Improving Sacrament Meeting Aaron Hubbard Bishop in Las Vegas, Nevada

Kurt: Welcome back to another session of the Meetings with Saints Virtual Summit. Today, we're connecting all the way down in Las Vegas, Nevada with Aaron Hubbard. How are you, Aaron?

Aaron: I'm pretty good. Kurt: Awesome. Now you either broke into the bishop's office or you are the bishop. Which one?

Aaron: I am the bishop. I needed a quiet space to talk to you. I have four little kids at home, so I figured Friday afternoon in the bishop's office is a quiet place.

Kurt: I remember several times when I was a bishop just stopping by in the middle of a workday and working there, it's like, "Man, it's so quiet. I could focus so much." Well, cool. Now tell us a little bit about yourself. We've recently just connected and met, but put yourself into context. Obviously, you're the bishop but tell us more.

Aaron: Yeah, I'm the Bishop of the Sun Valley Ward in Las Vegas, Nevada Paradise Stake. I've been a bishop for a little bit over a year. I grew up in northern Nevada at a little town called Fallon and served a mission in Argentina. And after my mission, I went to school up there, met

my wife. And a little over nine years ago, my wife and I moved here to Las Vegas, and we've loved living here ever since.

Kurt: Nice. And what do you do for work? Aaron: I work for a healthcare company that does consulting work. So we manage contracts for the Center of Medicare and Medicaid.

Kurt: Nice. How long did you say you've been a bishop? Aaron: It's a little bit over a year? Kurt: Oh, cool. Awesome. Aaron: Maybe like a year and four days. Kurt: Good. In that year mark, you got it all figured out now. Aaron: Oh, yeah. Kurt: Now you just repeat. Everything you did last year you just do it again. Nice. And we had connected...just I sort of sent a call out to the Leading Saints community and said, "Hey, does anybody has an interesting perspective or approach as it relates to meetings, whether it's Ward Councils or interview meetings, or even sacrament meeting? That's obviously the most important of any meeting." And you replied and said, "Hey, we sort of have a unique approach that's really worked for us in planning for sacrament meeting and putting on a good sacrament meeting. So, where do you want to start? Should we jump into your slides or is there more of a run-up to that?

Aaron: I listen to your podcast every Monday on my way to work, and when you send out bad call, I had the thought of I have some ideas. Then at the very end of the podcast, you said it again. And when you said the second time I was like, "No, I should get in touch with Kurt. I love his podcast." So we're going to talk about a sacrament meeting. And the goal always for sacrament meeting is to have a spiritual experience. I want to start with a question, and I want to begin by asking, if someone who knows nothing about our church came to your sacrament meeting last week, you know, what would their impression be? And kind of building on that, what would a longtime member of the church think about sacrament meeting or an individual who has doubts or is trying to come back to church? You know, what would their takeaway be from sacrament meeting? Would they want to return?

And I hope that as individuals and families come to our sacrament meetings, that they understand that Jesus Christ is the center of our worship, that they felt something that touched their soul and that they would want to come back again next week. As a bishop, I have two goals for every

sacrament meeting. The first thing is I want everyone who wants to partake of the sacrament to be able to do so. Then I also want to make sure that we create an atmosphere where individuals can have a spiritual experience. And so we'll be talking a lot more today, how can we help prepare ourselves for these sacrament meetings so the members can have a spiritual experience?

The first is we need to understand what is the purpose of sacrament meeting. The purpose of sacrament meeting is to remember the Savior Jesus Christ and then to also be able to partake of the sacrament. I like this quote from President Dallin H. Oaks. He says, "The ordinance of the sacrament makes a sacrament meeting the most sacred important meeting in the Church." Note that the purpose of sacrament meeting isn't to celebrate the call or return home of a missionary or to hear a musical number, to watch the primary presentation. It's partake of the sacrament meeting. As bishopric plan sacrament meetings, you need to keep this in mind, that we need to make sure that we're focused on the Savior, the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the sacrament.

There are a couple of other purposes [00:05:00] for a sacrament meeting. Going from the handbook, it says that this is a time for us to come and worship. When I think of that I think of the Scripture in D&C 59 that says, "And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day and to pay thy devotions unto the Most High. We need to create this atmosphere so the individuals can come and worship.

We need to provide gospel instruction. Now, I think to myself, you know, if the only gospel instruction that a member received during the week was what is taught during sacrament meetings, are we giving them sufficient instruction so they will continue on the covenant path? Elder Jeffrey R. Holland taught and said, "Most people don’t come to church looking merely for a few new gospel facts or to see old friends, though all of that is important. They come seeking a spiritual experience. They want peace. They want their faith fortified and their hope renewed. They want, in short, to be nourished by the good word of God, to be strengthened by the powers of heaven. Those of us who are called upon to speak or teach or lead have an obligation to help provide that, as best we possibly can."

We perform ordinances during sacrament meeting, we bless babies, we confirm new converts, and we partake of the sacrament. So another purpose for the sacrament. We also conduct ward business. And we call and sustain new individuals, others get released. And so all of this is part of our sacrament meeting. But through all of these different elements of sacrament, the most important thing is that we are building faith and we're helping individuals strengthen their testimony.

There's a couple of things that we need to do before sacrament meetings comes up. We need to prepare spiritually. As a leader, especially those serving in the bishopric, spiritual preparation

needs to happen well in advance of Sunday. We need to prepare throughout the week. Serving in the bishopric, Sunday morning can be very busy. And if you are in a bishopric, it's possible that you've already been to church two and a half to three hours prior to taking the sacrament. You've been through a bishopric meeting, you've been through a ward council meeting. And so by the time sacrament comes, you might already be feeling a little bit exhausted. You might be tired.

Now, as a bishop, I'm responsible for making sure the sacrament prayers are said correctly. I also want to make sure the deacons pass the sacrament, make sure all the members who want to partake the sacrament have the opportunity to do so. So for me, unfortunately, partaking the sacrament isn't always a spiritual experience. Sometimes it's a very busy experience. And so I take time during the week to ponder and review the sacrament. That way, when that time comes for me to partake of the sacrament, I'm ready to do it.

I'll talk a little bit more about the administrative side of sacrament meeting. The prayers and talks need to be assigned well and advanced. I recommend asking for prayers prior to sacrament meeting, either the day before or even earlier than that. I found if you wait till Sunday morning to get the prayers, you get the same handful of people that always say the prayers because they're the ones who always come early, and it's easy to ask them. I think if I was asked to pray in sacrament meeting, I would love the opportunity to spend maybe two or three days pondering what I'm going to say in my prayer. You know, which members of the ward need my prayers? How can I begin or end our sacrament meeting and invite the Spirit or thank our Heavenly Father for the Spirit that we felt? I would love to be able to prepare spiritually for that.

Kurt: Let me interject. A quick question is as far as like...Maybe you're going to get to it. Sorry, I'm pushing ahead. But as far as like requesting people just to pray in sacrament meeting, is that something you delegate - that your executive secretary does?

Aaron: Yeah, my executive secretary has that assignment. He is the one that is responsible for finding the opening and closing prayer.

Kurt: But you've communicated him like, ""We don't want this to be a five minute before sacrament meetings ordeal," right?

Aaron: Correct. "Please take time during the week to call and ask individual to say the prayer." Kurt: And does he pick which individually he's calling or is that something you do? Aaron: He does, yeah. That's a delegated assignment I give to the executive secretary. Kurt: Great.

Aaron: And it seems to work well. Kurt: Good. Aaron: And then make sure that sacrament is prepared and that there are enough priesthood holders to bless and pass the sacrament [00:10:00] before the meeting begins. As a bishop, I always peek over, and if we don't have enough young men to pass the sacrament, I start getting nervous. And I think to myself, "Am I going to need to go pass the sacrament?" And so making sure your Deacons Quorum president understands that one of his responsibilities is to identify individuals to pass the sacrament. No, we've asked that they are prepared about five minutes before the service begins. That way they're seated ready and setting that example as we prepare for the sacrament.

The other thing too is making sure we have bread. I think everybody has a story of somebody running to the store to get bread prior to the sacrament. It happens from time to time. You know, the person who was assigned doesn't show up. They get sick. Things happen. So making sure we have bread. The other thing too, that we use to help keep us organized is the document that you see there kind of on the right-hand side. This is an Excel document that we created to help us track who is speaking in sacrament meeting, what is the topic, what's the date. We just use this to track everything that we do. And we use the OneDrive, it's a Microsoft product, and we give access to anyone who needs it. So the individual that does the ward bulletin can go in there and pull up the speakers and pull out the songs. So it's a one-stop place for everyone to pull out information they need about sacrament meeting. And so you can see we've been having how long the individuals are going to speak, what is the theme for the Sunday, and then what is the individual topics that we're going to be talking about?

Kurt: Nice. As a bishopric, obviously, you're planning ahead and figuring out who's going to speak or what the topics are for specific Sunday. How far out in advance do you usually plan that?

Aaron: I plan for the entire year. Kurt: Oh, really? Wow. Aaron: I'm going to talk about a little bit more about that later in my slides. There's a couple of reasons why I do that. But yeah, I have entire 2020 planned out.

Kurt: Cool. Well, I'll be patient then. Aaron: And then I love this quote by Elder Holland. It says, "It will add to the Spirit of our sacrament meetings if the presiding officers are on the stand well before the meeting is to begin,

listening to the prelude music and reverently setting the example the rest of us ought to follow. If there is chatter on the stand, we shouldn’t be surprised at chatter in the congregation." And I like this quote, but I also struggle with it a little bit.

I love that time before sacrament meeting where we can prepare ourselves spiritually to partake in the sacrament meeting, but as a bishop, I love it when I see my members walk in and they're excited to see each other and they're shaking hands or giving hugs. I like that part of our worship as Latter-Day Saints. There is a balance of being irreverent and being happy to see each other. But as a bishopric, we definitely need to be on the stand five minutes before the meeting starts setting that example of being quiet. But as members come in, I love it when they're happy to see each other. I would be a little concerned. If they weren't. I think we would have maybe some divisions in our ward if that was the case. But as a bishopric, beyond the stand, setting that example, sharing messages and getting ready to conduct sacrament meeting.

I want to talk a lot about conducting sacrament meeting. We begin by a description of the Book of Mormon, Moroni 6:9. "Their meetings were conducted by the church after the manner of the workings of the Spirit, and by the power of the Holy Ghost." So as we conduct sacrament meeting, remember that we need to conduct this in a manner that invites the power of the Holy Ghost. If you're struggling with how to come up with conducting, look at General Conference and see how it's done at General Conference. That is a perfect example of how we need to conduct our sacrament meetings.

When the bishopric conducts sacrament meeting, it needs to be smooth, meaning we cannot distract from the Spirit. If you are up there and you're saying mmh and uhms and don't really quite know what to say, that distracts from the Spirit. And so I recommend using a conducting template that helps keep bishopric on track and have them know exactly what to say. In our bishopric meeting prior to a sacrament meeting, we review our conducting template so there are no questions when sacrament meetings began - [00:15:00] What should and shouldn't be said over the pulpit. We don't want whoever is conducting turning around and asking the bishop, "What do I need to say?" Or "did I make that right call?" You know, we've already ironed all of that out beforehand and so there are no questions. Remember the bishopric gets up there and it's smooth.

With this conducting template, I recommend taking time during the week to update it, making sure your songs and speakers are in so you're not asking to do it immediately before a sacrament meeting. There's individuals out there who are very uncomfortable with public speaking. And so if that is you, I recommend filling out that conducting template well ahead of time, and then practice. Read it out loud over and over again so you feel comfortable with the words, you feel comfortable with what you have to say before that Sunday comes. Just remember that we want to

create an atmosphere where individuals have a spiritual experience. When the bishopric is stumbling over the words as they conduct, that can be a huge distraction.

Kurt: I want to interject, Aaron. I love this. Going back to your initial question, like, if you had a person who is investing in the church, whatever we call them now, that is there for the first time or someone that's in the ward for the first time or whatever it is, it's just these little things, that as you maybe just tweak and improve, it's going to make for a better flow the meeting, which will reflect on the sacredness and the Spirit of the meeting, right? Because a lot of people think, "Oh, what's the big deal? What does it matter if I say these things or don't say these things?" But I think that every leader, especially going back to what you said about the bishop, he's not there just to make sure the sacrament part is set right. Like he owns the meeting. He is presiding. And so he's wanting to make that meeting the best experience that he can for everybody involved. And so I like how you're highlighting this. That, yeah, it seems like a little thing just these phrases, but as we really hone the craft here of conducting a sacrament meeting, it really does reflect, at least my opinion and yours, obviously, that it really does make a difference in the feeling of that meeting.

Aaron: It does. And it's hard. I think we go to church, you know, I've been going to church since I was born, and we've seen a member of the bishopric get up there and conduct and the first time it's your turn to do it, you're, "I don't know what to say." And so it is hard and you need to get used to it. And so using the conducting template is great way just to..."this what I need to say. I don't need to deviate from it." It helps us you know, be smooth and by that Spirit.

The couple phrases that we should try to stay away from as we conduct, one is the term "ward business." This term is used in the handbooks. But we should try to avoid using it during sacrament meeting. Sacrament meeting is not a business meeting. Now, there are some business that is transacted during the meeting, but whatever business we need to be taking care of, you know, calls, releases, sustains, whatever it might be, we do not need to refer it as a business. We just simply need to take care of what we need to take care of without identifying it. When we identify it as business, it can distract from the Spirit the sacred nature of our sacrament meeting.

Another phrase that we should stay away from is "turn the time over to anyone." As a bishop, I preside unless there's a member of the stake presidency there. Now, this is my sacrament meeting. I preside the time from the first song until the closing prayer. I preside over that meeting. So I don't turn the time over to anyone. I preside. For example, it's usually a phrase that we use as a transition that doesn't necessarily need to be said. And so if we have a member for the High Council that needs to come up and speak rather than saying, "We now turn the time over to the member of the High Council," we can just say, "Brother Boyd from the High Council has some matters for our consideration." Again, notice that I said "has matters for our consideration." I did not say, "Brother Boyd has some stake business to attend to." These are

matters for our consideration. It is not the business meeting. And so as a bishopric, you do not turn the time over to anyone to preside over the sacrament meeting.

Use the exact language for the sustaining and releasing of members. This language can be found in handbook too, Section 19.3 and 19.5. If you don't use a conducting template, I recommend having this language readily available so you don't stumble over your words as you're [00:20:00] calling and releasing individuals.

Kurt: This is a great point. It is pretty specific in the handbook as far as like what you say. But a lot of times people simply just wing it, right? I remember having it there printed so I could read it word for word.

Aaron: Yeah, exactly. And if we don't have it, we might release somebody and say, "Anyone opposed?" And we don't want to oppose a release. I mean, that's just not something that we do. And so we just want to make sure that we're following the handbook and following that terminology that is listed in the handbook. And so have it written down. It makes it so much easier. And then just as a reminder to this is relatively new that, you know, calling for Relief Society and Elders Quorum can be done in those settings. And so this helps eliminate the number of callings that we do in sacrament meeting.

Another phrase that we can avoid using is "...we will now go to that point in the meeting." This is another kind of unnecessary phrase that we use when we don't know how to transition from one part of sacrament meeting to the next. When I conduct sacrament meeting, after the sacrament, I get up and I announced the rest of the meeting. I talk about whatever speakers and music, closing song, closing prayer. I get it all out right then. Now we print a program, it's there. One of the reasons why I do that, I want to avoid me getting up and down three or four times during the sacrament meeting. I feel like that can be a distraction. Like, "This guy's getting up again." The only exception for that is fast and testimony meeting because the bishopric ends the meeting. And so just another phrase to be aware of as you're conducting sacrament meeting.

Kurt: Along with that point, there's sort of this unwritten law or this unwritten process or way of doing sacrament meetings that I've seen some people sort of get in trouble. I wouldn't say get in trouble. But basically what happens is you have a visiting authority come like Area Seventy. And then Area Seventy ask to say a few words in the end. And then some wards, I never did this, but I know some wards have the habit of getting up at the end and sort of wrapping it up and saying, "That was wonderful. Here's a few thoughts to my reflection on that topic," and then they'll announce the closing prayer or the closing song.

But I've seen an area authority talk to a bishopric member and say, "This is not correct for you to stand up after the presiding authority in a meeting." And you'll see that in General Conference

model as well. Like whoever's conducting always gets up before President Nelson and announced the rest of the meeting. And then when President Nelson ends, they go straight to the choir or straight to the closing song and to the prayer. The way I did it was after sacrament, I would stand up and announce the whole rest of the program till the prayer. And then I could just sit and relax and listen, and didn't have to worry about, "Okay, when do I get up or whatever." You just announce the rest of program, sit down and enjoy the meeting.

Aaron: That's exactly what I do. When I was new at this, I would get up after the rest hymn and I would do it from there. Like, "Why am I getting up and down so many times? Do it once and get it all done with and enjoy sacrament meeting and you're less of a distraction getting up and getting down.

Another thing, when we're conducting, avoid using comedy or colloquial phrases. I was in a sacrament meeting once and the bishopric counselor who was conducting had a daughter. She was turning 12 and was being recognized for graduating from primary. You know, she came up as a rounder. And when the bishop finished doing that, the counselor who was conducting stood up and looked at the young man who were passing the sacrament and gave them a funny look, and made a funny comment about not dating to the age of 16. Now everyone in the congregation laughed. And he then announced the sacrament hymn and sat down. And so the moment right before we prepared is how the sacrament we were laughing about teenage dating. And I thought to myself, "You know what, this is the most sacred thing that we're going to do all week long." I can't imagine the Last Supper something like that happening. When we appear, James and John there and Peter's like, "Hey, did you hear the joke about whatever?" I can't imagine that. Stay away from comedy. [00:25:00]

And then kind of the colloquial phrases. I have a counselor who was referring to the congregation as he conducted as "you guys." And I just felt that was not appropriate way to address the congregation. And so during a bishopric meeting, I addressed this. He's not done at stands, but you know, bishops, again, you preside over sacrament meeting. So don't be hesitant to lovingly correct your counselors if you see that they're doing some of these things. And then also for counselors, don't assume that the bishop's always right, and don't be afraid to correct the bishop if you see him making mistakes. As I've gone through some of these things, this came from a training from General Conference in, I think, April 2015. And so this isn't something that Bishop Hubbard came up with, but this comes from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from the general authorities that this is something that they're concerned of how we presented ourselves in sacrament meeting.

One thing I want to talk a little bit more before I go on is announcements. We don't have a need during sacrament meetings to announce that we're going to have announcements. No, we don't say, "Now we will have announcements." We don't need to do it. It's extra. And so if you do

have announcements, just go right into the announcements. For example, if you have stake conference coming up, just like, "Everyone to know that the general session of stake conference will be on Sunday, January 27 at 10 am." And if you don't have any announcements, don't feel like you always have to have announcements. You don't need to announce that there's no announcements. If there's nothing to announce, just move on. Don't feel like you have to say something just to say something.

Kurt: And I think now with the one-hour sacrament meetings, announcements are sort of being discouraged in general, right?

Aaron: Yeah. Kurt: One thing that my current ward does I really like is they'll go through the whole sacrament meeting, they'll go to the closing prayer, and we're done. And then they just asked if you'll just stay a few minutes after the closing prayer, and then we'll have some announcements. And so we say the closing prayer, and then the boshopric member will stand up and give the announcements. So it's definitely we've moved out of that meeting, and then we break for our classes. And so there's definitely ways to go about it.

I always highlight that we have this feeling that if we say something like sacrament meeting is the best place to announce things, for some reason. I would completely disagree. It's probably the 10th place to announce something for everybody to hear. Like, I'd start with maybe social media, email. I mean, there's so many other places. But we have this feeling like, "But I've got to announce this in sacrament meeting or I won't be heard." People are either coming late if you're doing it the beginning or there's a lot of people missing or out of town or whatever.

Aaron: Or if you're like my wife riding with four kids, you're not going to hear any announcements.

Kurt: Yeah, exactly, when you have distraction of kids or whatever. There's better ways to announce. And I feel like the meeting just goes well when you just completely cut announcements out.

Aaron: I agree. I'm going to talk a little bit more about announcements going forward. I love this quote, again from Elder Holland. "We congratulate those bishoprics who are eliminating announcements that detract from the spirit of our worship. I, for one, cannot imagine a priest such as Zacharias—there in the ancient temple of the Lord, about to participate in the one and only priestly privilege that would come to him in his entire lifetime—I just cannot picture him pausing before the altar to remind us that the pinewood derby is just six weeks away and registration will soon be due." I love that quote. In our ward, the majority of announcements we give over the pulpit are only the ones that we are asked you by either the stake presidency or

through official church communication. Every once a while you'll get an email from the stake president, he'll say, "Hey, please announce this in sacrament meeting." And again, you get emails from the church that say, "Remind the ward members that we have General Conference coming up." So there are some of those official church communications are asked to be right over the pulpit.

There are other announcements that are appropriate such as a death or a funeral. So bishoprics need to use that Spirit we talked about earlier to identify which announcements they are going to say over the pulpit. But keep them short. There's time before Sunday School, Relief Society, Elders Quorum for the announcements to be made. One of the questions you probably have after listening to this quote is, how are we going to know when the pinewood derby registration is? How we're going to get this word out to the board members. And Kurt, what you just said, there are other opportunities [00:30:00] to hear out announcements and there's probably better ways.

Now one of the things that I've done in our ward is we look at our ward bulletin and we've kind of redesigned it so we can get more information into the program. We use legal-size paper, and we fold it into thirds and gives us more room for the announcements. And then each organization's presidency, they have the responsibility to email the ward bulletin and get their announcements in the program. So we really want to bulk up what announcements are in the program.

Then in October 2018 General Conference, pointing out, Kurt, it says, "To help members prepare for the Sabbath, some wards already send an informative email, text or social media message midweek." And so when I heard that I took that counsel to heart and every week I sent out an email to the ward with the upcoming announcements, I pretty much copy and paste what was put in the Sunday program, I throw it into an email and I send it out to the ward. And so when we did tithing settlement last year, one of the things that we really tried to do for every member that came in was to capture an email address. That way they could be aware of what is going on with the ward. And I've received a lot of positive feedback for doing this.

Now, one of the reasons why we want to do this too is in our ward, part of our ward mission plan is to create a culture of inviting. And how can I invite someone to a ward activity if I don't know when it is. And so those many touch points as we can have with our ward members so they can invite their non-member friends, they can invite members who aren't currently attending. We need to get that information to our ward members so they can invite them. And then our organization presidents are great about sending information out via text and social media to get all this information to the ward. The take away from this, and I think you hit it really good on the head earlier, Kurt is there are so many ways that we can give announcements out, and over the pulpit on Sunday might not even be the best way to do it. So we can eliminate as many of these

announcements as we can during sacrament meetings. It'll help us I think have a Spirit that more in as we prepare to take the sacrament.

To talk a little bit about blessing and passing the sacrament, when we talk about blessing the sacrament, as a bishop, you are the president of the Priests Quorum. And so you need to practice with the priests. Teach them to read that prayer slowly and clearly. There are members of the ward that might not hear well, and they need to be able to pronunciate the words. Also teach the priests that this is more than just a couple verses of scripture because this is a sacred prayer and it should be read as such.

Passing the sacrament. If the young men are trying to figure out where to go as they pass the sacrament, that could be a big distraction to the congregation. And so two or three times a year, we take the young men into the chapel and we practice passing the sacrament during one of our weekly activities. And during this time, we give the boys different situations and kind of see how they would they respond? You know, what would you do if a member of the stake presidency was there? What would you do if you ran out of bread? or What would you do if you ran out of water? And so we give young man these different scenarios and it gives them an opportunity to practice and also gives them time to ask questions. And so just remember too that the bishopric are the ones that are in charge and making sure that the sacrament is blessed and passed in reverent and orderly manner. This needs to be practice. We assume that these boys have seen the sacrament passed from the time they're little, and they know exactly what to do. But that's not the case. We need to practice with them and have them know where to go.

I mentioned earlier, one of my goals as a bishop is to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to partake of the sacrament. And this includes the individuals in the foyer. I talked a little bit about my wife. She's been going to sacrament meeting by herself with anywhere from two to four children for the last six years. And inevitably, there's one of those children that needs to be taken out into the foyer. And I would hate for her not to be able to partake of the sacrament because she's had to take one of my children out to the foyer. And then there's other reasons why people might be in the foyer. So for me, they're in the building, they should have the opportunity to partake the sacrament.

Again, who gets a sacrament second? This is [00:35:00] a trick question that I asked my young man. And the answer is it doesn't matter who gets a second as long as the presiding officer receives the sacrament first. And there's a couple of reasons why I asked this question. It must have been a Ward Conference. We had the stake presidency with us on the stand of the bishopric. We had a deacon that was going from the stake president to the bishop, to the first counselor and the stake presidency to the first counselor and the bishopric. And just going back and forth.

Kurt: Oh, wow. Aaron: It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who takes the sacrament second. You got to give it to the stake president first and then whoever else is on the stand takes the sacrament.

Kurt: It kind of makes me smile a little bit. But at the same time you think about a brand new deacon. He may think like, "Okay I'm supposed to give the sacrament to the bishop first and that means maybe the first counselor second and the second counselor third." And so just every at least once a year or so just mentioning the fact...

Aaron: Yeah, mention it. And it's funny too. I'll play around with the boys too. They'll say, "Well, the first counselor gets it second." "Well, who gets it third." "The second counselor." They get really confused. "Who gets a fourth?" That's when it starts to stomp on. So it doesn't matter. Another example that I have is...this came from one of our trainings with our former Stake president. He's sharing the experience that he had. He was sitting on the stand next to a sister, and the deacon came and gave him the sacrament and then passed the sister to give the sacrament to the bishop. Now, how would you feel if you were that sister? We need to be mindful of the sisters who attend sacrament meeting. The deacons should have given that sacrament to the sister sitting next to the stake president. And so just teach them that. That helps us to avoid disruptions, it helps us to have sacrament run more smoothly.

The next one is "Bishop, he's wearing a green shirt." We have two deacons in our ward who come almost every Sunday without any parents. They dress themselves and they get to church. And I love those boys for that. I think of myself as a 13-year-old deacon, I don't know if I would have done that. And so I love and respect those boys for doing that. I've given those boys shirts and ties and they struggle coming in white shirts and ties. They always look nice when they come but they're not dressed in what I would call traditional deacon white shirt and tie. So after sacrament meeting, I had a member come up to me and said, "Hey, Bishop, did you know he's wearing a green shirt?" I said, "Yeah, I saw his green shirt." But for me for that young man, the most important thing for him is that he was able to come and help participate in the sacrament. Do I want him to wear a white shirt and tie? Yes. There's great symbolism in the white shirts that we wear as priesthood holders when we participate in ordinances. But for this 13-year-old deacon, I want them to feel included. I want them to feel like he's an important member of the quorum. I don't want his clothing to be a barrier for that.

Kurt: And I think this is an interesting point because I remember as a bishop, I was very specific with my counselors. I'd say, "I realize it's not in the handbook that we need to be clean-shaven or wearing a suit, but I would like to propose that we do this because I think it sets a certain standard and a model that holds things together as far as the focus and the feeling of things." And I'm a marketing guy, so I'm big on branding. And so I'd love these different points is of you're

saying like these are important, but we realize there's leaders out there that sort of take it to a different level of like, "No, you're forbidden from passing the sacrament unless you're in a white shirt." Like that doesn't help.

I love the process you go through. You're setting a standard, and you're asking for a standard be met because it formalizes an ordinance or process again. But at the same time, you're not saying, "Well, we can't do that. In fact, if we do, we're probably sinning in some measure." There's a balance there of setting a standard but realizing you're going to give where needed or even though a lot of this isn't in the handbook.

Aaron: Yeah. And for me, it's gone to the individual. Again, these are 13-year-old boys and they just don't know and it's our responsibility to teach them. Like I said, if you talk poorly about a 13-year-olds clothing, he's probably not going to show up in future [00:40:00] because of that. And I would hate for that. I would hate for something like clothing to be the reason why a young man stopped coming to church. And so yes, we want them to be in white shirts and ties. I think Elder Holland talked about wearing white shirts and ties probably 20 years ago in General Conference, and it's a great talk, but we got to remember these boys. I was talking to a good friend of mine last night on the phone and he said, "Hey, we were watching the New Book of Mormon videos." And he said, "How would we feel if Nephi got the long hair and kind of roughed up clothing a little bit, came into sacrament meeting and wanted to bless the sacrament wearing what he was wearing." "But what does that mean? Nephi was a great prophet, and he never wore a white shirt and tie?" And I liked that. Just be mindful especially depending on where you live, the clothing that the boys wear.

Avoid disruptions after the sacraments. One of the examples that I like to give is the young man, they bless and pass the sacrament and then they go sit down. And then the member of the bishopric gets up and says, "We would like to invite those who are participants to sit down with their families," or whatever it might be. Again, this is unnecessary. It's just an extra step. Once they're done with the sacrament, they can just go and sit with their families. There doesn't need to be any fanfare or comment. They've done their duty and we're going to move on in our sacrament meeting. Avoid all those extra disruptions.

And then the priesthood does not pass the sacrament. Again, you've talked about this in a couple of your podcasts before. Avoid referring to those who administer the sacrament as the priesthood. Neither men or boys are the priesthood. The priesthood is the power and authority of God. Those who hold their priest are the priesthood holders not the priesthood. Do not thank the Aaronic priesthood for blessing and passing the sacrament. And so keep that in mind. I think that's a tradition, that's a culture thing that we do, but it is not appropriate.

Man: I think we need to be sure that all of our bishoprics understand that the planning for sacrament meeting is a matter for the bishopric. The thought was that they would think through two or three, four weeks in advance and then that they would bring their council what they have planned to the Ward Council, where the sisters would be there and others would be there to hear what the bishopric has planned. And they may, at that point, feel free to make some suggestions, but we want to be sure that the responsibility of sacrament meetings rests with the bishopric and the confirmation and support comes from the Ward Council as they help in however ways they can council with the bishopric. So we have these kinds of sacrament meetings.

Thank you. Bishop Davis.

Bishop Davis: I'm thinking about the Sabbath day worship at home and at church and the pattern of a bishopric being on the stand is one positive element. I believe church members, in general, come to worship on Sunday, and they're hungry to be fed spiritually and doctrinally. And I found that those sacrament meetings that always have an element of the Savior, that talk about Him and His life, His teachings, and the testimony where the speakers testify of how the Savior has impacted their life is generally much more fulfilling than something else. And when we see the Savior central to that sacrament meeting theme, always think the members feel better, they feel fed, having felt the spirit of the Savior.

Aaron: That's a good video clip that will help us move on. So let's talk about our speaking assignments and how we prepare for going to the instruction part of sacrament meeting. Now, when I was first called to serve in a bishopric, one of the most stressful parts of my calling was deciding who should talk and their topic. How we did it was if it was your month to conduct, it was your responsibility to do to everything. And I've heard of other bishops doing it similar. How did you do it, Kurt?

Kurt: Well, we tried a few things. But I think near the end, we would try and talk with the individual beforehand, and with [00:45:00] their help determine what the topic was. Because if you give just an arbitrary topic to somebody, they maybe had a more difficult time connecting with it personally or but we generally tried to find a specific story or experience in their life where their testimony was deepened, and then find the gospel principle within that that they could then speak on. That seemed to work best.

Aaron: Okay. And then did you break that out by a counselor or was it kind of a group effort? Kurt: Yeah. We did the same thing with the months as far as the counselor handling each month...for their month.

Aaron: One of the things that I've done different is I've made this a combined bishopric effort to plan sacrament meeting, so nobody feels like they're on their own for that month. My counselors,

they head out all the speaking assignments but we do it all together. And it doesn't matter whose month it is to conduct. It is a very much group effort. In December of each year, I sent out an email and asked the members of the Ward Council for the part of the email about which topics they would like to hear during the course of the year. These could be topics that they understand about their organizations. So I got the feedback from the Ward Council.

Then we also tried to use the Ward Council help identify individuals who would be best at addressing these topics. And so then the bishopric, we fill out the speaking assignments for the entire year. Right now, we're at the beginning of February, and I have the sacrament meetings planned through the rest of the year. As a bishop, you know, I make most of the decisions on who to speak in sacrament meeting. I do this for two reasons. One is I kind of enjoy it. I enjoy revealing the topics that we're going to be discussing, I enjoy looking at different general conference talks that might be included with that, and I enjoy thinking about which members would be a good job.

Then two, as a bishop, your view of the ward is a lot broader and you know more information about the individuals than your counselors do. For example, last year, I met with an individual, and as I met with him, he shared with me his testimony in the Book of Mormon and I was touched by it. And so when I was time, the end of December, we talked about the Book of Mormon in preparation for the 2020 Come, Follow Me, the first person I thought of was this brother that shared his testimony with me in the Book of Mormon. And so I can use my experiences as bishop meeting with members to help plan sacrament meeting.

One of the things that our bishopric has done was we've aligned our sacrament meeting topics with Come, Follow Me for the week. I felt that this was one way that the church could support what is being learned in the home and it also took some of the pressure of us trying to come up with a topic for a sacrament meeting. We have all of the members of the Ward Council speak yearly. I speak three times a year - in Ward Conference and then two other times. And my counselor speaks twice a year. We don't have many youths in our ward, but we try to get them to each speak at least twice. The month of their birthday, and then I've kind of the half year mark. I also recommend members of the bishopric having a talk prepared that they can give in a moment's notice. Over the course of a year, something will happen, where you might need to find a speaker in a moment's notice. And so rather than scouring the war looking for someone to give a talk, you know what, I have had this talk prepared. I can get it.

And you never know too. You never know in the sacrament meeting if the concluding speaker ends and there's still 15 minutes left. Now how are you going to fill that 15 minutes when it needs to be filled? And so you know, as a bishopric, especially bishop have information prepared that you can easily give in ward from a 5 minutes or 15 minute talk on a moment's notice. When I say in advance, I don't mean like a week. I mean like a month or two before the individuals are

asked to speak. Giving them that amount of time, I feel it gives them time to adequately prepare for their talk. I can't imagine watching General Conference and someone getting up there and saying, "I just got called yesterday to speak. I didn't have much time to prepare, but I'll give it my best shot." I think it's best to give members plenty of time. I have a brother in our ward who I give his speaking assignment too eight months in advance, and he gives phenomenal talks.

I also recognize too [00:50:00] that public speaking is a huge fear for most people and it can be scary. And so knowing that you have a speaking assignment coming up might cause a couple sleepless nights. But I love the idea of the members knowing what their topic is going to be and having an opportunity to study and pray and ponder what that topic is going to be so they can get up there and give a well-prepared hog that teaches gospel truth. And how you ask someone to speak in sacrament meeting is the beginning of a good talk. There's a good, better, best approach to asking someone to speak in sacrament meeting. I'm a firm believer that the home is the best place to ask them when to speak. Now, there's value in a member the bishopric meeting with someone in their home, it's an opportunity to build a relationship with that ward member and have a gospel-centered discussion about this topic.

I don't recommend stopping someone in the hallway and asking them to speak at church. This can be awkward, especially if there are concerns about the assignment. If you do ask someone to speak in church, do it in private. You know, elementary classroom, maybe use the clerk's office, use the bishop's office. Again, we need to take every opportunity we can to build relationships. If you're just stopping someone casually in the hallway asking them to speak, it takes away from that relationship that can be built. And then also have the phone, email text. My thought is, if you were doing this well enough in advance, you don't even need to use those as a form of communication asking someone to speak. This would be for me a last possible resort if you've tried to connect with someone over and over and you just can't. But no, do it in person especially in the home when you can.

And then the Monday prior to sacrament meeting, I just sent an email to the speakers. I say, "Hey, thank you for accepting the assignment speak on Sunday. Just reminding you. Here is your speaking assignment." One thing too that I would like to do better at, and this is one of my goals for this year, is to better orient speakers on how to begin to talk. Now we have limited amount of time to teach the gospel Jesus Christ from the pulpit, and we don't need to spend five minutes listening about how the bishop asked you to speak or introducing their family or reporting what Google said about the topic, or tell a joke that might not invite the Spirit. So again, we need to look to General Conference as an example of how to begin to talk.

Another bishopric I served in, the bishop created this letter and included the day, the duration of the talk, and the topic and references that can be used for a talk. And so I love this practice of providing a written document to the member when they're asked to speak. This is the document

that we use. The one of the very first slides that I showed had the Excel document, we use that Excel document to format this letter. So we use a VLOOKUP function. We type it in and it just auto-fills everything.

Kurt: Wow. Cool. Aaron: It gives you the date of your speaking assignment. What is your assigned topic? One of my fears and I've seen this happen too in sacrament meetings before, if I asked you to speak on faith, we're all going to go into the scriptures in Alma and read about faith. And so you have two speakers speaking on faith sharing the same scripture. I love the diversity in talks in sacrament meeting. And so the assigned topic for our upcoming sacrament meetings is "I can come into Christ or see the glorious blessings of His atonement." Again, this comes from the Come, Follow Me for the week. And so the overall theme for sacrament meeting is "O how great the plan of our God." And so this helps with our music, deciding what songs we're going to sing so they can be related.

We need to know exactly how long they need to speak. And so brother Brown is one of my counselors. He's the concluding speaker. So he's going to get 12 to 15 minutes at the end of the meeting. And so for us, we don't have time where we can run over. We go in at 9 o'clock, and the other wards starts at 10:30. We can't run over. And so he needs to finish this talk by 9:55 so we can have the closing song and the closing prayer. And so one thing that I really liked about this, and I really enjoy going through and reading these conference talks, so if you've never given a talk before, you know, where am I going to find information about a talk? We put down the scriptures, we put down General Conference talks that individuals can go to and they can pull information out. I want to make speaking in sacrament meeting as easy as possible for the members of our ward.[00:55:00]

Again, there's a couple other instructions that we want to include. We want to make sure they're using the scriptures. We want to make sure that if they decide to use songs that they're read. We don't want singing. That's in the handbook too. And that they use faith-promoting experiences that they've had. There's a couple things we don't want them to do. We don't want them to speak on controversial topics. We don't want to ask members of congregation to turn into a passage of scripture or use no visual aids or multimedia. All of that is in the handbook. So by asking someone to speak, presenting this letter and going over the letter with them, it helps us stay ahead of any of these possible things that we might need to correct later. If someone pulls out a visual aid, and we've not told them to not do it, we're too late. We're not going to shut somebody down in the pulpit as they pull up the visual aid. It's our responsibility as a bishopric to be ahead of this.

I love the letter. Our ward kinda has the joke of "Oh, you got the letter?" Meaning you're assigned.

Kurt: Aaron, I got to mention, and a lot of these things, it's obvious that you, I mean, you just pull them from the handbook. So I mean, it's not like you're making all this stuff up. But I wanted to just highlight the letter. This is a game-changer. I mean, some people might look at this, like, "Oh, that's nice, they get a letter." But no, this could be a serious game-changer. Let me just explain what we did when I was serving as Bishop because like I said, we wouldn't assign a topic until we sat down with them and talk to them and the member the bishopric. But what we would do, let's say we plan out like three months' worth of speakers, and we have names of who these speakers are going to be, we then would send the letter at that point. So the first time of them discovering that there would be speaking in sacrament meetings was when they got this letter in the mail. Or it was we did it in email a lot. I think typically we didn't an email.

So you get an email and it would say, Hey, we'd like you to speak on this day, which is maybe six weeks in the future or two months in the future." And then it sort of just allows them to take on that blow a little bit softer because some people really they don't want to be told a week before, and then they're scrambling. And then we would explain in that letter, there's going to be a member of the bishopric reaching out to you to discuss what the topic could be, and we're going to decide on that together. Or you could do this method as well, just putting the topic there. But then I would have very similar things that you have here as far as because I think like speculative and controversial or out of harmony with the church doctrine. I think that's in the handbook and these things. And then I would even put on there "We would ask that you not mention the process of how the bishopric asks you to speak in your time."

Just these little things that you want to get out of the way like visual aids or whatever, like putting them down where they read it, I mean, we saw complete shift when we went to the letter format or the email format because it just gives all the information upfront. And sometimes you do this a lot as a bishopric. You're asking a lot of people to speak, and you just sort of forget these details from time to time. Like, "I told them the topic, but I should have maybe told them about this or that. And I forgot to do that." But the letter just makes it easy. All the information is there and then they can come to you with other questions.

Then in the letter, we would always also stipulate like, "If you're out of town or can't do this date, please let us know. We can make an adjustment to the date." But we found it really took a lot of the pain out of this process by just getting out there, "Hey, we'd like you to speak. Let's talk about it later." And then I was like, "Okay, I can plan on that. It's six week away, I could do that. Or it's a month away, I could do that." So that's sort of our adjusted approach.

Aaron: I know we're moving towards a more digital world, but I love the idea of having something tangible to give them. And that helps getting a text message later, "Hey, what was my topic again?" They completely forget. Whereas if they have the letter, they're probably not going to forget. Or they might lose a letter that's happened before and we just emailed them another one. But I love using this. This has been great for us. And, you know, one of the things that we talked about in bishopric meeting, I have them all printed out ready to go and I gave it to my counselors and they have that responsibility to then meet with the members that do the speaking assignments.

I want to talk about testimony meeting. Maybe Kurt, when you were a bishop, what was the most stressful sacrament meeting of the month for you?

Kurt: Testimony meeting. I mean, I'm pretty easygoing guy. I just sort of roll with whatever is on there. But yeah, open mics can be dangerous.

Aaron: It can be dangerous. As a bishop, [01:00:00] I remember when it's your turn to bear your testimony, you need to set the spiritual stage for the testimony meeting. When I was a new counselor in a bishopric and it was my turn to bear my testimony, and I got up there and I gave what I would call vanilla testimony - primary testimony. And I remember sitting down and thinking to myself, "You can do better than that." After that experience, I spent significant amount of time pondering and praying, what I want to say when it's my turn to bear my testimony. For you bishoprics out there, spend more time than just the moments leading up to your testimony pondering what you're going to say. What you say invite invites the Spirit that'll be felt throughout the meeting. And so you set that example of what a testimony is, and what a testimony should sound like.

One of the things that we do in our ward, you know, when we conclude our test testimony is we ask the members to bear their testimony on the effects of the atonement on their lives and the lives of their family and focusing on Jesus Christ. When we focus on Jesus Christ, we invite the Spirit because that's the Holy Ghost his main purpose is to testify of Jesus Christ. One of the things too that I always do is I always invite our Ward Council to bear their testimonies. And I think, here are the leaders of the ward who better to set the example of what a testimony is than the members of the Ward Council. So I frequently remind our ward council this past Sunday, please get up and share your testimony. And also I've asked them too like, "If you feel like testimony meeting is getting a little out of balance, it's your responsibility to get up there and bear a true testimony of Jesus Christ. And if you feel the testimonies getting way out of balance, and you're like, "man, We just need to kind of stop what's going on," Bishop, you take 10 minutes, your counselor can take 10 minutes, and your other counselor take 10 minutes bearing their testimony and it'll be a great testimony meeting.

I was in a testimony meeting a couple of years ago, and the youth of the wards started challenging each other to bear their testimony, kind of like the Ice Bucket Challenge. And it started snowballing. As a bishopric, we knew we needed to end that. And so we got up there and we bore our testimonies until it was time to end the meeting. We could just feel that the Spirit was leaving as youth were calling out each other to bear their testimony.

Kurt: I was going to mention with testimony meeting, you know, you mentioned as far as the bishopric needs to send example of a testimony. Some great advice that I got from an Area Seventy, I think he just articulated well. That oftentimes as a bishopric member, we know it's our turn to conduct. So we're going to have to kick off the football for the testimony meeting and give our testimony. But what happens, you'll hear this phrase a lot, people in bishoprics, they'll say something like, "I knew it was my turn to give my testimony. So I've been thinking a lot about what I was going to say." Again, not that there's any problem thinking about that, but then they would give a really pretty good decent, abbreviated talk where they'd say, "Yeah, I was out with my brother and we were hunting and we saw this thing. And let me draw this parallel to this thing that happened." That's a talk. That's not a testimony.

I think, as far as setting an example for a testimony that bishoprics can really benefit from is really pushing yourself to bear a testimony rather than give a talk with a testimony at the end. And it's so easy to get in this habit. And I see it all the time. But bearing a strong testimony that's thought out, again, it's not a vanilla testimony like you articulate but it's a good thought out testimony, but it's still a testimony and then moving on, I think that can really set the tone because people will hear you give a brief talk and think, "Well, I don't got anything like that to say, so I'm just not going to say anything."

The other thing is, this was gold for me. When I was doing start a testimony meeting is you sort of, and I've written an article on Leading Saints about this, but you tee up the testimony of others. So because a lot of people are there, they have maybe haven't thought about it or maybe they feel the spirit prompting them to stand and bear their testimony, but they think, "What am I going to say? It's just going to be uncomfortable." So one thing I would do is, you know, I'd give my testimony, not a talk but a testimony, and then I'd say something at the end of like, "We invite you all to stand and share your testimony. And then here's the key." You say, "And if you're not sure what to talk about or if you feel prompted to stand up, you don't know what to say," then you give them something like, "Maybe consider sharing your thoughts, perspectives and or a testimony about the temple and how the temple has blessed your life. [01:05:00] Or maybe consider your conversion story and what testimony came out of your conversion story?" And it was remarkable to see that so many more people stand up and share around that topic. "When the bishop said that, this came to my mind that I should share this." And it was beautiful

how it worked. And it just led to a great meeting. Any other additional thoughts on testimony meeting?

Aaron: No, I mean, I would just understand that as many times as we teach what a testimony is, and kind of how it sounds, you're not going to reach everybody, and there's always going to be the individual that gets up there and says, "You know what, this is my update for the month. So just love those individuals. Just love them.

Next, music. I've been a member of the church my entire life and there are songs in a handbook that I have never heard. I can't read music and I have no musical talent. In fact, my musical talent is so bad, when I was [inaudible 01:06:06] bishopric, he's now the stake presidency, and he came and he was sitting by me during a sacrament meeting, and he leaned over to me, he's like, "I forgot how bad you sing." On the case when we sing the songs that we're unfamiliar with, I give up. And I then sit patiently and I wait for the song to end. Now, that's probably not what I should do as a bishop but that's what I do.

And so just imagine going back to that first question, no, if you've never been a sacrament meeting before, and you've seen a song that nobody is familiar with, only a handful of people are trying to sing and the organist gets their solo. How would that make you feel? You'd wonder what's going on with these people. The hymns we sing need to build faith. I love it when we sing "I Am a Child of God." No sitting on the stand. You see everybody singing I am a child of God. All the primary kids can sing along with. And so imagine you're new to the church, you don't know anything about it and you see the congregation I am a child of God and the children, adults of all ages are singing this beautiful hymn. How would that make you feel? I think that would make you build faith [inaudible 01:07:25] members of the church really believe.

And so there's a careful balance between singing the songs that we are familiar with and utilizing the entire handbook. There's counsel here from President Oaks. Carefully follow His counsel. Remember that meet the music for sacrament meeting requires careful planning. So look at the words, listen to it. Every once in a while have our ward music director, she'll email, "What do you think of this song?" Well, let me listen to it first before I say yes."

Another thing too, remind the bishops that you preside over all aspects of sacrament meeting and this includes the music. So if there are any decisions that need to be made about singing either one verse of the song because, you know, talk was long and we need to end before the other ward barges in, or if you're going to sing like all seven verses of A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief, those decisions need to come from the bishop. The music director shouldn't get up from the pulpit and yell out from the congregation any changes to the song without the bishops

approval. And so you'll see that from time to time that "we're only going to say one verse." That needs to come from the bishop. That's the reverent and not appropriate for sacrament meeting.

Then for the prelude and post lead music, make sure that the music invites the Spirit and it's not played in a way that someone was preparing for an organ recital. People who play any musical instrument they love to perform. This is a great opportunity for individuals to share their talent. But we just need to be careful that you know that music is not taking away from the Spirit that the music is quiet. Because what happens if that organ gets louder, everybody talks just a little bit louder. So just be careful. And then when you do have any musical numbers, remind now those individuals who are participating what is the purpose of sacrament meeting. This is not the time for you to have your performance of a lifetime or show everyone that you can go on the voice. And this is an opportunity for you to invite the Spirit into your sacrament.

And then culture. Every ward is different. Serving the stake presidency, Kurt, you probably saw that every ward that you went to was just a little bit different.

Kurt: Yeah, they all have their personality. Aaron: They all have their personalities. They're all different. And so recognize that every ward is [01:10:00] different. As you review your sacrament meeting, ask yourself, why do we do that? The answer you might hear is, well, that's the way we've always done it. And that's not a good reason why. As you look at your sacrament meeting, deconstruct every aspect of your sacrament meeting, and ask yourself, why do we do this? Now, if it is extra or it does not contribute to the purpose of sacrament meeting, eliminate it. I think I've had been in wards where the congregation all stood for the rest hymn. And so that was a culture thing for that ward. Or I've seen a bishopric at the end of sacrament meeting excuse their counselors and they go stand by one by each door so they can greet everyone as they leave and sacrament meeting. There's good reasons behind those, but is that truly necessary?

Another thing just to be very mindful of is having male speak last just because they hold the priesthood. This is a bad practice. When I was in the bishopric, I'd asked the primary president to speak, one of the primary teachers to speak. And when I submitted kind of the order them to the program, the sister that did our program, she switched them. So she had the primary president go second, and the priesthood holder go last.

That really bothered me. I think to myself, "This is a president of an organization. She's in charge of all the children in the ward. This is her responsibility. And just because the male holds the priesthood and he was a former bishop, that doesn't mean he gets to speak last." And we need to be very mindful of how males participate in sacrament meeting. We don't want males saying the opening and closing prayers and then bless and pass the sacrament and then giving the talks. This

might not seem like a big deal for some, but it could be a huge struggle for other members of the church who struggle with understanding the roles females have in our church. Just be very mindful of who you ask to participate, even the order and all that kind of stuff.

Another thing to consider is having married couples speak together. We have 30% of our ward is single. And so if we only have married couples speak together, it might give the perception that you have to really be married to give a talk in sacrament meeting. From time to time, we do have married couples speak but it's definitely not a regular practice in our ward. And then again, the handbook does state married couples should not be asked to give the opening and closing prayers in sacrament meeting. But just be mindful that there's a lot of good single members of our church and we just want to make sure that everybody feels included and important in our worship services.

Then another thing too about asking people to speak, you know, just because someone is new to the ward doesn't mean they have to speak immediately. There's other opportunities to have members of the ward introduce themselves, and you get to know them a little bit better. And so just keep that in mind. Just because you're new doesn't mean you have to speak.

One of the things that we do is we ask members to silence their phones at the beginning of every sacrament meeting. If there is a musical number or a primary program, we also remind the congregation that they shouldn't video or record any part of sacrament meeting. Once the meeting begins, it is too late to make any corrections. If they are there with video during primary program, we're not going to get up and say, "Hey, no video recording." Teach the principles first. Teach them the correct principles at the beginning so you don't have to make any corrections.

And then with the sacrament meetings only being 60 minutes long and about 30 of that is tied into kind of the sacrament, we really need a rest hymn. We don't have very much time. And so we still do a rest hymn. But I think to myself, do we need a rest hymn every week, we don't have a rest hymn during fast and testimony meeting. And so is this part of the culture that we always have a rest hymn and where we always have a musical number. If it invites the Spirit and it's going to be at the meeting, yes. If it's just a rest hymn because we always have a rest in between the two speakers, then maybe not. Maybe we give them extra time to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so like I said, every ward is different. So look at your [01:15:00] ward to see, what are we doing from a culture aspect? And what can we change to maybe invite the Spirit more in our sacrament meeting.

I just want to close with a quote from Elder Soares. He says, "How can we adjust administrative and spiritual matters and sacrament meetings to assist members and having a spiritual experience while partaking of the sacrament?" So take this question, take it to your bishopric, take it to your ward councils, and have a good discussion about what you can do to improve your sacrament

meeting experience. And we want to invite the Spirit. We want members from all walks of life to be able to come to sacrament meeting, partake of the sacrament, and have a meaningful spiritual experience that helps strengthen their testimony. And you know, the leaders of the ward, especially the bishopric have that responsibility. And so it's very important for the planner sacrament meetings to take the time to orient the speakers and do all these things so we can show our love of Jesus Christ through our sacrament meetings.

Kurt: Awesome. Well, any other thoughts? I think that's a good quote to wrap up on. Any other thoughts or final encouragement you'd have for the newbies out there that maybe are striving to improve sacrament meeting?

Aaron: There's a lot of good. In 2015, there was a huge focus on the Sabbath day. And part of that was keeping the Sabbath day holy at home and at church. And part of the church part was talking about sacrament meeting. Those videos are available on the church website under Sabbath day. I would look at those videos and take their suggestions and include those in all that you do. Again, ask yourself, why are we doing this? It's always been done, you know, there's always a better way that we can do it. Always be looking into ways that we can improve our meetings, how can we improve our worship so we can invite the Spirit.