Positive Relationships with Active Leaders

 

How the Children and Youth Program Strengthens Families

By President Steven J. Lund

Young Men General President

One of the most surprising and helpful things we have learned as a new presidency came to us from a multiyear Church study that asked active adults what important things happened in their youth that helped them identify as active members of the Church.

The key finding is surprising: those youth who grow up to identify within themselves as active members of the Church—as members of the crew rather than as tourists passing through—tell researchers that more important than the quality of activities, more important even than Sunday School lessons, which are very important, was the formation of positive relationships with active leaders who helped them develop a relationship with the Savior and with their Heavenly Father. It is about those second witnesses, about our young people’s ability to connect with them.