“The family is central to the Creator’s plan.” The ongoing Restoration in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints points us today toward a “home-centered Church.” Home-centered, Church-supported spiritual ministry breathes life anew into the idea of church leaders more fully approaching and engaging the family as the “fundamental unit” of the Church (as well as society) and imagining the possibilities and blessings that may come as they work more closely than ever before in collaborative council—with parents, youth, and bishops united in purpose and action. Our effort does not “get ahead of the brethren”; it gathers together what the apostles and prophets have been already teaching and finds application to an additional context of an informal bishop-youth-parents council. Bishop–youth–parents collaboration is an opportunity that has always been present but perhaps somewhat overlooked until now, when current prophetic emphasis (as well as policy adjustments regarding youth interviews) is foregrounding the family as the fundamental unit—and target of Church ministry—as never before.
The Eternal Covenant Family
“The family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.” Home-centered, Church-supported gospel ministry is not a latter-day vision or recent initiative but a determined re-invigoration of family centrality. A long litany of scripture and prophetic teaching centers the covenant responsibilities of the family. “Children are an heritage of the Lord,” and parents have always held responsibility for both teaching their children and counseling them for repentance (D&C 68:25-27, 93:40; 1 Nephi 1:1, 8:37; Mosiah 4:15; Alma 39:11-13). Adam and Eve taught their children all things God had made known unto them. Anciently, the Lord commanded the children of Israel to teach their children the Lord’s laws and covenants (Deuteronomy 6:5-7, 11:19, 32:46; Psalms 78:5-7; Proverbs 22:6, 23:13; Isaiah 54:13). In the New Testament, parents are primarily tasked to bring up their children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” The Book of Mormon is replete with examples of parents—e.g., Lehi (1 Nephi 2), Jacob (Enos 1:1), Alma the Younger (Alma 36-42)—counseling and teaching their children for repentance. The Family Proclamation states that “parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness … and teach them to … observe the commandments of God” and that mothers and fathers “will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.”
Thus, we are not charting new ground here but rather illuminating and elaborating a doctrinal reality that has always existed and been respected by the Lord’s prophets and apostles, but which parents may need to more fully shoulder again in these last days if our aspirations for eternal family are to survive. Parents cannot abdicate or delegate their divinely appointed role.
Some thus abdicate to the Church the fullness of their covenant responsibility and opportunity. Perhaps a few local leaders have reluctantly or willingly been complicit in this, taking over or stepping in for parents when they really needed to help parents to step up, not step aside.
Shoring Family Ministry
Parents can be strengthened tremendously as they unite with bishops or other church leaders and work together to ‘learn the ropes.’ Bishops can center the family in their ecclesiastical ministry, inviting, enlisting, mentoring, and supporting parents in more fully rising to their covenant role, which has been central to the Church of Jesus Christ from the beginning. Bishops can view their ministry and every interview through the broader, encompassing lens of the family with the question, how can the family be a part of this, and how can I support the family through this? Centering the family in the Church can include using ecclesiastical interviews and ministry to re-envision and reinvigorate the family as the central and fundamental unit of the Church (as well as of society)—through an ecclesiastical–family council orientation to ministry.
For bishops and other church leaders, centering the family begins with a spiritual conviction and testimony concerning family that flows into a determined mindset, putting the family in the foreground of every thought, process, and action—not de-centering the Church in its sphere, but seeing ecclesiastical ministry as a profoundly supportive adjunct to the family while priesthood leaders remain primary in terms of their priesthood keys. Centering also includes valuing and honoring parents’ place in counseling, supporting, and assisting their children, including in repentance.
Parents have long been encouraged to be fully engaged in their children’s and teens’ goal-setting and goal-striving, from Primary on through Young Men’s and Young Women’s activity. An informal bishop–youth–parents council is another logical component of family-centered, Church-supported ministry for repentance and spiritual growth. We seek to envision simple steps to put into practical action the doctrinal centering of the family in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Centering the family finds expression in as simple a thing as bishops and other ecclesiastical leaders consistently encouraging and facilitating youth in being open with their parents about their struggles, striving, and successes.
Only a few priesthood holders will be called as bishops. For all, the family is our primary tutorial for the love that God has and the life that God lives. Our covenant relationships are our stretching and exalting opportunity, given by God. Our conclusion? We can perhaps do a better job of centering the family in ecclesiastical ministry.
An Informal Bishop–Youth–Parents Council
The late Elder M. Russell Ballard urged priesthood leaders to seek “strength in counsel,” calling upon them to continuously invite and prayerfully consider the counsel of their councils. He expressed his confidence that more inspired leadership would result. He related an occasion where a leading church council was wrestling with a problem: “President Elaine Jack (then-General President of the Relief Society) said, ‘You know, Elder Ballard, the sisters of the Church may have some good suggestions on how to better prepare the youth for missions if they were just asked. After all, you know, we are their mothers!’”
Surely, one potential yet underutilized “council” per se in the Church is a Bishop–Youth–Parents council. Though not formally mentioned, it is a natural council. Surely bishops’ inspired leadership could be magnified as they invite mothers and fathers to offer their insight concerning their children. Parental insight includes developmental awareness, understanding regarding how their teens will likely respond to counsel and consequences, and the kind of support that can best encourage and sustain their youth. An informal bishop–youth–parent council is challenging and daunting—and boundaries of stewardship must be carefully delineated, understood, and honored—yet we believe the benefits can make the mutually prayerful effort worthwhile. As parents offer insight that only they may have—from their enduring relationship and intimate knowledge of their sons and daughters—they can also respect and sustain their bishop in his calling and stewardship. It is also important and valuable to listen to our youth, who also have valuable insights into the problems they are facing and approaches that might more effectively help them. We believe youth, parents, and bishops can be blessed, inspired, and magnified as they counsel together. Such an informal council can invite the perfect love and inspiration of our Heavenly Father and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Shared, collaborative ministry holds forth the promise of both magnifying and refining each respective ministry as bishops, parents, and youth counsel together, benefiting from their combined wealth of knowledge and experience with their youth. Recent changes acknowledging parents’ right to be present in bishop–youth interviews and respecting parental involvement further nudge toward a bishop–youth–parents collaborative approach. Teenagers are often susceptible to hiding their shame in secrecy.
Still, it sounds like a lot of work! Yet, while the time investment of such collaboration is undoubtedly heavily front-loaded, in the long run, bishops may find that their load is lightened as parents are enabled more and more to take up their charge and successfully help and counsel their children and youth. Thus, while it is certainly understandable for the bishop or parents to feel that the time demands are simply too great and instead opt to fly solo, there are risks there, too. Further, opportunities may be forfeited to strengthen an entire family and their church ties as well. Rather than neglect or ignore both the challenge and the opportunity, we invite an experiment upon the possibilities.
Along the way, roles and boundaries may need to be clarified. Yet ultimately, a unity of purpose and action can develop that magnifies ministry all around. Telephone-game experiences leading to misunderstanding, confusion, hurt, and sometimes loss of unity can also be better avoided through an informal bishop–youth–parents collaborative council. To spark imagination and inspiration, we present several stories about some of our dear youth and invite everyone to consider how bishops, youth, and parents can work together without crossing authority lines while also giving our youth all the support that can be mustered by both parents and priesthood leaders. These vignettes are amalgamations of real-life experiences but unattached to any individual bishop–youth–parent relationships, and names and specific dialog have been altered. We have no intention of being exhaustive in the stories we present, only representative of a few possibilities.
Similarly, and importantly, our intent is not to be prescriptive toward church leaders, parents, or youth but to highlight possibilities of action. We are following the brethren, not getting out ahead of the brethren. We are not innovating but rather illuminating a doctrinal and covenant reality of God’s eternal plan and family responsibility, which has always been central to the teaching of the apostles and prophets and which has received renewed and invigorated emphasis and urgency by President Russell M. Nelson.
Bishops, youth, and their parents working together can decide what will be best for each child. None should (nor do we) seek to “steady the ark” of the covenant stewardship and calling held by another. Our aim is simply to invite us all to create and capitalize on opportunities for leaders to support and sustain parents, youth, and families and for youth and parents to support and sustain those who preside over them in the Church.
A Little Bit on the Context of Youth Counseling
As we contemplate an informal bishop–youth–parents council, it is important to symbolically prefigure those relationships. As depicted in this picture taken at the Orem Temple, bishops and parents are both needed to provide essential support to youth during their developmental years.
A significant literature on neurobiological development suggests that teenagers’ brains will not be fully developed until around the age of 25. Additionally, teens are encountering powerful temptations for the first time, often right alongside intense personal spiritual awakening—which for quite a few includes a very real burden of toxic perfectionism and shame, a characteristic feature of the teen brain. Because of this, teenagers are often susceptible to hiding their shame in secrecy, and they may feel unworthy of help from outside sources, which can lead to isolating themselves spiritually. Teens’ emotional reasoning leads them to see their spiritual struggles out of all proportion. What may not seem like a cause for emotional upheaval or a spiritual crisis for parents, leaders, and mentors may, in fact, be so for our youth and can become a spiritually catastrophic spiral of toxic shame.
The emotional and spiritual support of everyday-available parents and bishops is vital to our youth’s will and ability to stay on the covenant path. The opportunity for unified, mutual support on all sides of a bishop–youth–parents triangle begins with negotiating, establishing, and sustaining open lines of communication. We discuss these efforts in Part 2 of this series.
