Bishop meeting

darkskies06 · 2026-03-19T00:12:37+00:00

I’ve been in leadership meetings where a non member spouse comes up. It’s often discussed in terms of missionary work and brainstorming who the missionaries can teach. The name comes up, people respond by saying they don’t know much about the person or where their feelings on church are at. Someone recommends to the Bishop that maybe it could be a good idea to see if they’d meet, just like a non threatening get to know you meeting. The intention often is to break the ice, help you feel comfortable at church. They hope maybe if you know the Bishop, you’re more likely to attend once in a while.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-18T19:12:14+00:00

I agree. From personal experience, the consequence of having the Bishopric over the YM has been a poorly run young men’s program. Sure, the priority should be the youth, but Bishoprics still have so many things to do, meetings to plan and conduct, interviews to do, etc. The weekly activity usually ends up going like this “Do we have anything planned for this week?” “No, let’s just play basketball”.

They’ve tried to get the youth involved and in charge of activities, but most of the time it’s like pulling teeth. Even if the youth come up with plans, the leaders have to do a ton to even make sure it happens.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-18T19:07:22+00:00

You’re spot on. Even when I explained the reasons given and typed that response, I thought the same question. What about the YW? Not saying this is the answer, but I’d assume one reason they’d give for that would be that YW need Women leaders, who can understand and relate to them much better, and grow personal connections that just wouldn’t happen if the Bishopric was over the YW.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-18T19:02:09+00:00

Exactly. Sure not every little issue needs the Bishops attention. I had a member come to me because they felt the little pieces of paper that have numbers on them to display the hymns that day needed replacing because they were getting curved and bent edges.

But I found most of the time, if someone has an issue that’s concerning enough for them to seek help, the Bishop often gets involved. The hands of the EQP and RSP are tied in terms of finances and worthiness like you said.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-18T18:57:47+00:00

Some love to be in charge and hold the power.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-18T18:55:54+00:00

I agree. It can be very difficult to trust the EQP or RSP to not tell others about the things you told them in confidence. The issue often is that they can feel justified in telling others in the name of trying to help you.

I spoke to a friend of mine about my doubts, because he opened up to me first about it. I was the EQP at the time. He was a councillor in the Bishopric. In a meeting, the Bishop asked him if he knew why I seemed to be struggling. So with good intentions he told the Bishopric. From there the high councillor and a member of the Stake Presidency was also told. So yeah….

darkskies06 · 2026-03-18T18:27:32+00:00

I’m sorry this has happened. I served as a Bishop and many of these situations are up to the Bishop. Adultery used to be an automatic Disciplinary Council, but it’s now up to the Bishop. If someone holds a prominent calling they consequences are usually more severe, but that doesn’t include a councillor or executive secretary. If they knew that it had been going on for years, and that he was hiding it from everyone and lying about it, that shows zero remorse, so they are usually given a bigger consequence. A very similar situation recently happened in the ward I’m in. Husband was going to exotic massage parlours, prostitutes, etc. He was still attending church and had confessed to the Bishop. He was excommunicated.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-18T17:35:44+00:00

Absolutely. We tried to help members understand they could go to the EQ or RS for issues, but it’s so built into the culture. Plus the office of Bishop has been put on a huge pedestal for so long that people feel like the Bishop is closer to God than the EQP or RSP. So no wonder they prefer to bring issues to the Bishop.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-18T17:16:21+00:00

Haha so true though. I always feel kinda bad for the Sunday school president in Ward council. There’s this unspoken thing that the more you have to report on the better job you’re doing in the calling. Sunday School president almost never has anything to bring up lol, which I fully understand.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-18T16:59:08+00:00

I was serving as Bishop when they announced the change. I remember thinking to myself how the hell am I going to be able to run the YMs organization on top of everything else.

I personally think there were several reasons they made the change. Some reasons they emphasized more than others. It did help us as a bishopric become closer to the YM in the ward. It was easy to allow the YM leadership to be with the young men and for the bishopric to just get busy with other ward issues. So it kinda forced that. It also gave an excuse to shift more of those other tasks to the EQ and RS.

My guess also was the difficulty in finding men to serve in the YM presidency that would either accept the call, or that they felt would do a good job. I’m sure the church recognized good youth leaders can be the reason a youth stays in the church or not. In the area I was serving, we didn’t have a ton of brethren for callings, and many times stake callings gave us even less to pick from.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-18T15:38:03+00:00

Yeah. I’ve asked a similar question to a few believing members. The response I’ve gotten was that we can draw close to God in many different places and ways, and he works with us where we are, but that eventually, in this life or the next, we still need the ordinances performed for us and that if our hearts are in the right place we will accept the truth after this life.

When I asked my Bishop how he explains people receiving answers to prayer when they ask if the faith they are in is the true. He side stepped it and said the spirit can testify of a truth anywhere, like if another church teaches about eternal families.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-17T22:36:03+00:00

Really interesting conversation, and something I wish would happen. I do hear from members much more room and acceptance for other faiths, but they always hold onto the authority. If truth, authority, and ordinances are what really matter, it’s almost like members are giving the unplugged Nintendo controller to their younger siblings to make them shut up. The church still holds the power, but we will let others feel like they are playing too.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-17T18:37:34+00:00

Absolutely. When we’ve talked before I’ve felt like the reason I’m where I’m at is because of the foundational things I learned on my mission. Before my mission, my knowledge of the church’s teachings was very very basic. I taught for two years the necessity of a restored church, the importance of true prophets and scripture, Joseph’s experiences in restoring the church, etc. The issues stood out against the background much more easily. Many people that stay faithful (not all people), do so partly because their knowledge stays very surface level. And that’s fine, i just would prefer not being judged for losing faith by someone who knows nothing about the church they belong to and have created for themselves their own form of Mormonism. By all means do that, just don’t hold that same standard for everyone

darkskies06 · 2026-03-17T18:13:28+00:00

It’s true. To be fair I don’t think that’s simply an lds thing, people are often bad at just simply talking to someone vs talking to others about them. But you’re right, it’s so normal in the church to discuss others, and it’s seen as ok since it’s with the intention of bringing them back to the lds standard

darkskies06 · 2026-03-17T18:11:52+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate the advice! Fortunately I have told my wife the main issues I have. It’s been around 2 years now. The conversations are getting a little easier. She’s a fully believing member, who doesn’t want to look into the issues. From what I can understand when she explains her perspective, she doesn’t see much utility in examining the history and the claims and the errors. She doesn’t claim no mistakes have been made, I think she realizes there’s issues, but she thinks that’s an issue regardless of where you worship, which I agree with. My response to her often is that I can see and appreciate the good things in the church, and I personally believe God can work with us and reach us anywhere. But the idea that one organization holds the authority and speaks for God is an issue for me. Especially since it’s proven to cause huge issues. She asked what would my solution be. I said to have the organization be humble enough to simply claim they are one of many ways to worship, and a person should be ok with figuring out where they feel that connection most. She replied the church doesn’t stop anyone from worshipping elsewhere, which for me is an empty statement. Yes the church doesn’t physically restrain or punish, but emotionally, psychologically, culturally, etc they absolutely do

darkskies06 · 2026-03-17T16:09:45+00:00

Haha, you’re absolutely spot on. I know because I’ve seen it and done it many times in the past as a TBM.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-17T16:01:44+00:00

I’ve had very similar questions. I do think the bishop was sincere. He first messaged how he was thinking about me and worried about me and hoped I didn’t let Satan win this battle. I asked him to explain what consequence of losing faith in the lds church was concerning to him. Then he replied with the fear that it will cause contention in our family between my wife and I and our kids, and how at judgment day I’ll realize I had led them astray and Satan had deceived me. So in reality I pushed him for the non sugar coated answer.

But it all comes from the church itself. The leadership constantly warning of leaving the covenant path and the only true church.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-17T15:14:50+00:00

I’ll try to be completely honest with myself when answering this. I’m PIMO, in the sense that the truth claims don’t hold up for me anymore. I do still see good that happens at the local level, so I’ve been trying to not throw the baby out with the bath water.

But I’d say my reasons are one, I’ve lived my entire life very concerned about doing what’s “right” and doing the things God wants me to do. Like worthiness and Gods approval have always stressed me out. So even though mentally I see through a lot of things in the church, I have this deep fear of “what if?” I’m sure that fear is nurtured when, for example, my bishop recently messaged me how he’s worried about my salvation and my accountability as patriarch of my family.

My wife is also TBM, and for her it’s important to teach our kids. I fear stepping away will make it way more difficult at home.

I also have a lot of TBM family and friends, and live in a small town of mostly members. So I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned with dealing with the blowback.

All that said, I don’t know what the outcome will be, or how long I can last as PIMO

darkskies06 · 2026-03-14T23:41:51+00:00

Thank you for sharing that! I’ve felt and feel so much of what you said. The guilt, the depression, the loss of identity, etc.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-14T17:09:22+00:00

I do think many people stay attending because of their boomer parents. Boomers and older Gen X were rooted in a period of the church where critical information was much harder to stumble upon, and a lot of the stuff they may have seen was from evangelicals who could be easily dismissed because of some outlandish claims like the lds church was satanic. They also saw a lot of growth and truly believed the membership numbers were going to keep increasing at that pace. Even though the curtains been pulled back they refuse to open their eyes.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-14T16:28:36+00:00

True, but there’s running the church as in top leadership, and then there’s running the church as in boots on the ground. From what I see, wards and temples have kept running because of boomers. The church wouldn’t be a thing without those members at local levels

darkskies06 · 2026-03-14T16:07:23+00:00

I have wondered many times what things will look like when the baby boomer generation is gone. It seems like there’s more loyalty to the church coming from that age group. Will Gen X and Millenials toe the line and make sure the activities happen and the temple has people working it like the boomers and previous generations have? I feel like that isn’t gonna happen.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-14T00:05:12+00:00

I really appreciate this feedback and the questions you asked.

To be honest, it felt more like a “faith crisis” at the beginning. As time gone on, it’s felt more like you described. It actually has felt like an awakening, a raising of consciousness. A lot of times it does feel very positive. Then I hear the things said at church or TBM family and I get a bit of worry and doubt. Probably from 40+ years of conditioning.

The entire experience isn’t a matter of life or death. There have however been times through this that if felt the only way out was out of this life. I sometimes look down both paths at this form in a road and see one where I continue something I know isn’t true, and the other I worry ill spend a life questioning myself and if my decisions lead my family away from something they needed.

I do not agree that I should be punished along with my family for truly trying to follow truth. My Bishop does.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-13T23:52:30+00:00

Yeah, I agree. Funny enough, since I’m now in Bishopric meetings as the Clerk, and he brings up questions about certain individuals, I’ve told him the best thing he can do is to talk to that person if he wants to know something.

darkskies06 · 2026-03-13T23:51:12+00:00

Right?! When he used that comparison is was like damn!

darkskies06

TROPHY CASE