AIDE MEMOIRE RE PROPOSED TRAINING COURSE FOR LDS BISHOPS Traditionally, LDS Bishops are called on the basis of exceptional performance as Bishops Counselors, as Elders Quorum Presidents, or Stake High Councilmen, where they have been able to learn the heavy administrative and counseling duties of a bishop by observation. This has worked well in areas where the Church has been well-established for a good period of time and where future bishops have grown up close to the Church and with the ability to absorb such lessons over a considerable period of church service. In many of the newer, rapidly growing areas of the Church, bishops are often called after only four or five years' membership in the Church. Of course, the Church published the Melchizedek Priesthood and Bishop's Handbooks, regularly updated through Priesthood Bulletins distributed to all Stake Presidents, High Councilmen, Bishops, and Bishops' Counselors. The Brethren would not perhaps be surprised however to learn that many, possibly a majority, of Bishops, Stake Presidents, and High Councilmen in newer areas of the Church have never read either the Priesthood Handbook or its updates. As First Counselor in a Stake Presidency in Guatemala , we used to devote the first twenty minutes of every High Council Meeting and Bishops Council Meeting to having a member review the contents of one chapter or the appropriate Handbook, thus assuring that Stake and Ward leaders at least had this "once over" experience with their responsibilities. Relevance of Missionary and Mission President Training Programs For many years the Church has considered it essential that every newly called missionary attend a Mission Training Center -- the number of which are now spread regionally throughout the Church -- before embarking on their calling. And for the past several years, all newly called Mission Presidents similarly attend a training course in which experienced leaders review their responsibilities and the types of problems they are likely to encounter. Based on discussions with a number of experienced Church leaders, former Mission Presidents, former Temple Presidents, former diplomatic and military members of Stake and District Presidencies and Bishoprics, most agree that the Church -- which spends considerable funds on any number of worthy and admirable projects as welfare, medical, and dental shipments to disaster and war stricken areas of the world --might begin considering whether it would not be worthwhile to start affording all newly called bishops (and stake presidents who have not previously served as bishops) to a one or two week training course at the nearest MTC, where seasoned leaders could share with the newly called, their administrative, financial, and counseling experiences. Were such a program decided upon, bishops might be called, as are future mission presidents, in groups -- not assuming office until completion of an upcoming training session, offered perhaps on a quarterly basis. Clearly this would require a bit more advance planning in calling bishops than at present -- though this would perhaps not be an altogether a negative element. No calling in the Church is more vitally involved in member relations and in providing counseling services, not to mention calling Relief Society Presidents, Primary, Sunday School, and Seminary directors, and Priesthood Leaders, or in conducting missionary, pre-marriage, and temple-worthiness interviews, or receiving generic confessions of all of us human sinners, than the bishop. With untrained, inexperienced leaders, it has been observed, the tendency is either to conduct unfocussed, rambling interviews which avoid the hard questions, or to embarrass and distress interviewees by probing deeper than required or acting the stern moral judge rather than the loving pastoral counselor. Need for Such Training Universal Obviously the LDS Church neither needs, nor should consider, the formal professional training required by other churches. But that such pre-service orientation should be offered not only to recent convert bishops in more remote areas. but to Center Stake bishops appears essential. Being a successful businessman, professor, attorney, physician, or government official, does not necessarily qualify an individual for the demanding job of Judge In Israel. Case Examples A couple of troubling cases have recently come to attention, both involving bishops and stake presidents in long- established areas of the Church which illustrate the need for better orientation on a universal basis before assuming office. Each of the following anecdotes comes from a first hand source, experienced at least in some degree with the provisions of Church Government; and each seems to indicate, at a minimum, a certain lack of experience and/or sensitivity in counseling, if not a disturbing lack of awareness of the official Church guidance on the matters in question. The first involved a young returned missionary who had served as Assistant to his Mission President. Upon his return, he began dating a faithful young LDS woman of outstanding family. It seems that having associated with a large number of equally outstanding, good looking, clean cut young men as a mission leader, he found himself feeling more comfortable in the presence of such male peers than in the presence of young women, including at times his "steady". It will be recognized that this is not an uncommon phenomenon in the lives of slowly maturing young men who have kept themselves sexually pure. A generation ago such a phenomenon would have been accepted on all sides as not abnormal. Lots of men did not marry until their early thirties when their careers were well-launched. One of the most distressing effects of the "gay" movement is its success in raising questions in the minds of many young people about their sexual orientation which would never have occurred to people left to their own thinking thirty years ago. The young man in question went to his bishop -- not to confess sin -- but merely to ask whether, having these feelings of greater comfort in the presence of young men, he could expect successful marriage were he ask his girl friend to join him in starting a family. Here is where the bishop's side of the story in lacking. But according to the girl's father, the bishop simply picked up the returned missionary's temple recommend and told him it might be better if he didn't return to church or associate with any of the young women of the ward until he had his thoughts more sorted out. The boy, in shock, responded by following the bishop's advice and quit attending church. Lacking other counsel, he decided the only way to find out if her were truly "gay" would be to try associating with gay men. By the time he discovered he was just an averagely troubled young man approaching sexual maturity (and in the process evidently falling into deep sin) he had AIDS. He recently passed away leaving a heartbroken fiancee, family, and potential in-laws. Perhaps the bishop initially exercised correct judgment and the young man's bizarre way to trying to answer his own question proves that. But some were under the impression that in such cases Bishops were under instructions to refer such individuals to professional counseling with LDS Social Services or an experienced LDS psychiatrist, where there might have been a different outcome. Second case involves a former Elders Quorum President, who during an interview with his bishop for a recommend to attend his daughter's temple wedding, was asked by the bishop what the interviewee (whose own father had been a long-term bishop) considered (knew) were inappropriate questions about whether he and his wife (the parents of three children) practiced birth control. The interviewee asked the bishop where among the temple recommend questions such a question was listed. The bishop terminated the discussion, saying that the applicant should take the unsigned recommend to the stake president. If the stake president would sign it, so would the bishop. As matters transpired, the stake president, apparently alerted by the bishop, insisted not only on an answer to the birth control question, but posed a number of additional intrusive questions of his own. The applicant again asked where on the temple recommend form or where in the Priesthood Handbook such questions were authorized. The stake president replied that he could ask any questions he pleased, and being refused answers, apparently took it upon himself to contact the bishop to instruct him to disfellowship the individual in question. The subject of this action was carefully questioned before preparing this aide memoir and said that he was disfellowshipped by the bishop acting alone, not even in a formal bishop's court with counselors, let alone in a Stake High Council Court where all matters concerning a member of the Melchizedek Priesthood are, according to the Doctrine and Covenants and established Church judicial procedure, to be handled. Prima facie , both the bishop and stake president appear to have acted inappropriately in this case. As a result, this former Elders Quorum President (and father of another Missionary Assistant to the President, all three of whose children were married in the temple) has become so hardened because of treatment he considers a perfect example of D&C 121:26 ff. that he has remained away from the Church for over five years. Admittedly, it is his own stubbornness which is keeping him away from his brethren (his children at least are keeping their arms around their father). But the case could have been avoided by better trained and more flock-oriented ward and stake authorities. There must be hundreds if not thousands of similar cases in the Church alienated by leaders hewing inflexibly to well-intentioned guidelines designed to be applied with discretion and love by compassionate shepherds, not stern executive administrators. The Church could not spend better money than to fund a Bishops Training Course (possibly setting aside a couple of rooms once a quarter at each MTC), paying the airfare for all new bishops to attend. No one in the Church has more intimate nor more influential effect on members than our bishops. A Final Comment A bishop is a lifelong priesthood office. Even in post-Pioneer days, bishops used to serve for twenty years or more. Orson F. Whitney served for over twenty-five years as bishop of the Eighteenth Ward in Salt Lake City, with his Counselors running his ward for him during two long periods while he served abroad as Mission President. He was finally released only when he was called as an Apostle. In Center Stake Wards where there is great depth in priesthood leadership, it is understandable that to pass the heavy burden of the bishopric around, and to introduce fresh initiative and fresh ideas periodically. It has thus become customary to rotate the bishopric every six years or so. Even then, these frequent changes are not without consequences. As his time for release approaches, it is not uncommon for a bishop to postpone instituting new programs, anticipating that he will not be around the next year to follow through. But in areas where priesthood leadership with the qualifications and talents is more thinly spread, the problem is more serious. It would seem that when the Church encounters a spiritual leader with the rare combination of management skills and the qualifications of an effective spiritual shepherd of a flock, it might consider returning to the concept of this being a lifetime calling, leaving such individuals in place as long as they are fulfilling their duties effectively, or until another fully capable individual is identified. It is too often the case that stake leaders in more remote areas are compelled to fish in too shallow waters looking for a replacement bishop to comply with a Wasatch Front time schedule for release. And much the same can be said of Stake leadership. Until thirty years ago Stake Presidents often served twenty or thirty years, providing stability in Church administration and serving as role models for rising generations of future leaders. Perhaps as the Church becomes better established and more generously endowed with leadership in all areas of the world, the shorter rotation schedule now in effect for leadership callings might be extended churchwide, rather than being restricted to Center Stake areas..