Leading Saints Podcast

Karri Stoker discusses with Kurt Francom and Dan Duckworth what will go on at this Gathering Saints Women's retreat and how to determine if you should be there. For all the details related to the Fall 2022 Women's Retreat visit leadingsaints.org/gathering Listen to all of this 3-part series of short podcasts about the women’s retreat starting HERE.

John Eldredge is a bestselling author and counselor. He is also president of Wild at Heart, a ministry devoted to helping people discover the heart of God and recover their own hearts in God’s love. John and his wife, Stasi, live near Colorado Springs, Colorado. Highlights 2:00 Introduction and updates with Wild at Heart. 4:30 We are now in the after effects of the pandemic. How do we recover? 6:00 One of the after effects of the pandemic is that many people are walking away from traditional religion. They are going to other places to try and find relief. They are walking away from the source of their rescue and recovery. 8:50 The Edens in our life. The things that we long for. Instead of finding replenishment in God we go on vacations, we scroll our phones, etc. to find relief. 10:00 We are dealing with the traumatic aftermath of the pandemic. John explains how it has changed us and our ability to deal with everyday life. The classic trauma symptoms are: Mental fragmentation A loss of a sense of time The exhaustion The lack of grace for irritating people 12:30 We are struggling to go to church after the pandemic. We are exhausted, dealing with trauma, and our reserves are gone. 15:20 Advice for leaders trying to help people find Jesus in their Sunday meetings. You design opportunities for quiet and prayer. You don’t have to fill every moment. 21:00 Spiritual warfare creeps in. It’s not always a big, traumatic event. The adversary wants us to give up on God. 23:20 Notice how you react when someone gets in the way of your “Eden agenda.” 25:10 How leaders can help people reconnect with God. We need to recast the vision. 28:30 Kurt shares his own personal experience of connecting to God in a new way. His running routine has become a spiritual experience. 29:45 Nature heals as opposed to technology. First thing in the morning don’t look at your phone or listen to the news. Give a quiet moment to God. 31:00 John unpacks the meaning of the shallows, the midlands, and the depths. 35:20 How do we get our hearts out of the shallows? We begin by loving God and expressing gratitude. If we expect results and fixes from God then we are just going to be frustrated and disappointed. 38:00 How do we love God? It’s more of just keeping the commandments. 41:15 Written prayers can help us articulate things in a way that maybe we couldn’t do on our own. 44:00 John talks about his app called One Minute Pause. 46:50 The pressure of leadership is having to come through for people. They don’t need you. They need God. You are there to help them get to God. 48:15 Invite people to be a part of the larger story that God has for them. God’s story puts everything into perspective. Human beings use stories to make sense of reality. Links Resilient: Restoring Your Weary Soul in These Turbulent Times Wild at Heart Wild at Heart Podcast One Minute Pause App Reconnecting with God as a Distracted Church Leader | An Interview with John Eldredge Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast Get 14-day access to the Core Leader Library The Leading Saints Podcast gets over 300,000 listens each month and has nearly 10 million total downloads as part of nonprofit Leading Saints' mission to help latter-day saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, J. Devn Cornish, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Whitney Johnson, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, DeAnna Murphy, Michael Goodman, Richard Ostler and many more in over 500 episodes. Discover podcasts, articles, virtual conferences,

Karri Stoker, the director of the 2022 Gathering Saints Women's retreat, discusses with Kurt Francom and Dan Duckworth the purposes of a women's retreat like this. For all the details related to the Fall 2022 Women's Retreat visit leadingsaints.org/gathering Continue listening to this short series of podcasts about the women’s retreat HERE.

Karri Stoker, the director of the 2022 Gathering Saints Women's retreat, discusses with Kurt Francom and Dan Duckworth the purposes of a women's retreat like this. For all the details related to the Fall 2022 Women's Retreat visit leadingsaints.org/gathering Continue listening to the short series of podcasts about the women’s retreat HERE.

Sarah Randall grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, served in the Portugal Lisbon South mission, and graduated from Utah State University in Elementary Education. She has served in many ward Primary, Young Women, and Relief Society presidencies in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Alaska. Sarah and her husband have six children and together they love to backpack, hike, bike, and kayak all over Alaska. Sarah recently served as a facilitator for the Church’s new “Emotional Resilience-Strength in the Lord” course and was thrilled to find that it covers the stages of the grief cycle. She has found that understanding the grief cycle has been pivotal in processing the losses in her own life, in therapy, and as a leader in the Church seeking to minister as Christ would. Understanding that the grief cycle applies to any loss in life including trauma and betrayal (not just death) has enabled her to be a better instrument for Christ to honor people’s pain—to learn how to support them through that grief process—to mourn with those who mourn. She also has loved sharing some of her family’s favorite kids' books for grieving, gaining empathy, and connecting with joy in their Anchorage Stake Women’s Conference, which can be found on her Instagram @strength.through.stories. Highlights 02:15 Sarah Randall’s background. 06:45 Sarah talks about her experience in the Relief Society Presidency and their approach to ministering. 14:45 Connecting with sisters from all different backgrounds and experiences. Honor their experiences and validate them. 20:50 How to get to the point where people actually do open up to you. Removing the reporting dynamic when it comes to ministering interviews. Asking questions like, “what do you want?” or “how can I help you?” 25:25 Sarah shares a personal experience of how she was able to help a sister in her ward who had had a lot of neglect and trauma in her life. 28:10 Codependency is enabling unhealthy behavior. When we are reaching out to help someone they need to be engaged in the process. As a leader you can invite them to take action instead of doing it for them. 33:00 Other questions to ask someone in need: Who have you already asked for help? Do you have an extended family that can help? 35:40 When people came to Jesus he would always ask, “what do you want?” He didn’t want to take away people’s agency. 37:45 One thing that leaders should really understand and get familiar with is the grief cycle. Honor other people’s feelings. 39:00 There are lots of unhelpful phrases like, “everything happens for a reason.” Links My Approach to Ministering Interviews | A How I Lead Interview with Sharon Kaye Fisher Instagram: @strength.through.stories Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast Get 14-day access to the Core Leader Library The Leading Saints Podcast gets over 300,000 listens each month and has nearly 10 million total downloads as part of nonprofit Leading Saints' mission to help latter-day saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, J. Devn Cornish, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, DeAnna Murphy, Michael Goodman, Richard Ostler and many more in over 500 episodes. Discover podcasts, articles, virtual conferences, and live events related to callings such as the bishopric, Relief Society, elders quorum, Primary, youth leadership, stake leadership, ward mission, ward council, young adults, ministering, and teaching.

We are excited to launch Gathering Saints where we will provide remarkable in-person experiences in order to help individuals transform as leaders in their church, community, and home. To see the details of all upcoming retreat experiences, visit LeadingSaints.org/Gathering Find more information about the Gathering Saints Women's Retreat in a series of podcast conversations starting HERE.

Mat Duerden received a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University and an M.S. from Brigham Young University. His experience design research focuses on memorable, meaningful, and transformative experiences. Mat is an Associate Professor of Experience Design and Management and Alumni Research Fellow in BYU's Marriott School of Business, and also teaches an honors program course, The Art of Transformative Storytelling. He works with organizations across a variety of sectors to provide training and consulting around experience design, and is also the co-author of the book Designing Experiences. Mat currently serves on his stake high council and in the stake Young Men presidency. Previous callings include bishopric counselor, Young Men president, elders quorum president, and executive secretary. He and his wife Chenae have four children and their favorite experiences occur outdoors on bikes, rafts, and skis. Highlights 01:45 Introduction to Mat Duerdon. He explains experience design. 11:15 How can leaders create an experience? What do you want people to say at the end of the experience? 23:30 When you are designing experiences in the church that doesn’t mean you have to create something new. Take what you have and tweak it. 26:30 There is a pressure on the bishopric to make everyone’s experiences great. 28:00 How to help the person that isn’t enjoying the experience of church or activities. What are their needs? 29:45 Mat shares an example of creating an experience for a ward or community. 59-minute service projects. 31:30 All experiences have three phases An anticipation phase A participation phase A reflection phase 33:10 Good experiences ask for people’s attention at the right points and respectfully minimize the attention needed at different points. 33:30 The anticipation phase. Make sure the information for an activity is very clear and given in advance. 34:45 Are there ways that we can create an anticipation phase for a sacrament meeting? 40:00 Good experience design is 90% creating really smooth-running, ordinary experiences. Leaders shouldn’t be stressing out on doing huge things. 42:30 Start with just one thing that your ward or organization really needs to work on. It’s better to do one or two things great than a bunch of things poorly. 44:00 The participation phase. We should be thinking about what needs we are trying to meet. Does your activity meet a need? 46:00 The reflection phase. The phase where we are actually harvesting what we’ve been growing. This is the phase that is most often overlooked but vitally important. 50:30 How do we help others in the reflection phase? Help them be a good storyteller. Retell their experience to someone. Journal about the experience. Make sure you follow up with them. 55:10 Remember that it’s not just about what people do when they walk through the door. Think about what happens before and what they do afterwards. 55:30 All experiences are co-created. The participants are in charge of how much they engage but as leaders we can think of ways to make it easier for people to engage in the ways that we want them to. 59:50 Reflect. We consume a lot of content and podcasts but very little of that content moves us to act. Transformative education is the future intentional use of that content. Are you going to use this content in your life? Write it down and act on it! Links Designing Experiences Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast Get 14-day access to the Core Leader Library The Leading Saints Podcast gets over 300,000 listens each month and has nearly 10 million total downloads as part of nonprofit Leading Saints' mission to help latter-day saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton,

This is a rebroadcast. The episode originally ran in May 2020. Dan Duckworth is a disciple, family man, and changemaker. As a teacher and coach, he guides elite leaders to the top of their game. He’s the author of Stop Asking Why: Your Purpose is Self-Evident, and president of the Leading Saints Board of Directors. Highlights 05:39: Dan discusses the life cycle of a crisis and creating a “new normal” for Home Church 11:51: Statistics of geographic areas and types of leaders that responded to survey 15:20: Bishops in a transactional mindset 18:13: All about hypothetical worries 21:14: Feeling like you need to be doing something 23:32: The Youth Program and God’s plans for 2020 27:33: Taking a break from worrying to ponder 30:40: Comparing yourself and your ward to others’ 35:18: D&C 1, Hyrum Smith, and disciplined reflection 42:28: Creating connections in ministering and knowing what God wants us to do as leaders 51:02: Knowing the why behind actions you take and transactional mindset vs transformation mindset 55:45: Reintegrating into regular church life 58:32: The number one leadership tool Links DanDuckworth.net Subscribe to the Leading Saints Newsletter The One Thing Bishops Worry Most About During Church-at-Home, and Why They Should Stop Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast Get 14-day access to the Core Leader Library The Leading Saints Podcast gets over 300,000 listens each month and has nearly 10 million total downloads as part of nonprofit Leading Saints' mission to help latter-day saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, J. Devn Cornish, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, DeAnna Murphy, Michael Goodman, Richard Ostler and many more in over 700 episodes. Discover podcasts, articles, virtual conferences, and live events related to callings such as the bishopric, Relief Society, elders quorum, Primary, youth leadership, stake leadership, ward mission, ward council, young adults, ministering, and teaching.

Joseph M. Spencer is a philosopher and an assistant professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University. He has a BA in philosophy from BYU, an MLIS in library science from San Jose State University, and an MA and PhD in philosophy from the University of New Mexico. Joseph is the author of six books, including the recently-published Book of Mormon Studies: An Introduction and Guide. He serves as the editor of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, as the associate director of the Latter-day Saint Theology Seminar, and a vice president of the Book of Mormon Studies Association. In the church, Joseph has served as an early morning seminary teacher, Gospel Doctrine teacher, a counselor in a variety of presidencies, and currently serves as a bishop. He and his wife Karen have been married 20 years and have five kids. Highlights 01:00 Introduction to Joseph Spencer 03:40 Advice Joseph would give to his younger self about teaching. 04:30 How Joseph got into philosophy and how he ended up at BYU teaching religion. 08:00 Advice to make scripture study better. Slow it down. 09:50 Joseph talks about his experience as a Bishop and things that have worked. 13:50 Joseph’s perspective on repentance and how he compares it to the sabbath. 19:50 What are we missing when we read the Book of Mormon? We are good at connecting with the divine but we aren’t actually paying attention to what is said. We are really bad at getting the big picture. 26:00 Leadership in the Book of Mormon. Nephi’s leadership and struggle to be a leader. 37:30 The dynamic between Nephi, Laman and Lemuel. 44:00 Asking questions and figuring out what your role is as a leader. We tend to want to follow a formula or rely solely on the handbook. 46:20 Going deeper into Nephi. Joseph shares his perspective on Nephi’s leadership. 56:40 Nephi and Jacob were able to tell their own stories in the Book of Mormon. They didn’t portray themselves as perfect. They showed us their imperfection. 59:20 The passage of scripture that Joseph shares with people most often is Ether 12. Links Book of Mormon Studies: An Introduction and Guide Y Religion: Hugh Nibley’s Contribution to Book of Mormon Studies Art: Go and Do, by Jorge Cocco Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast Get 14-day access to the Core Leader Library The Leading Saints Podcast gets over 300,000 listens each month and has nearly 10 million total downloads as part of nonprofit Leading Saints' mission to help latter-day saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, J. Devn Cornish, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, DeAnna Murphy, Michael Goodman, Richard Ostler and many more in over 700 episodes. Discover podcasts, articles, virtual conferences, and live events related to callings such as the bishopric, Relief Society, elders quorum, Primary, youth leadership, stake leadership, ward mission, ward council, young adults, ministering, and teaching.

This episode is a conversation from the One Heart One Light podcast with Matt Allred, where Kurt talks about the power of story and how we can connect and find healing through our stories. Highlights 03:25 Introduction to Kurt Francom 04:40 Kurt talks about his path to starting Leading Saints. 10:30 The most important thing that Kurt has learned as a leader 14:20 Master the skill of connecting. Connecting person to person. 15:00 How do you get people to open up and connect with you? 18:00 Most people want to share more but they don’t feel safe. As a leader you can help create a safe space for people to share and open up. 23:45 Worried about oversharing? Share the past transgression because that also shares the past redemption. 24:50 After Christ’s resurrection He shared his scars. Just as it was important for Christ to share His scars, it’s important for us to share our own scars. 30:45 What does it mean to bear each other’s burdens? 32:30 Kurt shares his own personal experience of reaching out to a friend going through a hard time. He has learned to just be present with them. 34:15 Oftentimes we feel shame just as Adam did in the Garden of Eden and hide from God and others. God is calling out, “where are you?” 38:00 While service is also a part of bearing other’s burdens, it means so much more when you also have a great connection with that person. You have sat with them and listened to their story. 38:40 What’s the value of brotherhood? There is a hole in our hearts that can only be filled with brotherhood. 47:10 Kurt talks about where he plans to go with Leading Saints and his vision for it. 50:30 Kurt speaks to what he thinks building Zion looks like and what we need to do to get there. Links One Heart One Light YouTube: The power of "story" as it relates to connection, authenticity and redemption Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast Get 14-day access to the Core Leader Library The Leading Saints Podcast gets over 300,000 listens each month and has nearly 10 million total downloads as part of nonprofit Leading Saints' mission to help latter-day saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, J. Devn Cornish, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, DeAnna Murphy, Michael Goodman, Richard Ostler and many more in over 700 episodes. Discover podcasts, articles, virtual conferences, and live events related to callings such as the bishopric, Relief Society, elders quorum, Primary, youth leadership, stake leadership, ward mission, ward council, young adults, ministering, and teaching.