How I Lead as Bishop After a Faith Crisis | An Interview With Dan Conway

From LeadingLds.com

Dan Conway is a bishop in Newcastle, in northeast England, and has also served as an elders quorum president. He served a mission to Scotland, and works as a digital marketing executive. In this episode Dan walks us through his crisis of faith prior to being called as bishop, and how that affected how he leads now.

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Offer a New Framework

Here is a quick understanding of how an LDS member might experience Fowler’s Stages of Faith model: 

Stage 1: “Heavenly Father gave me a nose and a family!” (Toddler age learning)
Stage 2: “Follow the Prophet, Follow the Prophet, Follow the Prophet, he knows the way!” (Primary age learning)
Stage 3: “This is the True and Living Church restored by God in a perfect way.” (Black and white learning)
Stage 4: “The Book of Mormon was mainly translated from a seer stone?!?!?! If this is true I’m going to have to figure out a new way of structuring my faith in order to fully benefit from what the gospel offers.”
Stage 5: “I love how much nuance there is in the gospel and the history of the restoration. It challenges me with new questions the lead me to a new understanding of the gospel.”
Stage 6: Jesus Christ was at stage 6 and He was at the highest level of charity and was only focused on love and justice. ("Being an LDS Leader Comfortable With Doubt: 8 Tips to Help Those You Lead Who Doubt", Leading LDS, 30 Aug 2017) 

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I Choose to Believe Because I Choose to Believe

What works for me is to be clear on what I know for sure and what I believe.

What I know for sure has gotten smaller and I have become more at peace with being uncertain. Uncertainty is another side of faith.

With everything cleared away, after considering everything, I choose to believe in the restored gospel. I choose to believe because I choose to believe. I choose it of my own free will and choice.

I claim this privilege and allow all men the same privilege, be they Mormon, theist or atheist.

A More Effective Effort to Save LDS Youth and Young Adults in a Secular Age

J. Max Wilson wrote a long article about how he feels the best way to strengthen the faith and character of people in an Internet age. A secular age where data and information are freely available.

I thought it was a worthwhile read. Here is a summary of suggestions he has to be more effective in our efforts.

1. Help them to have real, personal experiences with the divine.
2. Teach them an Ent-like aversion to hastiness in accepting or rejecting the facts and narratives which are presented to them.
3. Preemptively, but judiciously, present them with the facts, including complicated or difficult facts, within a faithful explanatory framework and narrative.
4. Educate our youth with a realistic understanding of science and scholarship.
5. Youth should also learn to be discerning and cautious about information they are given by believers in the church and apologists as well as critics.
6. Provide them with a framework that accounts for the individual fallibility of church leaders while still upholding the authority and legitimacy of the prophets and apostles as trustworthy spokesmen for God.
7. Teach them that questions are good, and that periodic struggle with doubt is normal and expected, but that doubt is something to be resolved and overcome, not cultivated and indulged.
8. Love them unconditionally, recognizing that real love means being willing to stand up for what is right, even if it is not what they want to hear.