Stake Prez wants to talk to me.

Thanks for letting us know. I’ll wait to hear how it goes.

Good luck to you. I’m sure you’ll be able to explain yourself well — your personal situation is not like his personal situation — when you talk in terms of helping people where they stand, and speaking to others in terms that they personally relate to I’m sure enough of your heart will come through. If needed I would ask him to carefully consider and pray about the situation in light of your perspective that you share.

Oh, and I love the way we were encouraged this conference to speak up in online conversations when we feel prompted to do so. Speaking up and expressing your heart is following counsel, right?! In your heart are you fighting the church and wishing it harm – or are you committed in your own way?

Of course it may be all good – he may be congratulating you for some fine work. :thumbup:

Brian, 2 weeks ago I was also called in by the stake president, although I don’t use my real name online, my family knows my posts and have told to bishop and the bishop has been talking to the stake president about me. It’s hard to know what they talk about, and I’m prone at times to assume the worst. But the stake prez spent 90 minutes with me, and my family situation, and my faith, and at the end we left with smiles and a handshake. It went well and he was just sincerely concerned about me and wanted to visit. I appreciated it and I respect him. I felt he respected me too.

I hope yours goes well too. By your description, it sounds like it might be related to online activity, but maybe not. You always handle yourself well, I can’t imagine people in your area think I’ll.

I wish you luck. Keep us posted.

Met with the SP. It didn’t last that long, maybe 20-30 minutes tops. It was about StayLDS, and he said this was at the direction of Salt Lake. They identified me on the site as a member of his stake (since I use my real name, etc.), and asked him to investigate what is going on, meet with me and report back.

Before the meeting, he had obviously spent a little time skimming the main page, and more time looking at some of the posts on the forums. He was a little interested for some reason in Cwald’s story and the fact that Cwald was an Elder’s Quorum President. I explained the tragic story (IMO) of what happened to Cwald — having doubts but being dedicated to serving in his very small branch, and his family members going after him to get him booted out. The SP seemed like he was very empathetic about the situation.

I also spent a few minutes discussing the mission of the site, why we run it, the type of people who come there looking for help, and that we encourage them at whatever level of faith we can make a connection. I told him a bit about why I am there, my experience with a faith crisis and family crisis (my wife wanting to leave the Church), and how I felt like at the time there was nobody I could talk to. Now we run this site so there is someone there, people who will listen and not freak out about their doubts, etc.

I floated the topic of being quite a bit unorthodox at times in our conversations. I got this sense that he has dealt with that same problem with many people, and he opted not to continue the conversation in the direction. He was not concerned about that. I think he understands, without saying so verbally to me. I think it can be hard for someone in his position to talk about that stuff like a regular person (being in such a high profile leadership position).

In the end, it was a nice discussion. He was very cool about everything. I told him to feel free to contact me if he had any additional question or concerns. He appreciated me being open and candid. He said he would report back to SLC that everything was fine with me.

It was a very positive experience, and another piece of anecdotal evidence that the LDS Church *can* be big enough for a variety of people, even those with doubts. I felt very welcome and accepted by him, almost understood in a knowing but unspoken way.

Thanks for letting us know, glad it went well. I always wondered if we were on the radar at SLC, now we know. I have to wonder if Ray will hear anything.

I don’t think they would make any effort to get rid of internet sites, it’s hardly possible anyway. We all know the only action that can be taken is personal church discipline against individuals for wrong doing. If working with the “one” to help them maintain some connection with the church is wrong in the eyes of leadership – even with some “unorthodoxy” – then the world of Mormondom would be a strange place indeed.

Good to hear, Brian. Any positive feedback to SLC about StayLDS is a good thing.

I might or might not get a call at some point – but I have mentioned openly multiple times in my callings on the High Council (in Stake Council meetings and even in a Sacrament Meeting talk a few years ago) that I am involved online with people who have experienced a crisis of faith. I think they don’t need to ask my Stake President about me, because . . .

I know SLC is aware of my participation throughout the Bloggernacle. I had a conversation with my former Stake and Mission Presidents a few years ago about a sarcastic comment on Times & Seasons when the sarcasm didn’t translate very well and the comment ended up being misunderstood by someone in SLC – and twisted on some anti-Mormon sites. Also, someone logging in from the Church’s ISP reads my personal blog every day at about 10:00AM. It can’t be a surprise to anyone in SLC that I am here. I’m fine with that, since it’s really hard to paint me in any way other than faithful and dedicated to, but often a heterodox member of, the Church. If they are told that Brian is a good guy and that this site is intended to help people not leave the Church, it’s all good.

(Just to clarify, so there is no misunderstanding, the incident I mentioned above was handled very well, and I appreciated the input. I was unaware of the message my comment seemed to state, and I would not have been able to change it without the input I received.)

I believe it absolutely is a result of the brewhaha with John and that they just want to clarify, since this site initially was started as one of John’s projects – but that is conjecture.

John D is a polarizing force. He’s a magnet to bring people here (which is the most positive alternative that they may also find palatable), but he’s not really involved here either beyond being founder. A former mission companion of mine asked me about John because she saw we were FB friends. She said she was really grateful that he set up StayLDS because after Prop 8 she thought she was the only person in the church who wasn’t against gay marriage. She was starting to get very frustrated with the way people talk about gays in the church, and she hung out at NOM for a while, but she didn’t like the “acerbic tone” there. She still reads here, although she’s a lurker and doesn’t have much time since she’s getting her teaching degree at Westminster.

To me, that’s the key. People who will respond to the “party line” are not our target audience. We are the faith-promoting alternative to NOM. People who come here need to see that Mormons have nuanced beliefs, that we have diverse political views, that we interpret things leaders say differently, that we can be feminists and career women, that we can be skeptical too. They don’t want to hear the same things again that don’t deal with their doubts: pray, read scriptures, whatever. Having said that, some of those things DO help, and perhaps we should find more ways to link them in. People have a wide variety of issues.

Anyway, the church has to be pro-StayLDS because they can’t do what we do, and what we do works with our specific target audience which is a group they can’t reach. I got the impression that your SP wanted to shy away from the “unorthodox” discussion because he agrees from a pragmatic standpoint with what we are doing but he wanted plausible deniability if he’s probed by SLC. If you haven’t made any declarations of unorthodoxy, he can go by what you did say and his own impressions. He can be more supportive.