Helping bishops reduce their interview load with instruction to the executive secretary

13 February 2020

Bishops and Branch Presidents…

In our training last Tuesday we gave you a statement that your executive secretary can use to help divert your appointments to the RS or EQ presidents.

There are two concerns:

1. That the reference to worthiness will frighten away those who truly do need to see the bishop—for fear they will be “labeled” by sitting, waiting for the bishop.

2. That executive secretaries may feel obligated to use the wording precisely as was presented in the training.

Below are a few ways your executive secretary may approach this new direction. Please feel free to have him draw from any of these statements or feel free to come up with your own. We share only in an effort to help you as to how to communicate this new instruction:

• Is this interview such that can only be talked about with the Bishop, or can the RS or EQ president meet with you first?"

• As you may have heard, the RS and EQ presidents are now meeting with most members to help address their concerns or needs. Is this interview concerning something that they can help with?"

• As you've heard, the Bishop now delegates most interviews to the RS and EQ presidencies. Can I help you schedule an appointment with them for this interview?"

• “So he and his counselors can focus on the youth, as instructed by Church leaders, the bishop now delegates to the Relief Society and Elders Quorum presidents almost all of his  interviews except those that he must do. Can I help you schedule an interview with either the Relief Society or Elders Quorum president?”

Brethren, please know that we trust your judgement and recognize that you’ll know best how to re-route interviews when appropriate. On the other hand, we want you to know how strongly the Brethren feel about this, that your interview load is to be reduced significantly so you can spend more time with your own family and with the youth of your ward or branch.

So, in the next few weeks or months if you find your interview load is not decreasing, please re-evaluate how your executive secretary is approaching this. For the sake of future bishops, please help change the culture in what members traditionally expect of bishops and branch presidents.

Gratefully,

President Lewis