Michal Neff is a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ. First in 1998, and again in 2018. He found those 20 years to be essential to his spiritual development. He is a mental health clinician in Tooele, Utah, and has run his own clinic with two other therapists since 2021.
Enter Michal…
Faith struggles are no new thing, but access to the world wide web has made information gathering and availability both a blessing and curse.
Within the last four years, platforms like YouTube and TikTok were only showing content congruent with their agenda, but now their algorithms seem to provide videos focused on controversy.
For example, some members in my area have noted that the more they watch conference talks on YouTube, the more videos of other faiths attacking Latter-day Saints show in their feeds. I don’t think this is limited to religion, as I notice the same in politics (Trump vs Harris), weightlifting (go to failure vs shy of failure), and many others.
Sacred Topics
With the increase in data availability, many people (not just Church members) are torn with the idea of which faith to follow. And there are many, from Muslim to Christianity, from atheism to universal faith. This struggle is not unique to us, but what is unique to us is sacred topics.
The sacred nature of these topics leaves some not sure of what to talk about, some with questions and uncertainty and not knowing where to go with these questions, and some wondering if their struggle with these topics makes them unworthy to be members, hold priesthood or callings, etc.
Within my time as elders quorum president, we’ve worked on challenging “norms” and striving to have some of these tough, but essential conversations. We know there are some things we can’t talk about outside of the temple, but there are many things we can talk about and people will seek answers somewhere else if don’t talk about them. However, they often won’t talk to members because we won’t always engage in these discussions.
A Need for Discussions
My dad, who used to be a member but left a long time ago, made some accusations about “exaltation.” Previous to this discussion, I had this topic in the “weird box.” When he made this comment, I knew I had to look deeper into this topic. If he was right, the Church was wrong, and I needed to leave this Church. If he was wrong, I could continue my work in the Church. To me, these were the only two choices once I was presented with the “controversy.”
So, I began my journey. I asked leaders in the Church who gave me answers like, “Well, you’re early in the faith. You need to drink milk before eating meat.” This answer angered me. What kind of answer is this for something so important? I searched the Latter-day Saint library and found myself having more struggles in finding anyone, other than my dad, to talk with about this. Which I knew to be biased, but it’s all I had.
I discussed my concern with our bishop about lack of opportunities to have tough discussions, he seemed to agree with the need I saw. If we don’t have these discussions, they’ll still happen. We just won’t be a part of them. The other voices will all (presumably) be against the Church and our faith because they aren’t members. This led to us looking for a way to be proactive in this.
Hard Topics
We developed an anonymous “hard topics” questionnaire, to gather all the questions members in the ward had and wanted answers for. We gathered roughly 100 questions such as:
- What to do if you don’t feel brother/sisterhood
- What if you can’t sustain a leader
- Why don’t women have priesthood authority?
- Why didn’t people of color have the priesthood for a period of time?
- Exaltation
- Plus many others
Building Topics
Then we facilitated a monthly meeting to discuss the topics. We noticed some built on others, such as “How do you know?” was the foundation of all of the questions, but for some knowing is different for different questions.
Then, not feeling like you belong came before accepting callings. These “building topics” helped us choose where to start.
Since the start, people have enjoyed it enough they requested to have these discussions bi-weekly instead of monthly.
The discussions provoke more topics, which leads to increasing the list.
Sometimes the group is large, other times it is small. The change in size of the group is essential though, and here is why. God guides the processes through the Holy Spirit. If only three people can attend (leadership and the person with the question), the Spirit guided this for a reason. Someone getting held up at work, or just not wanting to come and allowing free will, was also the Spirit in creating an environment for that one person to discuss their question.
Trust in our Lord who guides all things.
Here are my key thoughts to make this a success:
- You don’t have to be a therapist to talk about hard things. None of the Apostles were therapists.
- Let the Spirit drive discussion and learning. The key to our success is that we don’t have the discussion to get people to believe or to “know the truth.” We have discussions to be with people, share thoughts, pray, and support. Essentially, to minister. There are things I just don’t believe. The ward family that shows up to talk about these topics has been great at letting me struggle, and sharing where they found answers. Then they let me be wrong, right, or somewhere in between. In our “sustaining of leaders” discussion, we learned which things I have to do as a leader, and how much leeway we all actually have. Allow the leeway for everyone. The Spirit will do the rest.
- Be welcoming, but listen to the Spirit. I’ve had non-members who weren’t in our ward ask to attend these meetings. It hurts to tell them no, because I believe in what we’re doing. However, our bishop wanted this to just be our ward members. I honor his keys and his wisdom. I had to say no. These discussions have prepared me to talk to non-members though. I still engaged with these people, as I’d encourage you to. But this group discussion is sacred and some of the topics may brush against sacred ones.
- Sacred topics are sacred for a reason. There are things we don’t talk about outside of the temple. Topics blend, but sacred is not secret. This means even these topics should not be avoided. They should be planned and prepared for. We are planning a temple visit because we can have these discussions in the temple. However, just as the growth of callings, classes, and priesthood, it’s important to know sacred topics build on many other topics that aren’t sacred. Thus, it is probably best to address all relevant non-sacred topics before attending the sacred discussions.
Be a Vessel
May I repeat: let the Spirit teach. If anyone is trying to convince someone else, the Spirit can’t be felt. Our responsibility as discussion leaders is to provide information, listen to the Spirit and promptings, stop pushing when the thoughts stop coming or urgency shows up. Just be a vessel for the Spirit, not an enforcer of the teachings.
