth no matter the source.
Reading through these comments makes me think about folks who spend too much Christian energy debating whether the parable of the Good Samaritan involves a fictional set of people, or if the story actually is MORE true because the folks involved were based on authentic and live individuals known to Jesus and others in the time period. Who knows? Does it really matter? Does it really change what the Lord would have us take away as we assimilate the parable’s teaching in our daily hearts and actions? Christ prayed, then died for our sins and thus the Atonement was set in motion, or should we question this by questioning whether the Atonement is fully in force because the nails went through Christ’s palms in between the second and third metacarpals, or through the third and fourth?
Clearly, if you spent the entire time thinking to yourself, “This has to be fake!”, and continuing obsessing over that fact afterwards, demanding evidence and questioning the integrity of those involved in the story’s telling, then it’s obvious that you didn’t really get the message in its entirety. You don’t get it. Because what you are reacting to and how you are reacting, are exactly some of the issues the talk is all about. It’s like saying the Sermon on the Mount cannot be true
I absolutely love this talk, and your entire website. Thanks for being awesome.