- What else is coming in 2024? Website update Leading Saints community. We are, uh, I plan to really triple down on our YouTube presence, the, the ideal demographic of Leading Saints, obviously church leaders, right? Adults from 35 to about 60, um, that are actively serving in the calling or who identify as a leader. Uh, they're active on YouTube, so we need to do more of a presence there. We already have almost 6,000 subscribers, but we really need to up our game there.
So if you're listening on this, uh, would you hit subscribe and, uh, help us? And just, even if you don't use YouTube a lot, like, oh, I don't need to subscribe. You know, I'm not on YouTube a lot. Still subscribe because that's gonna help the algorithm know that something's brewing here and more people that the algorithm should recommend leading Saints to more individuals and listen to that. So we're also, I'm gonna be doing a lot more traveling, uh, events.
Uh, firesides, I'm getting asked more and more to do Firesides. Uh, and these aren't like leadership fireside per se. 'cause I mean, really, who wants to come to a fireside about leadership? I get, I love leadership. There's so much to learn, but it's not, um, it's not a provocative, uh, topic that's gonna just draw the masses. But I do, recently, I've been doing one, uh, based on a book that I have coming out. I'm literally, like, I visited the, the printer yesterday.
We're getting it printed. So, uh, is God disappointed me removing shame from a gospel of grace. Uh, forwarded by Brad Pello, the ex president, executive producer of the Chosen I love Brad. Such been such a good friend. And so he read this and, and loved the book so much that he didn't even hesitate to write the forward when I, uh, asked him if he would do so. And I do a whole fire side, a whole hour or so based on this concept. We do it in the cultural hall. It's very different.
I use multimedia and more and more people are really, uh, benefit appreciating this. And so, um, I'm, I'm getting asked to do more and more firesides all across the country, and I'm happy to, uh, make that happen in your area, if that would be helpful. Okay. And when I go to those areas, when I go to those areas, I usually do some interviews. I'll do some like live events outside of the, so if I do a fireside on the Sunday, I'll do a Leading Saints event at a separate venue.
And, um, so if you are interested in participating in something like that, please go to our [email protected] slash contact and we can get that ball rolling. Um, so right now, like in January, I'm gonna be in Denver, uh, March. I'll be in Sacramento, March. I'll be in Northern Virginia, uh, February. Uh, we're working on something in February or March, something in Southern California.
So, uh, and, and we'll post those in the newsletter, making sure that if you wanna attend there, um, that's an option. Hopefully more traveling. 'cause I want to get the brand of Leading Saints out there and, uh, because we do a lot of cool stuff here locally in Utah. But, um, it's, it could be elsewhere. So Jared says, I love the Leading Saints YouTube shorts that pop up in my feed. Good teasers for the longer podcast. Uh, Michael says, uh, Kurt, we can't thank you enough for the podcast.
They're so valuable to help us avoid traps and rethinking cultural traditions based on true gospel principles. Very grateful for the inspiration. Um, and he goes on and says, I love hearing President Hinkley's voice each time at the end. Love that great man. Yes. That is my favorite leadership quote for sure. And, uh, hope you like, take time. Just like sit with it, you know, it's easy to sort of skip to the end and be done with the episode, but, um, that's a good one.
That's a good quote. So, and, uh, of course, we're doing our retreats, right? I can't emphasize enough this, uh, especially the men's retreat that we've been doing more and more of. Um, if you go to a warrior heart, uh, dot com, you can see, uh, we're, that's where we're doing one in Northern Virginia. We're doing one in, uh, Phoenix area in, uh, where else, obviously in Utah. And I think those are three areas I'm going to.
So, um, yeah, we would love to have you participate in one of those, uh, huge positive response to me. It should be required for every church leader to go to something like that, because you learn so much, especially if you're leading men. Um, you learn about the core desires of man's heart and how to lead men. And, and most, more, mainly it's for, uh, those leaders to, uh, have a change of heart. And I dunno, it's just like a good refresh and preparation to jump into a leadership experience.
So, and we have some, you know, the women's retreats as well, we did in the fall. We're sort of recalibrating on those before we launched dates. But, um, what we found is that the podcast is great and you can listen to a thousand podcast episodes, but nothing is quite like the experience of, um, being part of a live event and having, it's, it's a transformational thing. You're, you're not necessarily gonna have a transformational experience listening to a podcast.
Now, it's very informative, you know, it's worth listening to. You'll learn a lot, you'll apply some things, but we want to stimulate, uh, transformation on the leadership level. And so that's why we do these live events and, and we haven't figured 'em out yet. We're, we're getting there. So, alright, how about we go to some questions here. I'm going to scroll up a little. I saw one up here. Um, here. I, I will take this one.
The billion dollar question today from Cynthia, and our stake is why members are not anxiously engaged, nor show signs of having a gospel rooted in their hearts like the pioneers did spiritual crisis love this question. And in fact, I get this question a lot. In fact, this is probably like the number one most asked question in our email, uh, system. And it boils down to this, right? What Synthes is asking is like, how do I motivate my people? How do I get them going?
Um, why aren't they, you know, why is there so much apathy? Why is why don't people just, um, you know, why aren't they anxiously engaged? It's so frustrating, and especially in the context of the gospel. Like, we have a remarkable theology. So why aren't people engaging? Now, my answer to this, and of course this is just me. I'm sure past guests have had different thoughts. Uh, when it comes to motivation, that's usually our default response or default diagnosis, right?
That the reason things aren't happening, like people are just not stepping up and doing it. But I always say never mistake an ability problem for a motivation problem. So often people aren't anxiously engaged. This is just one aspect. I'm gonna give you another one as well. But one aspect is that you're mistaking a ability problem for a motivation problem. Many people don't really know, nor do they have the skillset of ministering. They, they don't know even how to text somebody.
What do I, what do I say in the text? Like, am I bothering them too much? Like, when do I send the text? Like, okay, they just had a baby. Like, what do I do? Like, I guess I can make him a meal. And, and for some people it's like, oh, that's easy. And usually it's, it's church leaders, right? Who, where the skillset is so easy, it's the motivation thing. Like, it's not, it's not a motivation problem.
And maybe it is okay, but maybe you regroup, gather your presidency, your counsel, whatever, and says, what if, let's just assume it's an ability problem. Let's assume nobody knows how to do any of this. How would we approach the, the situation differently? Another thing is that never mistake a character problem for an ability problem or a motivation problem. Individuals need in order to, uh, be anxiously engaged, there needs to be a transformation experience happening, right?
For them to be mature enough to, uh, put off any other priority and focus on, on what we do in the kingdom of God. That takes a character development that's much more difficult to, to stimulate than simply standing in front of a class and, and giving a guilt trip lesson, right? So going back to Cynthia's question, why members are not anxiously engaged, it feels like, and it, there is some things in 20 23, 20 24 that would result in this. People are busy, people have so many more demands, right?
There's so many more distractions. I mean, reading the scriptures in the 1980s was a different experience than reading the scriptures in 2024, because there's so many others. I can get on my phone and I have a library of videos on a streaming service. I have books, you know, I have my whole library, a click away of just secular books that I could, could read, right? There's social media, right? And so it's not a motivation problem as much as an ability problem or a character problem.
So that, uh, question deserves hours of, uh, of content, which we've done. And, uh, I would encourage you go to the Motivating Saints virtual library, which is part of the core leader library. Anybody can access it for free by going to leading saints.org/fourteen. Or we ask you to give a few dollars every month on our recurring basis or every year, and you'll have full access to all of that content.
But if you haven't gone through the Motivating Saints library, um, and you have this question, that'd be a good place to go. So, uh, here's a response that Kimberly says, uh, to Cynthia, the word anxiously engaged can look like and be explained differently depending on the person, depending on stage of life and what is going on. Absolutely. Uh, and, and we just have to have grace for that, right? The stage of life. I am in my scripture study today. My come follow me, my church, uh, attendance.
My church engagement is gonna look a lot different when I'm 65 empty nester and, um, right? And I have more time and less distraction on my hand. And so we just have to have grace for what's happening. And, you know, I talk with, uh, Stephen Shields, if you haven't listened to that, my recent episode with Stephen Shields Do it. But we talk about the, the importance for leaders to do their own work.
A lot of the times when the leaders asking this, I'm not trying to like diagnose Cynthia for asking this, but a lot of times when leaders are asking this question, there's something, there's something in their heart that needs to be addressed as far as like, you've maybe lived a life where you were constantly prodded to live up to a certain standard, and now you're the release society president, and you're not hitting the standard because you have to deal with all these people
who aren't hitting the standard.
So you need them to hit the standard so you can hit the standard so you can feel good and accepted about yourself at the end of the day, whether it's Cynthia, whether it's Kimberly, whether it, whomever you are accepted completely today, no matter what, even if you never changed again, and from that state, when you know you have a God that accepts you completely, there's nothing more you want to do than to keep his commandments to be more anxiously engaged, right?
And so, if those in your quorum and your relief society and your ward know that they are accepted just as they are, that this is a safe place for people to gather and be understood, they'll, they'll engage more. They'll be anxiously engaged. Again. It's, it's, it's easier said than done. I appreciate that perspective by Kimberly as well. Uh, let's see what else we got here. Kimberly, we'll go back to you. Awesome. I've enjoyed the podcast since 2019.
So much information and helpful thoughts and principles. Thank you, Kimberly. Uh, stand firm saints. The answer's always Christ. Yeah, that's true. At the end of the day, like if you don't know how to get home or a ministry going, or this assignment, that assignment, people aren't motivated to say, let's just talk about Christ for a while, right?
There's nothing more motivating than, uh, a belief in Jesus Christ and feeling his love and acceptance and, uh, relationship for sure, uh, in what I thought was a lame work training. I learned that you cannot motivate another person. They have to motivate themselves. All another person can do is create a self-motivating environment. And I, I think that's pretty on point, right? All you can do is accept that person for who they are right now.
And, um, that's, uh, and that's what I discussed in that book, is this concept of expectation. We often turn to expectations to motivate people, to, to beat that , to beat them with, you know, metaphorically speaking, be like, come on, prod 'em along, down the path, right? All right, lemme go to a question I got earlier. Do you know whether or not you and leading Saints are on the radar, so to speak, at church headquarters?
Ooh. And if you do know that senior lead church leaders is aware of the mission of leading Saints, what kind of reaction has there been? Whether good, bad, or indifferent? I would really be interested to know whether there's been any kind of move to shut you down. , perhaps saying that improving leadership skills amongst the local lay ministry is outside your stewardship.
Or conversely, if there has been anyone who has reached out to you to share what you've learned so that improvements in training can be implemented in the church as a whole, get this question a lot. What is, what does the church think about you? What does President Nelson think about you? I'll tell you what President Nelson thinks about me. He doesn't know me, . I mean, he's my prophet and he loves me just like he loves all of us.
But I doubt if you were to see President Nelson and he said, Hey, tell me about this Kurt Frankham guy, and what do you think about leading saints? He'd say, I'm sorry, what? I don't know what you're talking about. And I would say that would go for the corner of the 12 Apostles. I don't think they're aware of leading saints personally. I mean, maybe it's been mentioned in a meeting here and there, but, uh, however, leading Saints is recognized by the church as a trusted, independent advocate.
Now, what does that mean? I think a lot of lay members of the church, um, they don't realize sort of the many of the working, uh, the, the wheels, uh, that are spinning outside of the organization of the church. The church is surrounded by independent advocates like leading saints, faith promoting organizations that want to help the church further the mission, but do it in an independent way. Because as an independent organization, we have a lot more leeway, right? We don't represent the church.
So we can say things that maybe the church would disagree with, but stimulate conversation that needs to be had, right? So I, uh, leading Saints is part of the, an independent adv advocacy group. This is through the communications department. And, uh, we, we meet generally, regularly. These are organizations like obviously Leading Saints Fair, Latterday Saints, faith Matters. Um, there's, uh, just, uh, , oh, more good foundation, right? They're the third hour Saints unscripted things.
So the, we're all faith promoting organizations who have different purposes and missions, right? I'm, we, we live the leading Saints is the leading, is the leadership where we talk about all things leadership fair, latterday Saint, they talk all things about apologetics, right? Research about church history, your research about scripture that would stimulate faith, right? So, uh, what does the church think about leading saints?
Uh, I think they, I work, I I, the simple phrase I would say is, I work closely with the church. Now, does that mean the church endorses leading saints? Does that mean the church, uh, wants every leader in the church to listen to leading saints? No. I mean, it's just, it's a healthy relationship of they see what I'm doing, I see what they're doing, and I'm saying, how can I help? And they gimme some thoughts. I don't have to do exactly what they say.
But to answer the simple answer of this is that, yes, there are several seventies that I've talked to personally who know about leading saints, who gimme a thumbs up and encourage me, right? Many of those individuals end up on the podcast after they're released from their, their role as 70.
Um, what many of the episodes I've had with influential people, whether they're emeritus seventies former organizational leaders, those interviews came to be by me sending an email to some of my contacts in the communications department and me saying, Hey, I'd like to interview this person. Can you help me make that happen? And they have come through a lot with that. So again, I don't want to create the perception, nor do I wanna get the phone call from communication.
Like, come on, Kurt. Yeah, I think you said a little bit too much. Uh, the church, we're not owned by the church. We're not run by the church, we're not endorsed by the church, but we are a faith promoting resource to help latter Day Saints, uh, be better prepared to lead by considering leadership principles and concepts. Now, leadership has an interesting relationship in the church, right?
Like, for example, I could go out and write a book about the atonement of Jesus Christ, and essentially I did, and it can be published self-published, it could, uh, get really popular and sell a lot. Its copies. And people would be like, oh, that's cool. You wrote a book about the most core doctrinal concept in our theology. And everybody's like, cool. And there may be things in that book where people disagree with, agree with, but generally as a culture, okay?
However, there is this feeling when somebody talks about leadership, they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, who gave you the right to talk about leadership? And it's sort of like silly, right? It's like, so somebody can talk about the atonement of Jesus Christ, but they can talk about leadership, right? And so we're very intentional. In fact, you can go to our, if you go to our about page, if we have these, these four pillars.
So leading Saints pays the way for more confident and prepared latterday saint leadership. Through these four pillars. We connect leaders, we, uh, attempt to enhance leadership ability, uh, by making available educational opportunities to enhance leadership ability at no cost to Latterday Saints. We present leadership scholarship, right?
We wanna bring you research that's out there, not saying you have to follow whatever the research says, but we wanna bring that to the audience, - To leaders in the church so they can at least consider it. And then last, we lastly, we celebrate divine guidance. We celebrate restored priest, we - Celebrate restored governing priesthood, - Keys, spiritual inspiration, and living prophets, which are sacred sources of divine leadership.
And recognize that all leadership direction yields to this divine source. - So - We recognize that no matter what the research says, no matter what the Kurt Franken podcast boy says on his, on his podcast, no matter what his guests say, at the end of the day, we have leaders have, uh, many leaders have governing priesthood keys to make decisions, even if it goes against all research, right? Even if it, some would say, ah, that's not, that's not good leadership.
Nonetheless, that's the beauty of archeology and - Priesthood keys, - Right? - So we are very intentional. You know, I'm, we're not looking to criticize, - Uh, - Uh, church leaders, you - Know, we're, we try and be very intentional. Sometimes there's just tough situations that we need to talk about. Maybe a bishop, uh, acted in a, like a tyrant, right? And we may give that example, leaving names out, whatnot.
But we need to talk about like - Do's and don'ts, best practice whatnot, and explore that. Not because, uh, another thing we try not to do is we don't pretend like we have it figured out. We don't have curriculum, uh, we just have conferences. So we don't have, here's the 10 steps that every leader should do in order to be a good - Bishop or a good relief society president - That we're not in - That business. This is not, it's not our place to say that.
- So, uh, but those four pillars, we just sort of present the information, do what you want with it, and there it is. So, uh, I've been, uh, recently called as Elders Corn President. This is Aaron. I read a book a while back called Change or Die . Wow. It talks about connection being the one factor that leads to lasting change, how to foster greater connection. Absolutely. Uh, Aaron gives us 2 cents. Always call every corps member by name when interacting with them. Help foster connection.
First name, preferably from my perspective. Alright, uh, I think Aaron asked another question, question that I get a lot. Um, yeah, this one. What is the most practical leadership principle that you've learned that you wish church leaders would apply in their service? So I got this question quite a bit. And, um, I quickly jotted down a few notes. Like, if, if I was to talk to, like being a brand new church leader in an elevator and say, and he'd say, tell me hurry, quick.
What are the principles you've learned? Right? Not that I'll tell these quick, but this is, I I quickly jot down five principles. So what I've gathered, just being the guy, I mean, I got the coolest job in the world that I get to sit down with these people, sit down with leaders across the world, experts, PhDs, the, I mean, Greg McEwen, right?
Liz Wiseman, uh, Stephen, MR Covey, like these are the, the, they're so well respected and I get to sit down with 'em, ask them questions about church leadership. It's pretty awesome. So it comes down to relationship. There's nothing more important for a leader than to establish a relationship with those that they lead.
And, uh, that's why I, I, uh, gave a, I wrote a newsletter message that many disagree with, uh, that I, I, the one recommendation I give to all brand new bishops is they need to go on a Ward Bishop couch tour. Their goal in the first three months is to sit in the living room of every member in their ward. And people are like, no, the youth, Kurt, not, they gotta focus on the youth. I'm like, okay, I get it. However, there's still everybody's bishop.
And when somebody has a personal interaction with their bishop in their home, they that will transform how they see that that leader, even if he does the Bishop couch tour and never then focuses on the youth, uh, the rest of his time, people will see the bishop on Sunday and be like, you know what? That guy came to my house, he sat in my living room and asked me what I needed from him as a leader. That's a, that's, you're establishing a relationship.
And if you don't have a foundation of relationship, you will never influence anybody. Be anxiously engaged, right? Going back to Cynthia's question, if you don't establish an effective relationship, you will never be able to motivate anybody or influence them to motivate themselves, right? Uh, one thing I did as, as a bishop, I remember walking in the clerk's office, opening the store, and there was like stacks and stacks of, of, uh, paper, what do you call it?
Uh, has the church logo, had my name as the bishop on the envelopes, right? Um, and just these sta stacks of paper with the church logo and the ward name. And so I thought, you know, I'm gonna take these and every day I'm gonna write one letter to one member in my ward. And it took five to 10 minutes every day, and I'd write this letter out and I put it in an old school envelope, put a stamp on it and send it off. And there was that, what that did for people. So simple.
But I remember individuals coming up to me and saying, like, I got your letter. I've read it several times. It just means so much that you take the time to send me a letter, right? So again, I'm facilitating relationship. And then when it comes time for us to come together and motivate the group, they're more likely to respond to my request because they have a relationship with me. So that's number one, relationship. Number two, autonomy.
Facilitating autonomy, giving autonomy for the bishop, for the release, society president, whomever to, or we'll stick with the bishop, for the bishop to turn the release study president. Say, you do whatever you want. Like, I'm not gonna micromanage you. I'm gonna disagree with half the stuff you do, but you lean in and you do it. When you empower another leader as their leader with autonomy, you will transform a ward, right? If you have a anxiously engaged ward council, you will change a ward.
The culture, everything, right? So going back to that question, I, I mean, this is the root of all the questions, like, how do I motivate people to Cynthia's question, what what autonomy could you give to people as the relief society president? I don't know if Cynthia's a relief side president, I'm just assuming. So as a relief side president, you give autonomy to those you lead.
Don't dictate to them, here's your five families and or your five ladies that you're gonna minister to, and you're gonna like it, and we're gonna meet every week, and I'm gonna, you know, hold you to it. That if you don't visit them or text them, but to sit with each individual and say, what do you think? Like, how can you minister in this, in this group? What could you do? Right?
Like, and again, I, it always sounds easier on paper than it really is, but, but giving autonomy is so empowering for, and I did a whole series, right? An eight part series about, uh, uh, stake presidencies. Man, if the stake president could just give autonomy to towards, to just do what you want. We're not giving you stake programs, we're not giving you stake goals. Just what do you need from us? We're here to help you succeed through your own autonomy.
I mean, there's so many gospel principles there. So that's number two. So, relationships, autonomy, uh, number three, these aren't, these may seem all over the place. One big thing I learned is the connection between trauma and sin. Oh, man. You know, as a leader, I remember being that bishop and I, I, one individual who was like my same age. We had very similar backgrounds, but for whatever reason, I was on one side of the bishop's desk as the bishop.
He was on the other side of the bishop's desk as the sinner, right? And I, I used to sit there, think, what's so different about us? How did I land in this chair? And he landed in that chair. And at the end of the day, I realized that individuals have experienced certain levels of trauma. Uh, they have different DNA, they have different experiences. Uh, they have different, uh, I don't know, their, their life was just different that led to this point.
That the reason they're sinning is a, a, a manifestation of all of those things. But as leaders, we approach sin as like, Hey, dude, as a very behavioral focus, just stop doing the, stop looking at the porn. I mean, that's what I do. I just don't look at porn. Have you thought about not looking at porn? Right? And they're looking at you like, are you kidding me? Like, you don't, you don't understand me. You don't understand why I do these things.
And when you look into it, a lot of people who struggle with addiction, if not all of them, have a significant traumatizing event or events in their background. So it's not about the sin, it's about their history, about their background. That if you can address that, suddenly the sin diminishes and goes away. And so that's a, a big thing that I keep coming back to that man, if I could do the bishop thing over again, I would see sin so much differently.
Again, the sin will corrupt you. Sin is evil. Sin will, uh, rot you from the core out. Uh, but there's a reason why people turn to sin and why they don't turn to Jesus. And our role as leaders is to help reconcile that through resources of therapy, through resources of, uh, the gospel, through resources of grace. So that's the third thing. Revelation, autonomy, trauma, and sin. Fourth, one, revelation isn't what you think it is.
Uh, I see so many leaders get caught up in this, uh, this trap of like waiting for like the scroll of heaven to drop through the ceiling and like tell them what to do and who to call where, and whatever. And, uh, one of my favorite leadership scriptures, 1 28 verse, uh, doctrine of covenants 1 28 verse nine. It may seem to some to be a very bold doctrine. I love it. How it starts at the very bold doctrine. That this is a bold doctrine. That revelation is a two-way street.
It can start in heaven and come down to the leader, which is cool. I've experienced that. Like, wow. Like, I, I can almost feel that revelation enter my brain, or it starts here with our life, experiencing, making decisions, uh, making a call that doesn't always work out. And guess what? It goes up to heaven. It's stamped with revelation. And it's, and it's good enough, .
And so revelation, I think, and we tie ourselves in knots a lot with being like, well, you know, this church leader said that, but it didn't work out. And so are they really speaking for God? Or we sort of, you know, again, tie ourselves in knots because we're thinking, well, shouldn't they just know? Aren't they the, the mouthpiece of God for my ward? Shouldn't they just know, like, well, revelation doesn't work like that. It's a wrestle, it's a push and pull. And, uh, I have no, no problem.
When a leader makes a decision, does a thing, and it falls flat on its face and think, okay, well that was revelation. Yeah, but it just didn't work out. Revelation doesn't mean it's perfect, right? So that's the fourth thing. Relationship, autonomy, trauma and sin revelation isn't what you think it is. And last one, the power of experimenting. We get so caught up in this, uh, what does the handbook say? You know, what did the last guy do? What's the tradition?
And well, we can't do that differently 'cause it's always been done that way. And in fact, I think you're supposed to do it that way. I mean, just experimenting. And I see the such success in organizations that I interview the leaders when they have a sense of experimenting. Let's try this for a little while. What if we did come follow me differently? What if the Sunday School Hour looked like this? What if we didn't call Elders Corps instructors? What if we called 30 Elders Corps instructors?
What if we called, uh, I don't know. I mean this experimenting, but 'cause we, again, we put ourselves in this box of revelation saying like, if we make a decision as a bishop, Rick, it's got to be perceived of the war that it's revelation, which means it's gotta work. So we like triple down on these bad ideas when it's like, we gotta be okay coming back and saying, I was just an experiment, didn't work. Or we need to adjust it. And that's okay.
Um, and then, uh, lastly, the power of just involving more people in the process. Like, I love the idea of having a ward council, and I don't mean a ward council with 10 or so people who are the, the leaders in the ward, but literally inviting the entire ward at least once a year to say, we're meeting at this place in the cultural hall.
Pull up a chair. We wanna know what you want from this ward, what your expectations of the ward are, how we can better stimulate a more spiritual experience for you on Sunday. We wanna hear it, we want the feedback. Now, we, that doesn't mean you get to dictate what we do as a bishop breaker, elders court president, or at least sighted president, but we want to hear it, right? I did post, uh, there's five . I did these lists, and then I forget the list.
But there are five reasons for negative church culture. One of them is the lack of self-awareness, man, that, that I probably would say about everyone. But that one would probably be the most if a leader can work on being more self-aware, right? Don't assume that things are going well in the war. Don't assume that people like your decisions. Don't assume that people wanna serve where you are putting them to serve. But the more you ask questions, the more you survey you more you ask for feedback.
Um, you know, even catching someone in the hall and being like, you know what? You were in sacrament today. Like, how did that go? What'd you think? Did that work? Do you like how we have two, you know, a youth speaker and two adult speakers? What could we do differently? Um, and then , here's the thing. I, you know, I just like any person, I visit so many different wards around the church, right? Everybody, I mean, almost everybody still doesn't intermediate him.
Does anybody realize like the intermediate him is like that got done away with long ago. Like there's no reason to do an intermediate Him. You could do so many different things, but everybody does. Oh, we gotta do an intermediate him, right? , do something different, right? If I was Bishop, again, just thinking in the context of Sacra meeting, I would probably, for a while, like three months, we're gonna start every sacra meeting with a musical number. That's right. Church is at nine.
Someone's gonna start singing at nine o'clock from the lectern. And how did that work? Did that work? Okay? People hated it. People loved it. Let's keep doing it. Right? Or I don't know, like, there's just trying different things experiment. And that's why, you know, I harp on this in the, in the newsletter, God gave you priesthood keys, right? Or you're acting under priesthood keys. Somebody has the keys. These are keys or permission to govern the church in your area.
So govern it. Turn, put the key in the engine, turn it and experiment. Try some things. We too often hold onto too closely the handbook. And that may seem like a controversial phrase, and I don't wanna, this is hearsay. Uh, but what surprised me most about working with a church and talking with specific individuals who work inside the church is, I've heard more often than not the frustration that, uh, church organizations feel that leaders are so hyper-focused on the handbook.
And they're not trying to, the local adaptation concept is not being implemented. Run with it. And if someone doesn't like it, they will let you know, Hey Bishop, why are you doing that? Why? Well, tell me about it. Hey, you know, gimme three months. Let's just see how it goes. Like having that tough conversation between a bishop and a state president is worth it, right? So those are the five things. Let's go back to the comments here. Robert says, I love this experimentation mode.
Um, we do have primary kids praying and speaking in Sacra meeting right now. Awesome. Love it. Live life in beta man. If I was to get a tattoo, um, the church wants the local leaders to have more autonomy, but the local leaders are afraid to Yeah. It, it's easier to just be told what to do, right? Absolutely. How can we encourage leaders to discuss and train adults youth about sexual abuse, prevention, personal safety, healthy boundaries, and how we should handle it if it happens?
You know, me, I kind of, I sometimes say things that are controversial, okay? Obviously, is it important for kids to know about, um, or adults and youth to know about sexual abuse prevention? Absolutely. Is it important for them to know about personal safety, healthy boundaries? Absolutely. Is it crucial that, um, church leaders, adult leaders know about the policies the church has in place? Uh, you know, too deep leadership, um, primary things, youth training, absolutely Critical.
Critical that if there's a youth leader, they've gone through the, uh, youth training, youth pro protection training. Absolutely. Now, with that said, it's not the church's job. Uh, or it's not the leader's job to discuss and train adults and youth about sexual abuse, prevention, personal safety, healthy boundaries, and how we should handle it happens.
Now in the church context, again, there are some things we need to make sure we do, but this is, um, the church gets a lot of grief about, Hey, you're not doing enough to, you know, to solve this problem that people are struggling with. At the end of the day, it's not the church's job. The church's job is to facilitate the ordinances of the restored gospel, make ordinances available, make church available, make re re renewing ordinances available, and to teach the gospel, right?
I mean, I'm, that's a terrible paraphrase of, but we sort of get in this groove of like, oh no, the church needs to like have a 10, 10 step training program to stop abuse and make sure that, you know, again, it's not that it's not their job. However, if a parent has questions, like, I don't wanna, I'm scared for my 11-year-old to grow up in this world, and, and what about things they're experiencing at school? Whenever, my hope is they can go to their church leader and say, I need some help.
What do you know of any resources? And I would hope that leader would say, oh yeah, here's five, here's five books you can read. Here's three local therapists you can reach out to. Here's this program that's been put on by this nonprofit, whatever. But so many times we put on the shoulders these responsibilities that are important. They're just not the church's job. Right? Again, a little controversial, you can push back. Um, here's, here's Jared. Jared, how always has good insights.
I think because the church creates opportunities for adults and youth to interact together, may feel it the church's job to better facilitate youth protection training. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to a point. The church has a responsibility to provide youth protection training in the context of how do we protect youth in the church context, right? To deep leadership. Don't, you know, be alone with the youth or whatever.
Like, yeah, those things are good, but to have this like, to be the one-stop shop for all things, that's you not, uh, not that. Um, okay, here's another good question. I understand Leading Saints is more than a podcast, but with so many latter-Day Saint podcasts out there that say they are trying to help people's faith, do you think these podcasts has overall helped strengthen members' faith? It doesn't have to be yes or no. In which way? Yes.
And which way? No. And how do you think Leading Saints has done overall? What do you wish you could do more or different? So yeah, this is, here's the thing is that, um, I think at the end of the day, and again, nobody from the church has told me this per se, but the feeling I get sometimes is that just like any organization, we sometimes want to go back to the 1980s and 1990s, right? Of being like, you know, we could just control the message then, right?
And now we're, they're getting, uh, that's the issue a lot of people have is you didn't tell me this in the eighties and nineties. Well, I mean, every organization didn't say things in the eighties and nineties because you could control a message. And I'm a marketing guy, okay? Like from a PR perspective, every organization does that. And that's, I'm okay with that, and I get that it caused hurt and whatnot, and you wish she had more information. I know that some people struggle with that.
Um, but I do feel like sometimes our culture, the church, however you wanna frame it, sort of wishes some of these podcasts would go away. Or like, like, this isn't a faith promoting podcast. This podcast is causing people to leave the church. Yeah, maybe. Um, but I think the more discussion people can have, the better, right? And that's our goal with Leading Saints. One of our big goals is that we want leaders to wrestle with some of these concepts so that they're better prepared.
I remember being a bishop and on a Tuesday night, just having a list of like four names on my calendar. I had no clue what they wanted to talk about. They walked in there with an issue, a concern, a problem. They'd laid it on my desk and they wanted me to talk about it in a, in a hopeful, encouraging way. And I didn't even know what was there.
So my hope is that whatever a leader faces, my hope is leading Saints is a place that we can have the discussion, get the wheels turning, uh, help you help individuals think through, ask some tough questions so that when that happens, when they're faced with things in life, they're better prepared. And I would say that for many podcasts, there's some podcasts that, um, I would say, hmm, I probably wouldn't listen to that.
There's one many, I I, I monitor them, mainly all of them, as much as I can just see what people are putting out there. But oftentimes I wouldn't, or I would say, you know, I, you can listen to that, but I, I don't think it's faith promoting, which is fine, but just so you know, right? Um, so I, I, but nonetheless, I think where these online platforms, whether they're podcasts, Instagram accounts, um, we need more of it. I mean, especially faith promoting ones.
If you feel a desire to step onto that field and create content, I encourage you to do it because the algorithms and the nature of man leads to the cynical opinions, the, you know, and so we need, we need responses to those. We need to show that, you know, the gospel actually works for a lot of people, a lot of people.
This is a healthy framework in life that stimulates faith, stimulates surrender, stimulates repentance, and leads people to Jesus, which is a healing mechanism to survive mortality and to progress in a healthy way. Like that message needs to be, needs to be shouted. I get that there's stories and there's things that maybe that doesn't work out like that, but generally speaking, it is a very healthy life structure, uh, to engage in.
If you want a life that's generally joyful, a life that allows you to reconcile really difficult things, uh, really difficult happenstance. Uh, so yeah, lean in. I I would never, I mean, that's the beauty of following Jesus Christ, is that he is the answer, like, you will find peace in him. That's his promise. And I've experienced that promise over and over. So I don't know, hopefully I'm answering that question.
Okay. Here's a, do you think, yeah, Cynthia's really bringing some, some, uh, some good ones here. Do you think members realize there is a spiritual battle out there with real bad spirits? It's an interesting question. Um, I would say that is part of Satan's tactics is to make life, make people okay with life being hard, where they don't realize they're being spiritually assaulted. Like there is, uh, you know, the term in the broader Christian community, they use as spiritual warfare.
Like, uh, this isn't like God or, or Satan wants to, uh, tempt you and make you stumble. Like, no, he wants to destroy you. He wants to destroy your family. He wants to destroy it all. He wants you to be miserable. He wants you to, uh, find any other coping mechanism, even if it's pretty good. That's not Jesus Christ. Like he wants to destroy you. And so, yeah, that, I, I would say generally speaking, um, leaders would be benefited.
They would be blessing their word by bringing a very strong direct message about sin that it will destroy you, right? And we, we love all, we, we accept everybody where they're, and they can sin the rest of their life, and they're welcome here. But when push comes to shove and they're really struggling with life, and they turn to you and say, I just can't figure this out, it's okay to say sin will destroy you.
You need to figure out where you're turning away from God and repent and turn to him and figure out ways where you're coping and turn to him. Um, this is another big issue is that, uh, you know, along the same lines, many leaders think they've sort of figured sin out, like, right? Because they don't struggle with the stigmatized sins of maybe porn or, um, I mean, that's, they don't like sexual sin or, uh, you know, they go to church and it's not hard for them to go to church.
And so they assume, I think I'm doing okay. Like, no, like the adversary is still coming for you and you're still sitting in ways, but they just may not have as much stigma, right? This is something I'm, I'm constantly wrestling with. Hey, here's a, if you want to go hear my, a little bit, my story, I meant to promote this a little bit more. Go to the podcast unashamed unafraid and listen to the recent episode I did.
I talk about my story and the sin that I struggle with, and, uh, there's a teaser for you. All right? You go check it out. Great comments and discussions going there. Imagine you can have these type of discussions all the time over at the Leading Saints community. So, uh, and you can go to the community. If you go to leading saints.org/fourteen, that will, you'll end up there. How can I be involved in Leading Saints? Well, you can email us at leading saints.org/contact.
We probably, we need someone like that, someone that just manages our, um, manages our volunteers. 'cause there's, there's a lot of people that wanna volunteer. Um, and sometimes I'm just so busy and I give 'em tasks. And so, uh, but email us and give us, you know, what you're good at. Can you do admin? Can you, uh, work on project management? And I'm sure there's a place we can find for you there. Hey, man, we're gonna do more of these live streams.
I got it all co coordinated and we're gonna do deep dive. I'm gonna have guests like, um, uh, Jared and Robert. Come on guys, you know, you'll help me out. You always have great opinions and we'll, we'll just have live streams and talk about specific concepts. Um, how do you deal with people who talk too much in meetings? They seem to have an opinion on everything and share it regardless, regardless if it's relevant to the discussion.
Uh, some people would say something but can't, due to the other person who are constantly talking and effectively taking over the meeting. People don't have hours to sit in meetings, having to listen to these people. , uh, we all been there. Am I right? We pray for you. Uh, yeah. So meetings again. We have a whole virtual library meetings with Saints, so worth it. It was launched March, 2020, uh, if you'll remember, March, 2020, something happened that was very distracting.
And so very few people saw this virtual conference that is now a virtual library. So, but such good interviews about how to run meetings. This is my thoughts to it. It really comes down to the person presiding over the meeting. Uh, he's gotta shut that down. And if I was in your shoes, I would, uh, and I've done this, I did this with the state president, I served with, uh, I, uh, schedule a personal meeting with him.
And I just said, I want you to know I really struggle with thi this meeting, specific meeting, and this is why. And I went through it. He took the information, A few things changed, but you know, at the end of the day, it's up to the person presiding, and you have, um, you have a choice. Yeah. You, you have agency whether to be in that meeting, and if it's too much, you have agency to go to that leader and say, I just can't do that meeting anymore. Um, uh, in, in my opinion, uh, meetings.
I mean, there were cancer that just grows, right? Like everything's gotta be handled in a meeting. Uh, by the time I was done being bishop, I had the last few years of being Bishop, I, we met as a bishoprick for 30 minutes once a week. That's it, right? Because we use things like Asana, a project management tool to get discussion going and making sure that we know who's bringing brownies to the barbecue type of thing, right?
We, we, or to put names in on potential people we could call to a certain position, right? We didn't handle it in meetings. So emails, project management, you've gotta give other venues for people to do this. Or they're gonna feel like, all right, I'm in this meeting, I have this thing I wanna talk about, I've gotta talk, I've gotta talk, I've gotta talk, right? And then people roll their eyes and think, why are you doing it in here?
So if I were in your position, I would have that meeting with that leader and say, I really struggle with meetings. Let me tell you why. This is just feedback. Uh, I would maybe recommend they check out the meetings with Saints Virtual Library. And, uh, and then if you don't, if it's not a helpful meeting, just don't go controversy, right? You can't, you gotta go to a meeting, do you? I don't know. All right, here's a question, Robert, how's the cash flow deleting Saints going?
Are you continuing to gain large money donors? In addition to my pennies, Robert, every penny of yours is counted, prayed over, appreciated. So thank you. Seriously. Like people who give no matter how much, $5 a month, $12 a year, uh, it is so cool. I just, and I've talked to other nonprofit people, you know, that run nonprofits related to the church, and a lot of them are like, no, you should never ask for money from people. It should, you just go get large donors and make it work.
But I like the dynamic that Robert here is like, he's sending in money to make leading Saints happen. Like, I don't think I've ever want that to go away, even if some bazillionaire in the church comes and just dumps money on us. I think there's, just to be part of this effort is, is a blessing. And so we appreciate that. This leads to another question I got is how does Kurt get paid ? I get this question a lot. People are like, so you run a nonprofit, imagine, uh, it's a little awkward.
I just moved into award American Fork, and you know, people naturally like, oh, what's your name? Where are you from? What do you do for work? And I'm like, well, I'm a podcaster. I produce a podcast. And they're like, oh, what is it? Like, well, leading Saints, we talk about church leadership and it's a nonprofit, and they think nonprofit. So that means you don't earn any profit, and that means you don't get paid. So how do you live right now? That is not what a nonprofit is.
Nonprofits just a tax status. Anyways, I digress. Uh, so how do I get paid? How's donations going? First of all, yes, I do get paid for Leading Saints. Uh, a nonprofit 5 0 1 C3 is governed by a board of directors. We have a board of directors, and they determine they are, essentially, their role is to be, uh, completely responsible for any fiduciary responsibility, right?
Any finances. So, um, they vote and determine what my salary is, and I, as the person receiving the money, I'm not allowed to vote because I just put it all in my account, right? No. But, uh, yeah, they vote and determine my salary. So I get a salary. This is my job, right? Uh, so I get a living wage and, uh, I'm essentially a contractor to, uh, leading Saints and they pay me and to do the what I do.
So that's how I get paid. Now, we bring in donations, one through the, the core leader effort, which Robert is a core leader. And so we, we would ask all of you to give something like, even if it's a dollar a month, I just want all of you who've benefited any level to give something to Leading Saints. It doesn't have to be a lot. Or you might think, oh, that won't make a difference.
The difference it makes is that you've, it, it mentally, um, commits you to this movement, to this effort, and you'll feel part of it. And that's very satisfying to lay your head on the pillow at night, realizing that you're making a difference by, by giving something, right? So we have the people that are subscribing donors. That's a good chunk. When we do virtual conferences, we're able to fundraise quite a bit there.
And then, uh, we have large donors who, um, right, very generous, uh, donations. Uh, now is it enough? No. At the end of the day, uh, we, we cannot go on forever as we are now. Uh, we need to, and somebody else asked this question, as a nonprofit, how would you use a big donation? So , if somebody billionaire came and said, you get all the money you need, what do you wanna do? Uh, we need to hire three people at least, uh, to get things going.
Uh, we're branching out, or, or one thing we're attempting to start in 2024. I've said this before, but we really wanna start a Spanish podcast. No, I'm not going to be a host of that. Do I speak Spanish? Well, yeah, like a 2-year-old speaks Spanish, but, uh, find a native speaker to do that would be like their part-time job to produce content for leading Saints, right?
So there's so much more we can do to, to create, I, I mean, there's so much content that we could turn into books that we can turn into easily accessible resources for leaders for that. When you go to your bishop and you're like, have you listened to the Leading Saints podcast? And they look at you and they're like, what's a podcast? It would be maybe better say, have you read the Leading Saints book? And they're like, oh, I like books. I'll read that. Right?
Like, there's so much more we could do there to just create better quality content on a higher level to bless more lives, right? Uh, it is my dream to have a leadership section in Desiree book right now. Desiree book. Not My Pig, not my Farm. I mean, I don't know how they run or if they be open to that generally. I think they avoid leadership content for, uh, reasons I discussed earlier. But there's a missionary section, there's a Come follow me section.
Why not a, uh, leadership section, right? So we wanna be prolific that way of creating leadership content to get more and more, uh, content out there. So that's what we would do. I mean, maybe we'd have actual office space. I wouldn't have to be in this home office in my house, um, just, you know, uh, a Portuguese podcast, an Italian podcast, a Tagal podcast, you know, whatever it is, just to get this, this information that's so helpful to so many leaders around the world.
So hopefully that answers your question. So the cash flow is good. We're not like, I'm not like begging people, large donors to donate to keep us alive, but we definitely could use more. So yes, Robert, we need your pennies and everybody else's. Please go to leading saints.org/donate, hit the big donate button on, on, on the website and just give something, right something and, and we'll give you access to the library, which is so valuable. Alright, question from Kale. Chips of evil.
Now come on. I like kale chips. Um, or maybe I know cute name. Nonetheless. Do you think it's a good idea to put a scripture reading group together among the adults and especially teachers to help promote involvement? Or is that just more meetings? I'll tell you, Cal Chips of evil. Absolutely. I do not think we're leveraging that enough. Like Sunday School is really struggling right now, and, and it shouldn't be, right? I mean, come follow me is so amazing, such fantastic resources.
Um, I would guess that your Sunday school class experience is less than ideal. And I don't mean to criticize these beautiful institutions in the church. That's just where we're at, right? We're in this, we're still trying to figure out the Come Follow Me thing. But when it was announced, I think it was Elder Cook, right? He was like, he gave permission to have these small groups.
If I was Sunday School, president, Bishop, whatever, I would definitely make sure that things are happening in the homes of members across the board, even. Here's another related idea. You think of the activities committee or the type of activities we do, if you were to guess are words having the activity, where would it be at the church in the cultural hall, right? And great lots of space. And I'm on the Activities committee actually right now, and, um, and doing a Word podcast.
So what I would like to move things to or suggest if for an activities committee, instead of like waiting for Christmas or the Chili Cookoff or the summer barbecue, what if you use those funds to buy ice cream a a thing of ice cream and, and go to a member and say, here's some ice cream. I need you to invite two other families over to your house. Don't you dare eat this ice cream without having eating it with two other families in your home, right? This is something we do in our home.
We have these ice cream nights where we invite people, that alone stimulates more friendship. And if you could do that on a higher scale with an award, um, people are gonna know each other, right? So, uh, yeah, absolutely. This is not another meeting. It's a community engagement opportunity, right? A meeting's like, all right, who's presiding? What's the agenda? What do we, what problems are we solving?
But for people to come together and study the scriptures, sending to a president should be stimulating that they should be assigning people, brother Jones, brother Caleb of evil, kale, chips of evil. You need to have so-and-So, uh, you need to have two other families over to your house. I need you to prepare a lesson, uh, you know, or prepare a lesson or pre prepare some discussion topics and invite these people over and do it. And I'm gonna follow up, right?
Like, um, but most people, it's just, again, living in 2024, it's just like so overwhelming. Just, oh, I got, I got people in my house, gotta clean my house, and oh, what nights available every night's, you know? But again, you're just gotta massage this. And, and some people say, you know, I can't do that. And be like, okay, thank you for telling me that. I'll move on the next person. So the question, how do you accept people as they are? What is the way to sideline your bias? Hmm.
So what you do is you go, uh, you wait a few weeks until the book is God Disappointed In Me, by Kurt Frankham comes out and you buy that book. And I talk, I have chapters about this concept. Here's a phrase, okay? Maybe let's say you're youth, you have a, a teenager that's doing things that are really disappointing for you.
Um, you take 'em out to ice cream or pull 'em aside one night and you just say, I want you to know, like you do some things that are kind of frustrating for me, but you could never change. You could do those things the rest your life. And I just want you to know I love you. Like I will always love you no matter what decision you make. Right? Now, you're inside, you're screaming, but Right. You wanna say, but it's expected of you.
No, just say it like that. Like I, you know, you can say that I'm, I'm, there's certain rules and things that we need to live by, but I just want you to know, no matter what decision you make, I'm here for you. I just, I'll sit with you, I'll sit with you, um, whoever it is in the ward come to come to Ward. I'll sit with you in the pews, right? We actually have a, a married gay couple that comes to our ward. I sit by him, right? Do I agree, agree with all decisions they're making in life?
Well, I don't agree with most decisions. Most people in my ward are making . Like, if I really followed 'em around and be like, ah, you shouldn't, you shouldn't do that. Right? I can sit with 'em. So that phrase is so powerful. You could never talk to me again. You could never follow the rules in my house again, and I still love you. We're so, we sort of hyperfocus on the, the expectations. It's expected of you to do this, right?
So anyways, I hope that helps it, it's a, it's a tough situation and that's why I explore it at length in that book. I All right. Question. How does, how does, or can your content help members whom per personality traits are far from leadership? They don't want to lead. Mm-Hmm. . So, yeah, I get that. I, I assume this is in the same bane of like, all right, like my bishop, like, I get these questions, right?
Hey, Kurt, listen, my, my bishop love the guy well intentioned, doesn't have a clue how to lead. How can I like, get him listening to your, your podcast, or, I want you to know, I signed up my bishop for your newsletter. He doesn't know it, but I entered his email. I'm like, okay, don't do that. I mean, nobody likes an email that they didn't ask for. Um, this is what I do to every ward I move into. Um, and you can do the same, it's maybe a little more personal sense.
It's sort of my podcast, but I say, Hey, listen. Um, you, you often ask like, what if there's anything you could do for us? Like, let let you know, and, and I have something that you can do. And, and it's really easy. Uh, I'm gonna just send you three links. There are two podcasts episodes. Um, it's about church leadership. And, um, you, you can subscribe if you want. You don't have to, but, uh, will you, what I, what would mean a lot for me is for you to listen to these three episodes.
Would you be willing to do that? Like, I get, you can't listen to 10, but I'm just asking for three and , and I mean, that's, I do that and it means so much when they listen and, uh, obviously it's, uh, work that I, obviously I'm personally connected to. But, um, so just ask them to like, just, just take a bite, because the big problem leading these saints faces is that people don't know they need it until they try it.
And so if we can get them to try it, usually they're like, oh, or, or usually it's an ability problem, right? I, I don't even know how to subscribe to a podcast. Many leaders would say that. Can I show you? Like, I'll show you what you, you got an Apple? Oh, great. We'll go to Apple podcast and you know, we search this. Now you hit subscribe, and now it's gonna like notify you when a new episode comes out, and maybe you'll listen to it, just check out the title and maybe listen to it.
But if you could listen to these three episodes, that would mean a lot for me. And could we talk about that after, right? So just an idea, okay? Uh, here's a quick one. Outside of Leading Saints, what is your favorite podcast to listen to? I came up with four Unashamed and Afraid subscribe and listen to every episode. I love a good redemption story, and I love the, the, the people behind it and their hearts. It's so good. And you can start with the episode I was on number two.
I love the Cultural Hall podcast. Richie's a good friend of mine. We talk several times a week. Um, and this week in Mormons, I actually, uh, personally own that podcast. I acquired it. Long story. But hey, listen to it. Uh, and I'm actually on this weekend's episode, um, and for the Art of Manliness podcast, um, love, love the, the work of McKay, uh, Brett McKay, he's been a former guest leading Saints.
I've tried to get him back on the podcast, but he, he won, agree to it because he is so good at saying no to things. Um, so those are the four that come to mind. Share your, uh, your thoughts in the comments. Your favorite podcast as well. Faith Matters is good. I, you know, they definitely talk about really tough issues that, uh, may be considered. So here's a, here's a good one. What can women do to better in the church to support the men, especially the elders quo, um, women.
Um, uh, and again, it's not like, uh, this is sort of tricky 'cause it's not like men want women to tell them what to do to be better men, right? Uh, but, uh, give them Wild At Heart. The book. Have them read wild, or first I'll tell this is, this is better. Women need to go read Wild At Heart by John Eldridge. Mm-Hmm, . And, uh, invite them to attend one of our men's retreats. I know these are sort of big ones, but here's a simple, the simplest and simple things you can do.
Encourage them to go have adventure. And that may be making sure that they're golfing once, uh, once a week or every other week, or making sure they're going on regular fishing trips, if that's their thing. Encourage 'em to go hunting, encouraging them to go out. The, the boys, uh, have guy I do, you know, guy movie nights, which I love, and that feeds my heart as a man. Um, like, connection with other men is crucial. I can't emphasize that enough. Crucial.
So, um, it's easy for women to sort of be like, no, you need to be home. Like, no, we're going to this thing, and you gotta go to Jimmy's soccer game, and you've got to make time for men to go adventure and feed their masculine heart. So, uh, Chris Clark says, Kurt, that's a good question in regards of, with having persons involved with Sunday School. This is a big question, but how can we as a ward or branch help out members? I just do it, right?
Like, Chris, you need to in two weeks, all right? You gotta report back, invite two families over and discuss, come follow me. You just start somewhere. And as by the end of it, they're gonna be like, wow, that was like, really good. And be like, Hey, I just wanna invite you guys. This is what I did. I just invited two people over. Will you invite two people over to your home in a couple weeks or, right? Like, is that, is that what you're getting at anyways?
So you just gotta do it. You gotta, like, regardless of you're calling, you don't need to in be like, well, how can I convince the Sunday School president to do this? Or How can I convince the Bishop just do it? Right? Like, I have zero authority in my elder's quorum, but every week or every other week, I invite a group of men over to my house and we watch a movie, or we just chat or, uh, you know, we just went and saw Boys in the Boat. Phenomenal movie. Highly recommend it, right?
Like, uh, just do it. , Nike, okay? Uh, I'd be interested, like, when do you wanna see live streams, evenings, Saturday mornings? Lunchtimes be interesting to know. Uh, obviously there's no perfect time, but, um, my last request, like, uh, we're an independent organization. We need your donations. Um, like, just give something, even if anybody, if probably, unless you're in the slums of India or something, uh, you can give something a dollar a month. Come on, you can do that, right?
I just want to give something not only to help us keep funded and keep it going and, and this information. If I can show larger donors, like look at the support we have from individuals around the world giving something, they're more of like, Hmm, maybe I should, uh, donate tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars to our, your organization. So help us out that way. Just give something, uh, get into the content, get into the, the community, and help us reach more leaders.
I just, and I should go through and read these stories of leaders. Oh, man, it is so touching to hear the impact we're having. You guys, this is, uh, I need to do better at like, articulating the impact. Like leaders, like stake presidents, mission presidents, elders, quo presidents, really cited presidents, uh, executive secretaries in other countries.
Like, I get the email saying, this episode helped me so much, and we're doing things differently, like, no organization, and I'll stand by this statement and tell my dying day. No organization is in a better position to influence negative culture. If you experience negative culture in the church, then leading saints even, we are even more able to do it effectively, even more than the, the church institution itself. All right, mic drop, take it or leave it.
But that's the truth. We have such an opportunity to create influence here, and we need your help to do it, so make it happen. Alright, guys. Um, there it is. Let's, let's use an old school phrase from Leading Saints, right? Thanks for tuning in. Be a leader, not a calling.