Jesus broke the rules okay then let us just admit that we’re asking people to subversively build the kingdom that’s missionary gold there is no way that we can’t as a organization do these kinds of things that is the way to get to people in the 21st century through missionary work if
You think you’re going to make missionary work work by going and knocking doors you’re wrong people join the church generally when they make a solid connection with another Latter-Day Saint or even more so multiple latterday Saints who are invested in the things that they’re invested in for who like sounds
Wicked dude it’d be amazing he’s going to have to call the church office building and we all know exactly what they’re going to say what a great way for you to have your kid try different things people you really bond with aren’t just people who share your value
The State president all he has to do is say will help promote this look out at the world around us there are people who have interests and they are bored and they are looking for human connection and Community welcome ladies and gentlemen back to Ward radio I’m your host
Cardinellis I’m joined in the studio by Britney the shadow as well as via the interwebs by Jonah Barnes and Jacob Hansen of thoughtful Faith who has a wow this is a pretty uh this is a pretty Saucy thumbnail that this will revolutionize the church are you trying
To start a revolution or do you have an idea that will revolutionize the church I had to bring my wife Britney along to hear this because it sounds like you got a pretty big idea what is it Jacob Hansen go you know me I’m the Revolutionary here so here’s what uh I’m
Thinking so I it kind of goes back to working with young men now uh in the church in the youth programs for over a decade now and I worked in different Stakes both here uh where I’m in Nevada and then also in Arizona so I’ve been around I’ve seen kind of different uh
Different layouts of the church in different locations and there’s as you consider the young men’s program for a lot of us that are in the young men we got rid of the scouting program and there’s a sense of like uh that that created sort of a really nice
Structure for any of its issues it created a good structure for the church so a lot of people right now are trying to figure out like what do we do in the current environment with the young men and I’m going to start because this goes beyond the young men’s organization is
That your euphemism for the floundering that I would say our young men’s program is in but okay you can whatever that that was much prettier and sweeter smelling much nicer yeah that was much nicer well they they they did come out with with a program that was supposed to
Be goal oriented and some of that can you name it no they didn’t I’m not gonna say it’s been branded very well okay utter failure is maybe the thought that came to mind but no I’m just kidding but well well here’s the thing you guys you guys were in the young
Men’s program like what are the things that you remember most that were the most impactful things you think the things that like you really remember and think about what were they um The Naked polar bears swim in the Pacific coast and wow you runs into the ocean in the
Morning at 6:00 a.m. you are part of like a like a high adventure trip or something you all did that a yeah was a hazing at Camp Merryweather you had to get up one night at one morning everybody just runs to the surf and jumps in you’re freezing and you’re red
All over and it was great that wow you are from the Pacific Northwest holy smoke that would never fly in the warm Waters of Southern California Southern California it’s like like you know snorkeling we were snorkeling next to Manta our water that warm um well during
When you get the summer uh during the summer they’re actually slightly colder because you get the down currents from Alaska they will get warmed by the summer sun and the fact that it is summer but then also every once in a while you get lucky in the winters and
You get updrafts from like the the the southern tropical climates I I’m scared of sharks I never really go the ocean yeah that’s true we lost boys we lost boys with those polar bear swims and you Californians like yeah you’re like your parents had to sign a waiver like we’re
Going to swim in the ocean yeah so anyway what do we like at the drop of the Hat I could think it was awesome because there was first off uh uh potential for Community there was the Boy Scout uh actual troop itself that you had friends in but there was also
The Boy Scout basketball league that we participated in there was also tons of camps where he made friends from other kids in the area it was phenomenal socially and as a sense of community it was great spiritually also you actually had to ask big questions because if you
Go to yosee and you see Half Dome Peak and you look at something that profound you can’t help but think big questions and it grew me spiritually not just in the trit little Mormon way like oh my gosh like I love the book I’m Mormon now
It was actually like whoa I am nothing compared to the Grandeur of this thing that I just saw you know it was a humbling experience so there was that spiritual growth right and then the third is the practicality of it I learned so many things when you get your
Eagle Scout there’s 21 different little things that you become a mini expert in like everything from fingerprinting on the low end to not tying on the mid-end to all of a sudden more profound things like how to put together a giant project like your Eagle Scout project so yeah I
Could name 15 ways that being parts of a part of that program as a young man was wildly beneficial and yeah and same thing for me I mean I loved it my whole family went through this scouting program my dad was got Master forever and uh the thing I remember I think it
Was you make these boys go off on these campouts and they like they like kind of want to they kind of don’t want to but they kind of want to and you make him go out and do these hard things and they look back and they’re like well we did
Some hard things and then you’re around the campfire at night and they look up at the stars and they start to after everything’s died down and it’s way too late and someone goes so is there really a god and then you have these like really profound conversations with
Atheism cannot exist in the face of the beauty of nature yeah and and that’s what ises it puts you right out there in nature and so I was kind of It kind of breaks you down too in those sort of those sort of environments but and as I
The high adventure trips were always something that everybody talks about whether I have wait a second my ex Mormon friends say the same thing skip somebody we a bunch of misogynists that forgot to ask Britney Britney about her star gazing uh in the lean to that she made
Herself oh wait Britney skipped out on every girl’s camp you did well when I was a young man those log cabins they’re roughing it in the log cabins you know what I’m saying I was a dancer I always had dance summer camps during Girls Camp I went my first
Year um but I didn’t go any other year a let’s be honest you wi your first year the first night you absolutely hated it and you’re like Mom come pick me up we didn’t Camp as a family I didn’t grow up camping it was not our thing actually
Well you’re GNA see you’re gonna see that what I talk about when I get further into this it actually takes into account Britney’s sort of a situation here okay because we have different interests but what what happened here is that we all have these things from young
Men’s even when you talk to people who have left the church they will talk positively about their high adventure trips uh most of the young men will and they’ll say that that was cool like I I remember going out there with all those guys we backpacked for a week through
The mountains whatever it was amazing and I started thinking okay well obviously there’s the high adventure stuff but I I started to boil it down into what is it that really made those things special because there’s a bunch of different things that we do in the church but those were always something
That really worked they worked well and what they did is they got people together and it got them involved in a shared activity that they were doing together as a group in something that at least generally they had some interest in the young men actually there are activities that you learn when you’re
Planning for the Youth that they show up to because their parents make them and then there are other ones that they actually are kind of like no this is one of the fun ones like we’re going backpacking like this is cool they might even invite their non-member friends who
Might be interested in backpacking right yeah and so I started thinking well what if you know just as a church we just had like an adventure group that was organized by the stake that three times a year two or three times let’s say let’s say twice a
Year they do like a bigger adventure trip but then they have like two or three other just like overnighters and in those overnighter camps it’s sort of like you’re learning about outdoor skills to get prepared to go on the big adventure trips right and it isn’t something that is forced on all the
Young men it’s like you’re expected to go to this it’s the parents in the stake would be able to say yeah I want to register my kid for the adventure group in the stake and so then the kids that you know want to do it will will sign up
And not only that you can then say and you can invite your non-member friends right to join our our adventure group I’m assuming that the nice thing about this is that then cuz every Ward might have like two or three really high adventure guys but then like there’s the
One dude that’s like a painter and he’s not into the high adventure stuff and then there’s like The Jock that may not even be into the high adventure stuff either but man he’ll wake up at 6:00 a.m. to go play basketball with the old guys and then there’s like the total
Video Game Nerd who’s like learning to code and you have to drag along to the high adventure things and he benefits from it in the same way that all of us benefit from like general education those first two years of college but he’s not going to have a profound
Experience that’s not what he’s into he’s less likely to have that profound experience yes so so the nice thing about this if I’m smelling what you’re stepping in is that if the state would take it upon themselves to have interest groups then the individual Wards could have their kind of mandatory for
Everybody activities but then people could really flourish both socially and um practically in a community that loves their thing because there would be a high adventure group but then there would also be the basketball group or the sports group right that would go and sign up this uh quarter for softball in
The city league and then go sign up this quarter for pingpong in the rec center and then there would also be an art group or a theater group or am I am I am I interpreting this correctly yeah so so what happened was is I started thinking
About this adventure group and I’m just going to start with that because you’re right you’re getting a little bit ahead of of where I’m going with this but the basic idea is is it and then you could have like a junior adventure group for like you know the the younger kids kind
Of like how you had the the younger Scouts and then the older Scouts but the the older Scouts like you could do some really awesome adventures you know what I mean and they’d have to like maybe they’d have to earn their way into the older adventure group but the basic idea
Here is that this group this adventure group could be run by guys in the stake that want to do adventurers like older guys right like the dudes that have the boats and the Can-Ams and like dude get guys that would be like I want to be involved in the adventure group as
A leader and all of a sudden you got all of these young men that that are interested in Adventures bonding with older men that are also interested in Adventures and all of a sudden this is like the coolest thing ever and and any kid in the community who wants to come
And join with the latterday saint kids to go on this they’re going and then we incorporate spirituality things and so anyway there’s this whole Vision that kind of comes out of this is like man we can make something really awesome that that you’d have kids that are interested
In it and then their uh leaders that are interested in it and it’s something that comes from the bottom up right so why aren’t we doing it this way well we we we we hold on we can get to maybe why not but let’s just finish the vision
Here okay cool here’s the thing also now this one we’re we’re kind of taking it from the top down we’re saying the stake was sayy we we should create this adventure group I actually was thinking about this idea and I backed up and I said no no no what we should do is
This the stake presidency should say if you have an idea for a group come to us tell us about what you want to start and you’re going to lead it you bring the three people that are totally into fly fishing and you say we want to start a a
Stake fly fishing group and twice a year we’re going to go on a fly fishing trip with a bunch of guys that are into that in the stake people can sign up they can bring their non-member friends and there will be some spiritual element to it some devotional some lesson something
That’s a part of it that because it is a church function and we’re GNA go and do that right now here’s another one we could do and this is Britney right like young moms with kids so Erica my wife she got involved when we first
Moved uh here to Eno in a um a Christian mom’s group mhm it was they get together once every couple of months for like a luncheon thing they have a little lesson they have some like games and get to know you things and I think like Child
Care is provided or something and it’s just a chance for these women to get together but the thing is they’re all like they’re all in the same boat these are all women who have like young kids and she made a bunch of friends out of
It and she was just thinking you know we have our Relief Society we talk about it well guess what in our Rel Society there are a couple of young moms in our Ward but most of the ladies are older or old women and it’s like it’s very hard for a
Young mom who wants to go out and make friends if there are only three other moms in the in the group and yeah those three moms share her values but do they share her interests and so if you want to find people because you have to have two
Things like the people you really bond with aren’t just people who share your values the church does a great job of that you need two ingredients you need people who share your values and your interests and if you get a group of latterday saints who share the same values and then share similar
Interests you’re going to have people develop deep and meaningful friendships in community that’s why the athletic uh the the church Athletic program was so successful for so long before the church kind of divested from it because the only people that show up to church basketball on Thursday night guess what
They’re basketball players they’re athletes they’re dudes that want to bond around a competitive game that’s getting played you know and then you feel bad for the other kids like the kid in my ward who literally was like yeah it’s basketball season he’s like it sucks I
Just I just don’t go to young men’s during you know during basketball season he’s not into that well yeah but see then they flourish during the summer when there’s Road shows but if you have a really crappy non theatrical award see I it and that depended again on the
State president like when I grew up uh you know here in Los Angeles there’s entertainment industry people everywhere so you literally have the same guy that’s constructing sets for Wicked at the Pantages Theater you know on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the pews on Sunday saying sure I’ll come over on
Monday and build a set for you guys you know and we have tons of editors directors uh actors voiceover actors so on and so forth um and if you have a state president that’s uh you know amicable and likes the idea we would have some phenomenal theatrical
Productions put on in our C cultural Hall that guess what has a stage but then others man you get some poor accountant or some poor insurance guy that does not see the vision and yeah all of the theater kids they’re just forgotten for like four years man but
This seems like if we could make it a program uh kind of like in the US government you know certain programs like I don’t know the Army doesn’t fail because it’s just like a thing every year that’s in the budget that you have to do it seems like you’re suggesting we
Make some of these groups so they kind of um operate independently and don’t fail correct yeah okay so here’s one uh choir right we have like a state choir and stuff and it’s sort of there but what if we put together a choir group that yes there was part of that was the
State Choir but they also go out and participate in local choir events and that we actually put together like a legit choir and they don’t have to be Mormon like why don’t we they don’t have to be a latterday saint no we get a bunch of non-members who are coming into
This thing and all of a sudden remember look out at the world around us there are people who have interests and they are bored and they are looking for human connection and Community why don’t we as Builders of Zion in the kingdom of God bring people
Together and the thing is is when we bring them together we have to bring them by their interests what do people already have a passion for if your passion is for raising your children and bonding with other young mothers well then why don’t we put together like these kind of things that
Would appeal to a young mom or things that appeal to the choir kid or the king that appeals to the theater kids or or we could totally do this and we could staff it with people both inside the church we could even have leaders of these programs that are non-members like
Why can’t they have yoga in the morning and I’ve always said this about the choir I’ve said why are we always struggling for already overworked members to be be in the volunteer choir when there are thousands at least here in Los Angeles thousands of EX choir and musical participants that would love to
Participate in a once a month singing basic Christian cool Corral music you know like if we made flyers in my war boundaries just printed out like 10,000 flyers and it was very simple it said hey you know we’re putting two uh Ward choirs together let’s just say you know
In the uh Los Angeles 15th Ward is assembling this year’s uh choir we’re going to have two choirs one that is uh performs on odd uh Sundays one that performs on even Sundays 50 people each come in audition you know um no experience necessary but think how many
People that are now like Jonah who used to be a rock star but forsook the lifestyle for that of a Peaceable Baker with six kids think how much if he weren’t a member he’d be like dude wait so I just got to show up on Sundays and
We practice for an hour and then we might sing that’s awesome I’ll do that you know all over it yeah and then like that that would be an amazing Outreach uh it would be an amazing musical experience like this is the future baby and I feel like I’ve been
Screaming this for the choirs from the rooftops I wonder why are we doing this what’s holding us back dog here let let me let me push back on this just a little bit let me just because I wore the flannel today Jacob okay yeah so why
Don’t you just let me just back off for a minute okay I’m the Matt Walsh of this episode here Jacob so so I think that uh there these are awesome ideas I love them it could be two different things we’re talking about because there’s one thing in particular one way in which
Young men differ from the rest of the body of the church uh when I was in Arizona there was an activity that our stake would do and they would they would like I think they actually flew the boys up to St George and just like for their super
Activity or whatever and like toured around the temple and ate ice cream and stayed in a hotel and then came back and the stake had to come down and say or I think a a Lo local Authority had to come down and say stop doing this because it
Was privately paid right because it cost it costs a ton of money and you’re not challenging the boys you’re just entertaining the boys and so the theme was but was that young men don’t need to just be entertained they need to be challenged and so how do you
Balance their interests like hey I want to go on this backpacking trip but some boys are like well I’m not super excited about it like I think I think that that is the that is the role to some extent of the parents the parents are to sign
Their kid up for it to say hey you should do this like but you also should recognize that not everyone’s going to be able to do it by the way maybe that’s yeah sorry I just had this thought with the interest groups too what a great way
For you to have your kid try different things to see what they like without spending a lot of money you know doing this for a season like go try this and go try this and meet new friends in different areas and maybe you’ll find a passion yeah the the scuba diving
Interest group would explode with 50 people in the beginning might only end with 10 you know what I’m saying but like it would explode no yeah like like okay so so get this here’s my basic thesis behind this Jonah because it goes Way Beyond the young men okay here’s the
Problem in modern society people feel disconnected they long for community and belonging they want to belong to a group and humans connect when engaging in a shared interest or passion together absolutely absolutely and and that human connection Fosters the spirit there’s a reason that when guys go to BYU as
Non-members they all end up or men or women not just guys but when people go to BYU as non-members they end up joining the church and it’s because they end up doing things pursuing their academic interest other social interests that they have surrounded by latterday Saints if you get a bunch of latterday
Saints together who have a shared passion or interest and they invite non-members to join and come and join with them it will be a powerful experience do you know what this sounds like Jacob dare I say inclusivity it’s it’s the right kind of inclusivity they mean include the
Ideology they don’t mean include people building of Zion so here’s my question man here’s my question like really what is stopping us from doing this because to a certain extent it almost sounds like you’re describing the church in the 1920s and the 1930s before we let the church office building and the
Bureaucrats and the lawyers take over because the number one thing I think is I’ve suggested hundreds of these kind of groups and it and I’m not going to start a moan Fest about the the bureaucracy of our church we already anybody that listens to our show is already familiar
With that rant I’ll just save us the five minutes but I will say like my heart yearns to see this Vision that you’re describing completed I I I I think so what if the guys go and they just Tour St George temple and they think wow what a beautiful building they
Look around and say oh what beautiful grounds and they slowly start to realize that wow the Church of Jesus Christ latterday Saints makes gorgeous sacred spaces I wonder why they consider this sacred like you can’t stand on those Temple grounds and not start thinking pure and beautiful in spiritual thoughts
So I I always have said sometimes people have to go to church for the wrong reasons before they can come for the right reasons you know and sometimes young men need to go on that backpacking trip just because they’re like oh hey it kind of sounds fun and my boys are going
To be there right who cares what church leader would say no to that and isn’t even just basic Community something Godly enough to Warrant a trip I don’t care if they’re going to the I think that’s the window that is the way to get to people in the 21st century through
Missionary work if you think you’re going to make missionary work work by going and knocking doors you’re wrong people join the church generally when they make a solid connection with another Latter-Day Saint or even more so multiple Latter-Day Saints who are invested in the things that they’re
Invested in so how do we make this happen who’s the yes person is this like well I I want to I want to get I I I want to stop before we even get to that because as a part of this that I think will help maybe overcome the burden of
How do we get this approved thing before before you say that though too I also want to know before we move on to this Britney what would your special interest that’s what I was gonna ask oh that’s what you gonna ask okay I was gonna ask
Too okay well you can ask it Jacob being such a what what what is what Britney what what is do you have any interests that you have that you would love to do with other people um no I’d have to like people first but um well you yoga you’ve always wanted to I
I do love yoga um Erica would be there with you I’m tell like meditation like that kind of thing I think is cool um cooking I like cooking I’m not great at it but I would like to you know learn a state cooking group yes where you like bring home like
Freezer meals you know and you just have like a bunch of meals you can just take out and I think that would be cool um H what else well you were I mean you were basically a semi-professional ballerina would you be dance now you’re kind of past that my back
Hurts yeah that’s funny but but but here so how about this one uh and maybe not you Britney because you weren’t so into camping and stuff yeah but like uh how about a women’s adventure group yeah I be all over that I would want to do like
River rafting I was always so jealous that the boys got to do like river rafting trips and we had like we’re going to make a babysitting kit how about a how about a young women’s adventure group yeah that’ be cool okay yeah but hold on hold on but patriarchy
And horses okay we were defending the patriarchy okay and we were keeping the horses uh just for us okay so none of this girls going R back riding I want to do horseback riding oh yeah be fun well I mean there the the the reality is the possibilities are endless but here is
The thing how do you get this to actually happen well it doesn’t come from the top down it comes from the bottom up the idea is is that you approach the state presidency and they say tell me about the group you’re going to start and you come in with three
People we’re going to be the leaders of this group and what we’re going to do like let’s say it’s the young women or the the women’s adventure group you get three really like outdoorsy women that are super into this and they say here’s what we’re going to do we’re going to
Put on two activities a year that women can sign up for um and we have a limit of so many or however they got to do it they got to get more leaders or whatever however they do it but we’re going to do these two cool Adventures every year for
Women right and maybe they get so much popularity that they have to do like four and have a different person lead each one of these different women’s adventures and you can only go on one a year you know whatever there are logistical things you have to work out
But that would be on the people who are volunteering to make this happen the idea is is like for for me uh I’m a nerd I like Airsoft so I’d start a church Airsoft thing where we would uh put on two activities a year or one a quarter
Or something where we’d get together dads and their sons and their daughters anybody wants to play to come out and play Airsoft that’s not nerdy that’s right-wing violence but you you can keep going I mean the possibilities are endless but the idea is is that the
State president all he has to do is say this he says like we’ll help promote this yeah what the stake is essentially doing is just getting the word out and they know a couple things about the program there are some basic s there’s going to be something spiritual about it
The missionaries will be there they they’ll give a a spiritual thought whatever um and there will be a and the church will be used to kind of find to say hey on our website the stake website we have a list of these different sort of activity groups that you can sign up
For right whether that be basketball flag football an adventure group uh how about this one Britney a playd date and games at aart for young moms to come and get to know you and kind of get to know the kids and let them all play right CU
You’re new to the area and and you don’t know anybody and this would be a way that you could kind of connect with other people in your similar life situation instead of ending up in some Ward where there’s one other young mom besides you and then a bunch of old
Ladies right and you know what that’s missionary that’s missionary gold a young a young mom’s group is missionary gold young moms or or how about this fly fishing group okay you got some fly fishing group you have some guy that that I know who’s a buddy of mine who
Loves fly fishing would never come to church okay if I invit him to church he’d never come but if I say a bunch of guys from my church are going to go fly fishing and we got this special like guide or boat that’s going to take us to
This one place that’s really great or whatever he’s going to come with well and even if he’s not interested in necessarily the spiritual aspect of the church like he’s not just at home like getting drunk watching ESPN 17’s Pro Bass Fishing you know what I’m saying uh he’s
He’s making friends with other wholesome dudes that are going to help just Elevate our society that one little Notch higher every time we bulldoze a park in order to build a shopping mall there’s one notch of the social fabric that goes down every time we divest from
One of these programs there’s 10 people that are underserved and now the you know that that tide goes down we would slowly start Rising the tide and improving the social fabric everywhere d I say fulfilling prophecy in scripture saying we should be like the salt that gives the whole entire plate its Savor
As Jesus Christ commands Okay so let me let me just offer a you know an obstacle like how do we overcome because I love all this okay so guys guys I’m just trying to I’m just trying to help us feel the idea out here okay I’m in the
Flannel shirt so I got to be a little bit you know questioning presuppositions here so I think one here’s one reason why an obstacle I think would be the people who would do this are already have three callings the the the the most reliable and active and energetic and
Enthusiastic people in the church are already on a high Council or I disagree Elders corn presidency and they’re already just slammed I disagree if I were to come and say hey we’re all going to go fly fishing nine out of the 10 guys would say got I’m I’m I’m going to
Push back I’m going to push back really hard because here’s what’s going to happen you know that guy who’s over there sitting in the corner that never participates in Elders cor and basically just showing up he has a passion he has something that he will get up at 6: in
The morning to go do because he just is that into it all you got to do is figure out what that thing is and if and he will do it and not only not only will he do it he will show up and be the leader
Of the group and help to organize the activities for the other people who share his passion D I’ve got like we’ve got probably how many in our Ward Britney we’ve got probably 5 to 10 guys there’s there’s plenty of ladies I don’t know uh in the Relief Society
But I know there’s probably five to 10 guys that I see on occasion because we have part member families where maybe the husband isn’t a member he’s kind of just like this agnostic agnostic you know basic guy that’s cool he shows up to the Father’s Day activities where we
Feed spaghetti to all the fathers and he’ll show up to like the Christmas thingies and kind of you know the obligatory stuff where there’s going to be something going on but this brother’s not going to be coming to church every Sunday all right and when he does he
Kind of just sits in back nods and he’s like okay this was an enjoyable Easter Service can we go now honey and they’re first in the parking lot after it’s over right if that brother who absolutely loves lacrosse you know what I’m saying played it in college doesn’t even realize
That’s a new sport sweeping through California all the there’s a lacrosse group he would easily run that group I know five part member family dads that are hardcore Engineers welders uh super cool high adventure dudes who don’t give a crap about church but would never miss a high adventure special group would
Never miss a fishing group my ex Mormon Brothers I think would literally help lead high adventure trips even though they like like my my older brother has a bunch of sons he loves the outdoor skiing all this kind of stuff and he genuinely feels like he worries that
Like my boys aren’t getting that same sort of community young men experience that I had and even though I’m no longer a part of the church that’s an aspect of the church that I really miss and my thing is this we don’t have to go into
This with an agenda it’s like oh this is all just a secret ploy to like get them into the church no you want to actually build Zion you just actually want to connect with other human beings and love them and the way that men especially and
Sorry Britney I don’t want to cut you out on this because the there is a difference here though patriarchy and hores guys guys guys don’t bond with other guys by getting together and talking about their feelings yeah the way that guys Bond you go watch like people talk about men
Don’t show emotion go watch a bunch of guys who just want a championship game you will see them hugging each other all like we just I love you man it’s because we don’t bond through talking we Bond through doing something we care about with other men who care
About the same thing and what’s funny is even when we’re doing that thing it’s not like we’re like sharing our feelings but we’ll show up the next day and we’ll do that exact same thing could you imagine California like a surfing group yeah yeah see after after the apologia
Debate Jacob Hansen and Hayden Carol they came backstage ripped off their shirts Cardon and Quake when I were there like yeah we throwing champagne all over each other it was crazy we were crying it was amazing yeah it was pretty wild man I’m sad I missed out on that yeah so um okay
So I’m loving this I’m loving this you know we only got five more minutes left here unfortun hold on all right all right this parade is going on too long and I got a rain on it I’ve wanted to take my boys on a hike for four
Years one hike four years I have three boys I just want to go on one hike and I’ve been in aition PR for four years when the heck am I going to take my boys on a hike I can’t take my boys on a hike I’m slammed let let me address this let
Me address this there is something I will say about this I think that this sort of a program would discontinue other programs would we would have to if this really were to take off it would be like one night a month you have a ward Mutual activity the other Wednesday
Nights you can dedicate to those like interest group activities they’re still getting together with latterday Youth and things like that I mean now I’m not I’m not saying it has to be that way but there would have to be some adjustment but the basic idea is that your
Interface with the church and and the activities that we have instead of forcing activities on the ward level on people who have very very different interests and trying to find something that everyone’s going to enjoy which is a dang near impossible task and we all
Know that what we do is we zoom up to the stake level where there’s more people and even potentially a regional area level to put these on at and the idea is is that we then get together Saints who actually have shared interest dude a regional a soow regional like an
LA County Mormon surf team would explode like because there’s there’s maybe only like five to 10 dudes that actually can surf in my stake are good at it and would go out of their way to maybe you know organize hey it’s high tide in these
I can say this I I don’t want to rain on that one I just because I know that anyone who’s a surfer is going to know this one of the challenges with surfing is that if you show up somewhere with 30 guys that are going to paddle into the
Water all together like it’s kind of a big no no in the surf Community to like show up at a spot no you could there’s PL dude there’s plenty of Coastline bro there’s 15 hidden surf spots that everybody knows about there’s 15 different staircases Surfers are really
Surfers have a culture some of surf they have a culture of like keep your spots quiet just the just inside yeah but look do they want to rumble do they want to rumble with a bunch of dudes like us no I’m just kidding so but there are things
Like that think about a regional like lacrosse thing like we’re gonna put together like you can sign up and all of a sudden there are six lacrosse teams that are going to play in this round robin tournament or whatever uh and it’s done at the regional level because
That’s where you can get enough people to actually form this thing into a coherent organization or we’re actually going to make that cool sculpture and get it dedicated and bronzed for I don’t know some founding father of our city in Central Park and then it’s actually a
Bunch of Mormon artists that do it and it’s like wow none of us have ever seen a stake that has harnessed the power of its artistic men oh that or or or like I mean think about this musicians what about Jonah like why why like how there is a VA hos
You imagine having a band like jam night where you just get a bunch of people together who know how to play instruments you all just start rocking out playing together like and you put that on every once in a while for guys who like love music Wicked dude it’d be amazing imagine we
Have a a stake show choir that goes around to community events and actually performs like at the the I don’t know the ribbon cutting at the freaking new mall they put together and all a you have this show choir there that sings the national anthem now all of us are
Thinking though now again we’re 35 minutes in and we only got a couple minutes left what is stopping us I’ll tell you exactly what’s stopping us liability uh yes every time I’ve had a good idea I’ve told it to my bishop and he said oh that’s a great idea let me
Talk to State president that state President says oh that’s a great idea let me talk to my priesthood leader he calls up his area 70 that area 70 says wow that’s a great idea let me talk to my priesthood leader oh and by that I mean the lawyer in the church office
Building that answers the hotline that all the area 70s call when they don’t know if we can do something and then this person with no priesthood keys and no priesthood stewardship ends up saying what oh a lacrosse turn uh yeah like I’ve never heard of that before and I don’t think our insurance
Covers it so like no just tell them no like sorry and that’s what I’m saying the people if the people of Zion can’t figure out with the brilliant attorneys that we have in the church which is like every other State president if the brilliant attorneys in our church can’t
Figure out how to create a liability form for people to sign before they participate in these activities and if we’re so afraid of lawyers that we won’t build Zion like we got a real problem like I actually think that’s a cult leers church I think right now like I am
My heart and I want to see this and I’ve suggested many things very much like this and even put in hundreds of hours my of of my own work per year trying to incorporate all of these programs and nearly all of them past the stake level
Every single one of them that has risen past the stake level has been shot down by the church office building so let me let me tell us let me tell a story wor about this so once upon a time uh Franklin D Richards was mission president up in the Pacific
Northwest and the missionaries were going out and they were preaching to people and they were teaching all kind different things and he said there’s got to be a better way he’s just a mission president he’s not you know he wasn’t a lawyer or whatever he was just off on an
Island on his own he didn’t have the church office building at a text message okay this is back you know a 100 years ago and he said there’s got to be a better way to teach lessons and so he wrote the missionary discussions and they were very
Successful ful and he gave them to his missionaries and that’s what they did and they did it for years in their mission they had formalized missionary discussions six of them you know the ones I’m talking about because we all use those on our missions and then the
Church said hey these are really good we should do this and it and it spread worldwide that was not a bureaucrat at the top who thought of this and distributed it to everybody in for because the church bureaucracy the church bureaucracy didn’t exist back then Jonah it was started in 1977 by
Spencer Kimble that was a better system because the priesthood Authority was not interrupted these area 70s don’t end up getting to call the Apostle that’s in charge of them or the general Authority that’s charge of them there’s this big speed bump and this massive gatekeeping that happens by the church office
Building because just as Jacob Hansen says you need to ask is this a people problem or a process problem right now we have a process problem in the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints of an interrupted chain of priesthood leadership that’s interrupted by unelected unare I say in many cases
Interested there’s many that are interested in there wholly decent people in every single way okay but we cannot put our spiritual uh success in the hands of somebody who does not have spiritual keys but that’s actually what we’re doing in the church right now I think I
Think though that we can that a possible solution to that is to create enough people that recog that see the vision of this because here is the vision okay at the core of this the core of it is the idea of human connection everyone feels disconnected everybody wants Community everyone wants
To belong and that is not an issue in in fact we are the ones in the church who have something that everybody wants they want Community they want connection and we if we can offer that to the world through these sort of Interest based programs you won’t have to go and look
For people to teach they will come Waltzing into the door and I’m not and I’m not this is not a missionary Ploy I’m no they literally ask how are you able to pull this off like this is amazing I love this how are you able to
Pull this off where is you have to talk about the vision we can create Zion communities of people who actually connect with each other through shared passion that also puts Latter-Day Saints together doing things they’re passionate about together join with us as we do it
In two minutes how do you get over the hurdle of the church office building bureaucrat that is going to shut you down and say no when your stake President says I love this idea Jacob I want to do this I want to change so that instead of meeting every Wednesday and
Having only a 50% participation rate amongst my young men I’m going to get rid of two of those nights and I’m just going to have special he’s going to have to call the church office building and we all know exactly what they’re going to say so how do we overcome that hurdle
You go to what the Brethren are actually looking for the Brethren want to create they know that there are issues in the church that need to be addressed they know that we increase missionary work the Brethren need to but hold on I just I want us to be honest here that you
Know that for him to implement that stake president for him to implement this as you’ve prescribed three nights three of the four Wednesdays a month special interest or uh what is it called unique interest group or whatever and then one let’s just say it was 50/50 he
Was going to cut out two of the Wednesday nights for young men for special interest and then two for uh just for my w you know that would go against the current handbook which would then make him some Rogue Bishop who would we either have to admit that we’re
Asking Bishops to subversively build the kingdom and go Rogue or we’re asking the church office building to change and it shows zero capacity of change I think the bre I think the change can actually be approved from the very top levels of the church because I think once the
Brethren also can see the vision of something like this right once they also can see wow you know what we’re we they know the big picture of what the church is trying to do it’s trying to bring people to Christ and to build Zion and when they can see somewhere they go you
Know let’s test this out let’s try this in that stake in Texas and then that stake in Texas all of a sudden has all these super positive experiences the Brethren will do it but they have it does have to eventually be the Brethren that that that give approval to this
Stuff we don’t we don’t hold the Keys of the Kingdom ourselves individually we do have to go up that chain but I agree there is a problem when Church bureaucrats that don’t hold priesthood keys are the ones who ultimately put the kabash on it because there’s just a well
We don’t want to UPS sent Caesar and and we just want to you know avoid all liability at all costs when it’s like look I’ll pay my tithing so we can pay the legal fees so that we can make these things happen there’s no way there is no
Way that we can’t as a organization do these kinds of things and come up with some sort of creative solution to get around the barriers that are there yes no and I mean legal that but I’m just I’m just saying in 2024 if we were try to implement this you haven’t convinced
Me that this could be implemented above book it would have to be something a a a St president is there is there something is there something that says that we can’t have a a women’s uh adventure group in the stake where they go out and do that no we could but we couldn’t
Change the the like I well good I’ll just tell the women you know what if you don’t come to the Wednesday night activity or whatever that’s okay you guys are going to that y group all the time hanging out like it’s it’s good now again though that’s kind of asking a
Bishop and a state president to go Rogue so let one last story when I was ELD Corum president in Arizona I asked my high councilman who was in my elders Corum all the time I said hey look these guys they come to this lesson they listen they don’t even know each other
Can we just have one Sunday where we just eat chicken wings and he said no you can’t do that I said like no lesson no I mean we’re just gonna pray we’re gonna just sit and eat chicken wings these guys never talk to each other they don’t even like know each other guys
Don’t guys guys abhor a program let’s eat chicken wings and he said no so I waited till there was a Sunday when he wasn’t there by the way I love this High councilman and we were very good friends and I love him to death but there was
One Sunday when he wasn’t there and I didn’t know he wasn’t going to be there and I saw he wasn’t there so I left sacrament meeting early drove to Safeway purchased a bunch of chicken wings baked them and then flew to Elders Corum and I
Laid it out for the elders and I said hey we’re going to eat chicken wings today and they were all like what’s the catch I said no catch we do we not do we not have a stewardship do we not have that that was within your stewardship that was within
Your call but he was breaking the rules again on this channel and Jesus broke the rules okay then let us just admit that we’re asking people to subversively build the kingdom no I just think what you’re no no I think that there’s a higher principle that that goes above
Even a church handbook and I’m F I’m fine with the handbook I’m willing to take the consequences but I have a funny feeling that the leaders of the church when they look at something like that and they see the good that comes from it they’re going to be like you know what
Brother if you did things a little bit around the a little bit around the rules of the typical way we do things but it brought people to Christ more power to you we are not Pharisees that can’t do that but at the same time if it goes
Wrong and you messed a bunch of things up and it cause problems for the church then yeah you better eat that too because that’s your fault because they gave you good C okay so last question Jud last question here goes to Britney um yes I want chicken wings right now
Okay yeah I was gonna say uh Jacob Hansen has been stirred his soul has been touched by the possibility of chicken wings subversively building the kingdom Jonah barn style via chicken wings what would be the girl alternative in Relief Society for just showing up and just having a bunch of chicken wings
What do you mean I’m sorry I don’t want to follow the question well like you know how Jonah said hey you know uh one day when the high councilman was gone and I knew that we needed to just in order to bond like dudes just you know
Screw the lesson we’re going to sit around and we’re going to eat chicken wings so ran to Safeway he got the chicken yeah so what would your dream you know Screw the lesson let’s just sit around and do x what would your X be there’s a soda
Bar and we all can get different types of soda mine would be Diet Coke with some lime maybe some coconut cream and I would sit down and we would just talk that would be perfect all right okay awesome so chicken wings and soda shops ladies and gentlemen Jacob Hansen is going to
Revolutionize the church with chicken wings and soda shops and we will not be able to baptize people fast enough we won’t be able to create Brotherhood and fraternity and Sisterhood fast enough cuz the soda will be so lime and coconuty tasty and the chicken wings
Will be so hot and spicy that we won’t we just we’ll have to be beating them away with a stick so anyway um yeah let us know what you guys think let’s keep the conversation alive um do you think you could see this happening in your
Stake do you think your stake has the leadership uh the guts the gall the tools and the talent in order to implement this uh do you think Jacob Hansen here is off his rocker and that what he’s suggesting is uh just you know um a pipe dream let us know what you
Guys think in the comments below let’s keep that conversation going as always for this and more please check us out at Ward radio.com I ain’t trying to bring you down but for real you might as well give up now think you got a chance but I
Don’t see how got a real tight grip when I hold that crown
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