The Delegating Bishop

This episode features a portion of a live stream discussion that took place in Zion Lab, where we explored the dynamics of delegation within bishoprics and youth leadership. Zion Lab is a welcoming space to discuss what you’re learning in your calling, share best practices and helpful resources, connect with others, and strengthen your ministry. Everyone is invited. Whether you’re new to your calling or have years of experience, your insights and questions are welcome. Links Have a comment? 🏠🧑‍🤝‍🧑🤝🤗 Share your thoughts in the Leading Saints community. Read the transcript of this podcast Get 14-day access to the Zion Lab Library Highlights A key theme of the conversation is the unspoken pressure that bishops feel as the figureheads of their wards. We address the anxiety that arises when programs falter or activities do not meet expectations, and how this can lead to a reluctance to delegate responsibilities. The discussion emphasizes the importance of setting clear expectations when extending callings, ensuring that leaders understand not just their tasks but also the vision behind their roles. Listeners will hear insights from various participants who share their experiences and strategies for effective delegation. We also touch on the broader responsibilities of bishops beyond youth leadership, including the importance of collaboration with elders quorum and Relief Society presidents. The conversation reveals how effective delegation can alleviate the burden on bishops and enhance the overall functioning of the ward. We encourage bishops to give themselves grace, acknowledging that they cannot do everything and that the Lord will take care of His children. 00:02:18 - Delegation in Leadership Exploration of the dynamics of delegation within bishoprics and youth leadership. 00:03:25 - Setting Expectations for Callings The importance of clearly communicating expectations when extending callings to leaders. 00:04:46 - Meeting People Where They Are The value of personal check-ins and understanding individual stories in leadership. 00:06:33 - Focusing on the Rising Generation Discussion on the responsibilities of bishops towards the youth and the broader rising generation. 00:07:50 - Delegating to Elders Quorum and Relief Society Insights on how to effectively delegate responsibilities to adult leaders in the ward. 00:09:59 - Prioritizing Youth Responsibilities Bishops share their experiences and challenges in managing youth-related responsibilities. 00:10:30 - Understanding Repentance Discussion on the bishop's role in the repentance process and how it can be delegated. 00:12:39 - Positive Reinforcement in Leadership The impact of recognizing and reinforcing good behaviors among leaders and members. 00:13:25 - Parental Involvement in Teaching Conversations about the role of parents in teaching youth about important topics. 00:15:32 - Training Parents to Teach Efforts to equip parents with the skills to teach their children effectively. 00:17:27 - Bishop's Fireside Discussions Plans for bishop's firesides to address important topics with youth and parents. 00:19:57 - Youth Leading Discussions Empowering youth to lead discussions on sensitive topics during meetings. 00:21:07 - Encouragement for Overwhelmed Bishops Advice and encouragement for bishops feeling overwhelmed by their responsibilities. 00:27:03 - The Lord's Church and Grace Reminders that it is the Lord's church and that grace is sufficient for all leaders. The award-winning Leading Saints Podcast is one of the top independent Latter-day Saints podcasts as part of nonprofit Leading Saints' mission to help Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Reyna and Elena Aburto, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Benjamin Hardy,

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
If you wanted further insight into a come
follow me lesson, you'd probably search in YouTube
or get the We Believe app. Tough church
history questions? You'd reach out to the BH
Roberts Foundation. But what if you wanted to
learn to be a better leader? Well, I'm
glad you asked. You'd come to Leading Saints.
That's why we exist, to help Latter day
Saints be better prepared to lead by being

(00:22):
familiar with others' leadership experiences,
understand the latest leadership research, and finding a
community to share ideas. That's why I'm glad
you found the Leading Saints podcast. We hope
you will dive into the archives and visit
leadingsaints.org
to find out what are the top most
listened to episodes on the podcast.
Welcome. You're gonna love it.

(00:47):
Hey, you guys. Some remarkable things are happening
over at Zion Lab. Now what is Zion
Lab? This is the online
leading saints community
where we are
bringing the world together of latter day saints
to talk about different topics, share insights,
ask questions.
This is the gathering place. So think of
it as a think tank for Zion where

(01:08):
we don't just create content through the Leading
Saints podcast, but we also discuss content, share
best practices and ideas. And we had a
live stream there all about delegation, but not
just general delegation,
delegation in the context
of bishoprics
and youth leaders.
And so I wanna share with you a
portion of this,

(01:29):
conversation
where we talked about this give and take
and the relationship
between the bishopric,
you know, obviously running the, the young men
organization in their ward, but also with the
young women's presidency and parents involved and
advisors involved. And how does this all get
done and what are some frustrations that bishops

(01:49):
are experiencing or everybody involved is experiencing, and
how can we get through this to effectively
delegate
and, just make the youth program
be such a blessing for the youth? And
so here's a part of that conversation. If
you want the full conversation, you can come
over to Zyon Lab and listen to the
entire conversation there. So let's jump in. Here
we go.

(02:18):
I think one unspoken dynamic that happens with
being Bishop is
that you are like the figurehead of the
ward. Right? And so if something's on fire
or burns down, you know, metaphorically speaking, or
a program doesn't work, or an activity falls
flat, it's easy for bishops to see that
as sort of a, a report card, right?
Like obviously you don't have it together. Like

(02:39):
we put it on us
and that creates some more tension or some
more angst when we're in the middle of
it, when we are delegating, like, well, I
could hand this off. However
and what if it doesn't work and youth
are so important? And, you know, then we
go even more macro level of, like, what
if this means they won't go on missions
or if this means they won't marry a
temple?

(03:00):
And so just that tension builds a lot
more. But any other thoughts? Anybody else, raise
your hand, wanna contribute? There's a great conversation
that I can't keep up with, which is
fine in the chat. So keep it going
there, and there's great ways to contribute there.
And if anybody sees a great point jump
off, feel free to raise your hand and
share it. So anybody else who just, again,
not that you we're not not that you

(03:21):
have the answer to it, but how would
you articulate this more? How are you feeling?
You know, I'm just reflecting kind of on
my on my own questions a little bit
and,
as as we talk and wondering how much
how much do we set a vision for
people when we call them? I think sometimes,
and I I think I'm guilty of this,
we focus on the to dos. Hey, here's
what you need. You need to show up
on this day, do these tasks, get this

(03:42):
done, read the handbook. But how much do
you give people a sense of their vision
and what they can do and give them
permission? And I don't know that I do
that as much as I think that I
do. I think that I I'm doing that,
but I think if you videotaped me, you
probably find that I'm expecting people to do
that and I don't ever or let my
counselors, right, or teach my counselors. This is

(04:02):
how you need to extend the call. Right?
So you have this not only just, hey,
show up and do these tasks and, hey,
help what's, you know, everybody pitch in, but,
like, hey, you can have
spiritual power in the work
and
don't limit yourself. I don't know. Those are
just some of my my thoughts. No. That
is, I think, important to mention of, like,
what expectations are we setting? Because maybe you

(04:23):
extend a calling to, you know, a priest
corpsman adviser and in the reminder, like, oh,
cool. That'll be fun to teach the priest,
you know, once a month. But in your
mind, you're thinking, we need you here every
Wednesday showing up helping plan activities. Right? And
so sometimes we have to be you know,
overemphasize
the expectation and what this means, what we're
actually asking you to do. So, Sean.

(04:45):
Yeah. I was just thinking about that comment
and then
thinking about something I'm trying right now. And
so with all the young men advisers that
we do have,
trying to implement
what I've done
well, hopefully, the savior has taught us to
do, which is to meet people where they're
at. Mhmm. And so for, you know, for
example, like, if we're worried about someone or

(05:06):
we're trying to help someone, like, it's usually
they come in and they and they you
just talk to them. Like, when we've had
a question about someone as a bishopric, like,
oh, I wonder, like, why they are doing
this thing or,
you know, would they do this thing?
And we think we have an answer and
then it's usually just like, well, let's let's
just talk to them, right? Like, we have
to have their story. And so because everyone
has a story that's one of the biggest

(05:27):
lessons I've learned as a bishop is that
we just don't know until you just talk
to them. And so I'm trying to invite
all of my young men advisors in just
for a one on one like quick chat.
Hey, how are you doing? How are things
going? Type thing. And so I've done that
so far with ONE and ONE didn't show
up even to that meeting last night when
I had it scheduled. But I guess hopefully

(05:47):
that can in addition to
helping
people understand what the expectations maybe are, right,
the to dos, but what are you striving
to be and become? And how can I
help you? How can we help you?
And what's, like, the later on accountability?
Right? Like, these I think there's value in
meeting as a council as a group of
all young men young men advisers, but I
think there's great power to in an occasional

(06:10):
check-in one on one ministering type effort.
And to be careful that that doesn't become
micromanaging, but it's more of a ministering outreach
to that person of like, hey, just how
are you doing? How are things going? Because
then you'll get further light knowledge that will
inspire
the hopefully the revelation that you can receive
for that. So that's something I'm at least
starting to try to do with specifically young

(06:32):
men advisors.
Yeah.
So what I'm hearing in this discussion is,
so far, we're focused on that delegating when
it comes to youth. Right? Your responsibility
of focusing on the youth and which is
more I think more appropriate in the handbook
is the rising
generation, right, which includes
everybody from I was just born to I'm

(06:54):
a young single adult. Right? But we do
kinda hyperfocus on that those teenage years. I'm
just curious, like, yeah, delegation within those things
is one thing, but we also have, you
you know, I said we, but, you know,
the bishops also have
several other responsibilities happening outside of that. And,
you know, since this shift and change where
the young men's presidency,
was dissolved,

(07:15):
the idea
part of that idea was that, the elders
quorum president and the relief society president would
sort of take a new level of engagement.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how
I understood it. And so how have you
been going about delegating there? What does that
look like? Or is that even I mean,
sometimes those things fall off because maybe the

(07:36):
consequence isn't as daunting when it's like, just
the elders, you do your thing and at
least their presence, you do your thing. But
I'm curious if anything comes to mind for
people when with that delegating to elders quorum
and delegating to relief society.
Sean, go ahead. Sorry. I feel like I'm
talking a lot. But I feel like our
ward does has done really well at that,
at least for the adults. Like, I have

(07:56):
our stellar elders quorum president and release study
president, and I've gone through three or four
each. And in my time so far, and
they've all been very incredible.
Something my stake president said when I was
called was he says, as you read the
handbook of your responsibilities,
if it says bishop or counselors, it's not
yours. You delegate that. Right? Or bishop and

(08:17):
or something else. Right? It it's not yours.
Only do what you can do as a
bishop. I've really tried to to do that
the best I can. And so anything adult
related when I absolutely know it's not repentance,
I'm just like elders corps, relief elders corps,
relief society, and I give it to them,
and they've just run with it. They take
a huge, huge load off as far as

(08:37):
the adults go. And so that's something I've
always tried to live by was what my
stake president said is do only what the
bishop can do and, you know, work on
that and do it the best that you
can and delegate away everything else. And, you
know, if you do have a good elders
quorum release study president, then that's easy. If
you don't, then it's kinda what I'm going
with Young Men Advisors, you know, right, with

(08:58):
the youth. Yeah. Bishop Ransom.
Alright. Good deal. Okay. So a couple of
things. One, I think part of the reason
that we focus, I do anyways, on the
youth so much is that they
most of my time is taken up with
handling youth responsibilities.
So that's where I tend to prioritize
my time and energy. The members, a lot
of times, we have a an amazing elders

(09:19):
corpsman, Relief Society president
in our ward, but they can only do
what the members will let them do. So
I have members coming to me, and they're
wanting to talk to me. And I ask
them, you know, as you do, have you
talked to the study president about this? Have
you counseled with her before coming to be
in? Their face kind of tends to fall,
and they're like, you don't wanna talk to
me. They think I don't have time for
them, but I don't wanna talk to them.

(09:41):
So that may yeah. Right? So it's made
it a challenge to even though I'm really
happy to give them some time, but, really,
that's where they should go first. Right? Or
at least they should be going there primarily
when that applies. So
I do, agree with what was said as
well. I'm kinda summarizing real fast, but with
I've tried to pass off anything that I
can that doesn't need to be done by
me as the bishop. I'm only two years

(10:02):
two months in. Sorry. I'm two months in,
so still learning the ropes a little bit.
But in general, I have found as long
as I prioritize, like, youth interviews, even though
I only have to do one a year,
I do all the youth interviews right now
because I wanna get to know the youth
better. Right? So there's things that I'm doing
intentionally
to make sure that I am prioritizing them
at whatever capacity I can. But in general,

(10:22):
my oldest quorum is happy to handle anything
that that I pass them and same with
Relief Society, they're stellar rock stars. So that's
made it really easy for us. Yeah.
And, you know, this is interesting.
We kinda throw out the phrase, you know,
the bishop handles repentance. Right? And that's sort
of that's a blanket term for a lot
of mechanics going on behind the scenes. What

(10:43):
I mean by that is, you know, what
is repentance? And and I think we would
do ourselves a favor in all of our
spare time to really dig into what is
my role in the repentance process as a
bishop,
and I think there's a lot more even
in that. Right? Because I remember as a
time as bishop, we kinda felt like, okay.
This person's struggling with this thing, and it's
kinda not gone away. Like, there's still a

(11:04):
thing. They're still struggling or they're having a
hard time getting past it. So I need
to meet personally with that individual
as many times until that person just suddenly
stops scheduling appointments with me. And I guess
we're good then. Right? Well, I think there's
a more intentional approach there of you know,
and this goes back. I think Adam Washburn
was asking a question
about what are these spiritual dynamics that we

(11:26):
can delegate. And I think there's even a
lot in that repentance, which can, you know,
fill up your calendar where if it's a
youth coming in, like, are your parents involved
in this? Do you feel comfortable having discussions
about this with your your youth leader? Right?
Or if the elders you know, an elder
comes in and is struggling or a a
sister, You know? Tell me about your relationship

(11:46):
with your elders' core president. Is this something
you feel open talking about where the bishop's
still involved? Obviously, his keys are still important
in that repentance process. However,
those six, seven, eight appointments, those touch points
could happen with that elders' quorum president. Now,
you know, me being an elders' quorum president
and a former bishop, I'm completely comfortable with
that, and I get that maybe some elders'

(12:06):
quorum presidents wouldn't be. However,
it's something you could you know, nobody trained
you per se how to have those conversations.
And so and, again, this would all be
done under the agreement of the person, you
know, that'd be open to that. And, again,
community is a big part of repentance and
overcoming these things. And so that's a interesting
thing. Sometimes we have these things. Well, that's
a bishop responsibility. However, that's a lot that's

(12:28):
going on there. Right?
So what else comes to mind? Anybody wanna
add to that or maybe left a made
a comment in the chat that would be
appropriate? Is your answer? Yeah. Can I share
one more thing that has helped? Because and
we talked a little about this before with
setting expectations when extending calls, but I found
that I use a lot of positive reinforcement

(12:48):
when members are doing something that's good that
I need them to do in their calling.
If I have people showing up for youth
night, and maybe I didn't know they were
coming or maybe they were, but I always
walk over, thank them for being there, tell
them how important it is that we have
good leadership
supporting the youth, and I always go out
of my way heavily, heavily, heavily to thank
them. And I get a lot of response
usually over text. Like, thanks so much for

(13:08):
making me feel loved and important and special.
I get a lot of individual text that
way because I spend so much time reinforcing
the good behaviors they're doing to try to
help them. Next week, when you're kind of
deciding, do I wanna go see a movie
or do I wanna go youth night? Then
you'll go to youth night knowing how important
your calling is doing that as an adviser.
Adam, did you A little change in topic.
I'm thinking about delegation and parents and youth.

(13:29):
I'll just throw this, this question out here.
I feel like over the years, maybe it
was historical. When I was a youth, I
feel like maybe parents, you kind of delegated
teaching the law of chastity to your bishop,
right? The bishop will teach you this, right?
I think a lot of parents kind of
expect that's happening and don't realize that one
with our lesson format and really with the
youth teaching lessons, they're not getting those kind

(13:49):
of lessons that maybe we got when we
were kids. And I think the expectation is
that it's parents teaching this, but I don't
think a lot of parents know that. So
I don't know, has anybody had any conversation
with parents about, Hey, this is really your
responsibility.
This is something I've been thinking about I
need to do, but curious if anybody's had
success or, you know, other topics as well,
realizing like, we're not gonna, be start lined
up in the manual. It's come follow me.

(14:10):
Right? It's come follow me every week for
everybody. And so if you want these special
topics, like, parents really need to to dive
in deep with their kids. Yeah. For sure.
I don't know. Anybody anybody had any thoughts
or experiences with that? Greg, go ahead. Yeah.
Our ward council's been addressing that to a
degree, and we've actually used our teaching
like, train the teacher to teach parents how

(14:31):
to teach their families.
So not just teaching in class, but we're
teaching the parents how to teach their kids
about tough topics
and as well as just regular come follow
me because some of them, we think they've
got it, but they need more hand holding.
And so we dedicate second hour sometimes to
that, and that class is full with parents,
grandparents on how to teach those topics.

(14:52):
But it also helps us to clear be
very clear that they need to teach that.
It's not on the bishop or the ward
to do that. And just give a shout
out to the last week, we did a
Sunday school presidency
livestream like this discussion, and we did talk
about that as far as the Sunday school
presidency's
responsibilities, not just teaching at a church, but
teaching in the home as well. And so
that's a great thing to delegate, buzzword of

(15:13):
the day, delegate to your Sunday school presidency
and say, hey. You know, I'm noticing I'm
getting a lot of quests, or I'm noticing
maybe there's a learning deficit in the various
homes of the youth. Like, would you put
together something that would help parents more effectively
teach topics a, b, c? Right? So I
think there's a lot you can do there.
Let's see. Joe, go ahead. I was just
gonna say we've got so a couple of

(15:33):
things tied to this that we've worked on.
So the first is the teacher council for
parents that you just brought up. We use
that pretty religiously as awards since we started.
Our our Sunday school president has done a
great job of making sure those happen. And
it just so happens that next week I
forget if it's next week, two weeks, doesn't
matter. Coming soon, we're having a counselor come

(15:54):
in from the area who's going to address
those type of topics
with the parents, how we're how to better
teach those type of things in the home
and address chastity and and that kind of
stuff. At the same time, some other inspiration
that we had as a bishopric was to
have a a meeting around those topics without
addressing them, you know, boldly in front of

(16:15):
the team in front of the kids anyway.
So I had the same inspiration,
brother Washburn,
that these type of conversations aren't happening as
often as they should be and they need
to happen. So what we're doing as a
as a ward is we're using or as
a as a bishopric, we're doing a bishop's
fireside, and we're taking the for strengths of
youth for strength of youth booklet and just

(16:35):
teaching on watching in god's light or walking
in god's light and pointing them towards what
it takes to do that from the FSY
manual.
And
we'll be touching on the subject of chastity,
of
of dress, of choosing your friends, of language,
of that kind of stuff without specifically drawing
it out and whatnot.
And then we're tying it to a tree

(16:56):
of life activity and holding to the rod
as well. So it's something I've been needing
to work on as a ward as well
and we've those are the things that we're
working on. The teacher council for parents, there's
not very many people that do it in
my experience anyway. We're the only one in
our stake, and then the stake next to
us, nobody's doing the teacher council for parents,
but it's been a really effective tool. We
do it for one hour on Sunday night.

(17:18):
It's casual dress, and there are refreshments
and nursery provided.
And we usually get decent attendance, and they
can be a pretty pretty powerful meeting. So
Yeah. And, you know, just that I love
this model that we have, you know, in
the context of Sunday school, these teacher council
meetings or the parent teacher council meetings.
But imagine I I think this is part
of delegation as far as, like, an old

(17:39):
adage I always reiterate, like, never confuse an
ability problem for a motivation problem. But we
our brains default to this motivation space of,
like, oh, they're not showing up. They're not
doing it. They must be unmotivated.
Right? When in reality, a lot of them
are thinking, I don't know how to do
that. I don't know how to show up,
you know, on a Wednesday and and lead
facilitate a youth activity or or I don't

(18:02):
know I don't know how to teach a
lesson or, you know, these types of things.
And I'm even thinking
with the you know, I think of the
the load like repentance. Let's say, I think
a lot of bishops, especially with youth, experience
a high rate of appointments for repentance or
it comes up a lot in that one
to one. What if you had a parent
council meeting all about how do we facilitate
repentance

(18:22):
as a group? Right? Like, what should you
be doing at home, or do we just
sort of say, hey, Johnny. You need to
go meet with the bishop and not talk
about it at home. Right? So I think
you can use this council model in so
many different ways to help enable
whatever group it is or whatever problem it
is to help them rise to that that
level of that skill level.
Something as far as, you know, a lot
of chastity

(18:42):
and, I guess, just standards is
with the youth, a kind of a successful,
like, a, like, win that we had last
year is when we do that annual
for the strength of youth
meeting with youth and parents.
We've had the youth
just run and pretty much the entire thing.
So, like, our young woman's president would say

(19:03):
something kind of at the beginning very briefly,
then I might say something really brief at
the end. And everything in between was the
youth
talking about the topics in the first strength
of youth. And so they were the ones
having an opportunity to say the words. Right?
Oh, sex. Right? Pornography,
masturbation. Right? They're actually saying these words themselves.
And I got we got feedback from, like,

(19:24):
a mother that kid, and she was just
very grateful that she said it was awesome
to have the youth up there talking about
those topics and not the adults
sitting there in a big group talking about
that. And so,
at least for her, it was a win.
I thought the the night overall was great,
and so that's something we've always tried to
do each year. But it was good to
get the, like, the youth up there saying

(19:46):
the words, talking about those things, and maybe
opening the door of, like, them hearing it
from their peers and saying, hey. I think
I might go talk to my mom or
dad about that or a church leader or
or whoever. Bishop Ransom, go ahead. I was
just gonna share something that I often talk
to people about when I extend calls that
when I especially the youth, when I was
a president of probably the deacons quorum, might

(20:06):
have been teachers quorum, But they continued to
pull us in regularly every three weeks or
so, and they would chastise us for not
doing our callings over and over again. For
whatever reason, they just kept telling us you're
not doing your calling. And I remember feeling
really bad about it as a young man.
I'm not doing my calling. I'm terrible. I'm
not a good leader. I don't know what
I'm doing. But I would go home for
three days, and I'd feel bad. And then
I would just forget about it till they

(20:27):
called us in three weeks later and did
the same thing. And I mentioned this because
I try to encourage people if you don't
know what you're doing or you're calling because
I wasn't trained. They just never told me
what I was supposed to be doing. Right?
And so I was just very confused on
why I kept getting in trouble, but I
didn't know to tell them. I don't know
what my calling entails. I don't know what
I'm supposed to be doing as a president.
You need to teach me how to do
it so I can do it, which is
what I would respond with now. Right? But

(20:48):
it's good for me as a bishop. This
memory came back to me of don't set
people up for failure. Make sure that they
know what you need them to do. Be
specific. If they're not doing it, talk to
them about it. Don't wait for them to
fail for six months and then release them
because you need somebody who will actually do
what they're supposed to be doing. Yeah. Really
good. Anybody else wanna add to that? I
might jump in for a second. I don't

(21:08):
Yeah. Go ahead. See the hand raise button.
But Okay. One of the things that I
feel like I've noticed
is
and it this feels
connected to me, but nobody's used this phrase.
There's the home centered and church supported.
And
I think, technically, that has always been true,
but I don't think that our organization
as a church matched that in the past,

(21:30):
perhaps.
And
I've got a big question about, well, how
much home centered is actually getting done? So
you look at what the church is delegating
to the parents now, and it feels like
more than it used to be. And I
missed out on that one last week where
you had Sunday school. But many years ago,
I used to feel like Sunday school was
not a very important calling. But at least

(21:52):
where I'm at now, I feel like if
a Sunday school president was really nailing it,
it can be a hugely
impactful calling because of the teacher council and
the parent councils. Like, if they're actually doing
all that, you actually have some influence on
the home centered piece of it where
people can actually
connect with the savior and connect with their

(22:12):
family in a way that they're making spiritual
progress in their lives.
Love it. Yeah. And that's, again, kinda shifting.
Sometimes it's easy to get hyper focused on
the ward specific responsibility
of, like, are we doing the weekday youth
activity? You know? How are the lessons going?
When we step back and say, well, what
are some additional resources, or how can we

(22:34):
better focus on what's happening in the home?
Because, again, can't mistake an ability problem for
a motivation problem. So it's like, well, maybe
it's not that they're unmotivated.
Maybe it's that they don't know how to
do that. So let's get our Sunday school
presidency involved or whatever we need to do
to to help enable parents to
or or homes households
to, you know, do the things the home

(22:56):
centered things. Right? Yeah. Because one of the
one of the things that my wife's young
women's president right now, and she strives really
hard to get the youth involved. And she's
got a class president who's doing a really
good job now,
and
that works best
when the parents
are involved in that mentorship.
So

(23:16):
the young women's president has influence and can
do a lot. But if that is reinforced
by what the parents are teaching and what
the parents are trying to help the kids
do as well, it just magnifies the impacts,
like, tenfold.
Yep. But the parents don't know how to
do that any more than the rest of
us started out knowing how to do it
until we practiced a little bit. Yeah. For

(23:37):
sure. Ricky, go ahead. The same quote that
you keep saying is is true for bishops
also.
One day you're not bishop, you're everybody's neighbor,
and the very next day you're bishop, and
you're all of a sudden expected to know
how to do everything.
And that's just not the case and it's
hard. It's really hard. And there's not a
lot of great training
except for things like this

(23:58):
that people and then you think, oh, I
have to be a super bishop. Right? I
have to be really great all of a
sudden at every calling and they all have
to run great and things like that. And
then there was this attitude for a while
of, oh,
delegate and let them fail. You know, that
they used to say, don't bring back up
brownies, right? So the activity, if you delegated
a young woman to bring brownies and she

(24:20):
didn't, well then there's no brownies.
I think that's not the right way either,
but it's hard to be a Bishop. And
to speak to the thing earlier about the
delegating to parents,
one thing I did, which worked really, really
well, and this was as kids were coming,
turning 12, and they were gonna be getting
temple recommended interviews. I sent home a letter

(24:40):
about a month before
that said with a list of the temple
recommended interviews.
And,
it was, hey, we're gonna be asking these
questions to your kids. Please go over these
questions with them and teach them everything you
wanna know. And then there was some highlights.
Usually kids don't know what this question means
and usually kids don't know what that question
means. And it helped. It absolutely

(25:02):
changed
those first interviews
because at least with the parents who did
sit down with them, it's hard because
like I said, one day you're not Bishop
and you're everybody's neighbor. Then the next day,
I mean, I remember when I was called,
I had one neighbor that said, oh, now
I have to stop being friends with you.
Almost as if I had seer stones and
could see all everything into his life, all

(25:23):
of a sudden. I said, why? And he
says, oh, because now you're the bishop, you
know everything. I don't know anything, I'm still
your neighbor and I don't know how to
solve that, right? Other than just jumping in
and not being embarrassed as a bishop to
not know everything
and not be embarrassed in ward council to
say, hey, this is a problem I don't
know how to solve.
And to be kind of real, not not

(25:46):
nitty gritty real. Right? But to be real
about your experience also
and real with your word. I mean, I
remember being real with my word saying, Hey,
I don't I haven't done this before. And
now all of a sudden I have to
do it. And,
yeah, just acknowledging that it's hard and that
there's no really great there's lots of great
stuff in the handbook, but there's nothing that

(26:07):
teaches you all of a sudden all the
nuances of social engineering
and how to and then there's thing too,
oh, I liked how the old bishop did
it. Now you're doing it different.
And and the same is true with welfare.
Right? And Yeah.
All of those things. Just acknowledging
that it's hard. That's great advice. Great advice.
And as we wrap up here and, again,

(26:28):
we don't have, like, a hard stop by
any means,
but,
you can keep talking. But what I want
you to do is if there's a a
bishop here in this virtual room who's just
so overwhelmed and really stressed about this delegation
principle and concept, what encouragement would you give
them? And you can either put it into
the chat or you can put it into

(26:49):
or you can unmute and or raise your
hand and and share it that way. But
maybe sit on that for a minute. What
encouragement would you give to a different bishop
who's struggling
with this? Because oftentimes, it's hard to give
ourselves
that encouragement.
Sean, go ahead.
So
a couple things, but they kinda mesh together
is
it's the Lord's church,

(27:10):
not ours, not yours.
He will take care of his children.
Right? You can't get to everyone. You can't
get to everything. You can't do all of
those things
the handbook says are yours or only yours.
You just can't. And the Lord knows that.
It's his church,
and there will be times where you focus
on different things. So give yourself grace within

(27:31):
that and always know that it's the Lord's
church and that he's got you. And then
secondly, I'd say too is that it's just
messy. Like mortality is messy
And,
like, this visual always comes to my mind
of when you go to clean the church
building and you're the one that has to
go clean the windows, the of the front
doors. Like, you just can't get it right.
You just smear it even more, and it's
just not great. But the light still gets

(27:54):
through. You can still see through those windows.
And to me, that's the gospel. That's mortality.
It's messy, but light gets through there. Right?
Like, we see through a glass darkly,
and we do our best with the light
that we get, knowing that the atonement of
Jesus Christ
covers
not only our sins and our mistakes, but
the things that we just fail at or
don't get to within our callings. The Lord's

(28:14):
got it covered.
And so I take great hope and peace
within that as I strive to just do
the best that I can, but knowing that
it's gonna be messy. I'm going to fail,
but it's the lord's church. He's got it.
The light gets through. He'll take care of
these people too.
Just to highlight kinda what Sean says, I
I wrote a newsletter article. This is a

(28:34):
couple years ago, and it it's still true
today of, like, you think about all the
ways you're falling short or that your word's
falling short. And I can with full confidence,
this isn't hyperbole, I can easily say you're
doing enough. You're absolutely doing enough. Because I
remember instance where when I was bishop, a
Relief Society president came in, and, you know,
we're just having our monthly,

(28:56):
you know, interface there of of talking about
things. And she was really struggling with just
how things were going and, you know, just
frustrated that a lot of these things, people
weren't showing up, people weren't following through, doing
their thing. And I said, you know, why
are you nervous about this, activity not going
well? Well, if if it doesn't go well,
nobody will wanna come. And and why are
you nervous that nobody will wanna come? Well,

(29:16):
if they don't wanna come, they won't make
friends. And and why are you nervous that
they won't make friends? Well, if they don't
make friends, they they may not come to
church. And, oh, well, why are you nervous
that they won't come to church? Well, if
they don't come to church, they won't, you
know, get the ordinances and and renew their
ordinances. Well, why are you nervous about them
not coming to to church and getting their
ordinances? Well, if they don't get their ordinances,
then maybe
they won't,

(29:36):
you know, be saved and exhausted. I'm like,
woah. At what point was it your job
to make sure that they were saved? That's
always been Jesus
Christ's job. Right? It's his role. And so
no matter how well or not well you're
doing, you're always doing enough because he did
everything
that we need. Right? And so I hope
you find encouragement in that that don't beat

(29:57):
yourself up too much about these things. And
and it is okay to even look at
your word council even though in your mind,
like, I can think about 10 things that
you should be doing better, 11 things you
should be doing better, and 50 things you
should be doing better. But to just look
at them and say, hey. I just want
you all to know you're doing enough. And
this weird paradox happens
when you say that is people want to
do more. Right? And,

(30:20):
it's on the other end if we go
to them and say, hey. Just to remind
you, you're not doing enough, they actually want
to do less or they wanna disengage. They
wanna be released. They want to go anywhere
else, but that room. But when you say
actually grace is of Jesus Christ is good
enough for you and you're doing enough, because
he did everything, they'll find encouragement and want
to reengage that way.

(30:46):
Now that we've reached the end of the
episode, I quickly want to thank you for
supporting the Leading Saints podcast.
There's so much content out there to consider
and you picked this one. If leading saints
has made an impact in your life, we
would sure like to hear about it at
leadingsaints.org/contact.
And if you could quickly text or email
this episode to a leader, you know, I

(31:08):
bet it will bless their life. You can
mark off your good turn daily and let's
even call it ministering. Okay. Maybe not that
far. But seriously, thank you and help us
share this content.
It came as a result of the position

(31:29):
of leadership, which was imposed upon us
by the God of heaven who brought
forth a restoration of the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
When the declaration
was made concerning the only
true and living Church upon the face of
the earth,
We were immediately put in a position of

(31:50):
loneliness,
the loneliness of leadership
from which we cannot shrink nor run away,
and to which we must face up with
boldness and courage
and ability.