Bryan celebrated Father's Day by writing (in the days leading up to the holiday) and delivering a talk in church. He was given the broad prompt of "Father's Day." After pouring hours into this endeavor, he came away with the best Father's Day talk I've heard. It's a good thing that I didn't wear mascara to church, because lots of good tears fell from my eyes while he spoke. The kids were equally impressed with their dad, which is as it should be.
Here is Bryan's talk:
Recently at work I was challenged to build a new team to manage special projects for the company. The candidates spanned the spectrum of experience from recently graduated to those with decades of experience. Part of my task is to ensure they learn and follow a well-established widely accepted project management framework that has remained largely unchanged for more than a century.
Though this framework is fixed, how I ‘operationalize’ it varies greatly throughout my team. I find that my focus needs to shift constantly based on their individual needs. Complicating matters are ever changing business needs, industry standards, tools, models and techniques require that I adjust training for the team as a whole. There is always something to learn – even with a solid grasp of the fundamentals. Continuous improvement is a requirement to remain effective.
There is a danger that project managers can stop improving. They get stuck using techniques that once worked early in their career but are not efficient in the current environment, or they may overdevelop skills in one area to compensate for a lack of skills in another. Others get stuck on theory – continually learning but never applying. Some outright reject anything new because “that’s not how I was taught - the fundamentals don’t change.”
When I see this happening on my team, I remind them of a quote from Maya Angelou: "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."
So what does that have to do with Father’s Day?
As I was preparing to speak, I started digging into General Conference archives looking for inspiration in talks about fathers and fatherhood. Do you have any idea how many there are? Since the year 2000 there have been at least twenty-six, and I stopped counting at 51 back to 1970.
I couldn’t read them all, but I began skimming praying for the moment when the Spirit says “Stop” and you find the talk or quote that provides inspiration. But that moment didn’t come. Everything was important – it was overwhelming. Suffice it to day, I’m not going to cover everything.
As I searched through decades of talks, I began to notice patterns in the teachings that seemed specific to each era in which the conference address was given. Now, this isn’t a huge revelation. We know that Heavenly Father teaches us according to our needs – much the same as I coach my team according to theirs.
The insight for me came in the realization that we too can get stuck in the theory, or overdevelop one set of skills to compensate for weakness in another. We may even disregard newer teachings because “that’s not how I was taught – doctrine doesn’t change.”
If we see this happening in ourselves, we should remember, "When you know better, do better."
There are three steps to avoid getting stuck. 1) Understand that Doctrine does not change; 2) Living prophets speak to people according to their needs; and 3) continue to learn even after we understand fundamental doctrine.
First, the doctrine of the church, the Plan of Salvation is unchanging. We have faith. We repent. We are baptized by immersion. We receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost. We endure to the end. Families are central to the Plan of Salvation and Celestial Marriage is required for Exaltation. The role of Father is modeled after our Father in Heaven.
Second, Living prophets speak for Heavenly Father. This is how He ‘operationalizes’ His doctrine. Prophets provide instructions for how to apply it, frequently offering specific techniques, tools and models based on the current needs of the Saints.
Third, once we understand the fundamentals, we must continue to learn and grow. Current teachings do not invalidate those of the past. We need to understand that new teachings add to the toolkit we have as disciples of Christ and show where we need to focus to be more effective in our era.
I can summarize this with the Ninth Article of Faith, which describes the fundamental truth behind these steps:
"We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God."
I can only imagine the excitement and bewilderment of the early Saints, witnessing so many restored and revealed truths, knowing that there was much more to come. The same is true for our day. Let’s briefly review what Heavenly Father taught us about Fatherhood through living prophets over the last 196 years.
The Restoration focused on the need of the early Church to understand the Divinity and Eternal Nature of Fatherhood and establish fundamental truths, that we have a Father in Heaven and we are His children. Joseph Smith taught that fatherhood was tied to the sealing power, that husbands and wives must act as equal partners, and that Fathers should bless their children.
The Pioneer Era found the families of the saints in near-constant, side-by-side physical presence. Life was defined by familiar cooperation with Fathers spending their day working right alongside their children. Paternal governance was authoritative, but President Brigham Young corrected the harsher cultural parenting styles of the 19th century, counseling fathers that they should "never chasten a soul beyond the balm they possessed within themselves to bind up the wound."
First half of the 20th Century saw rapid urbanization which accelerated the disruption that started with the Industrial Revolution. Fathers began to leave home for most of the day for urban offices or factories as societal pressures emphasized the drive to put in the hours at work to become successful. To prevent families from fracturing, President Joseph F. Smith championed a movement of home reformation, charging fathers to teach their children "by your own precept and example, by your own fireside." Decades later, President David O. McKay popularized the immortal standard: "No other success in life can compensate for failure in the home."
The 1970s saw a prophetic focus for fathers that asserted structure and protective hierarchy amidst massive Church membership growth, and a world undergoing intense social upheaval. During the October 1973 General Conference, Elder A. Theodore Tuttle delivered a direct address defining the father’s role in terms of familial government:
"In reality, each family is a dominion within itself. Father heads that government... The father is the patriarch of an eternal family unit… The father is the protector of the home."
In 1975 President N. Eldon Tanner framed the father as a "moral sentinel," holding a direct, private line of revelation to protect the moral standards of his home. This imagery of dominion, government, protector and sentinel stood against social upheaval, firmly establishing a patriarchal order in the home.
October 1978, the historic revelation extending the priesthood to all worthy male members fundamentally democratized this patriarchal order, fully empowering all worthy men to step up as the spiritual patriarchs of their homes.
The teachings of the 1980s were highly tactical and prescriptive to help fathers navigate an ever more ambiguous world where the lines between right and wrong were blurring as some moved toward moral relativism and others embraced media permissiveness. Fathers received practical instructions checklists clearly defining what to do and not to do, like President Ezra Taft Benson’s 1987 address, "To the Fathers in Israel" where he said:
"… (A) father's calling is eternal, and its importance transcends time. It is a calling for both time and eternity" followed by a literal ten-point checklist, explicitly telling fathers to give priesthood blessings, lead daily family scripture reading, hold weekly Family Home Evenings, and take their children on individual dates and outings.
Prophetic council of the ‘90s sought to remind Fathers not overcompensate with structure, governance and hierarchy taught in previous decades and encourage them to use other principles that were in danger of atrophy from disuse - the need for families to spend time together, and for Fathers to step beyond protector and sentinel, and take an active, loving role in raising their children
In 1994 President Howard W. Hunter fiercely denounced any lingering, old-fashioned ideas of male dominance, declaring that a righteous father views his wife as a full, equal partner in family governance:
"Effective family leadership, brethren, requires both quantity and quality time... A righteous father protects his children with his time and presence in their social, educational, and spiritual activities and responsibilities. Tender expressions of love and affection toward children are as much the responsibility of the father as the mother. Tell your children you love them".
Perhaps you remember the Church’s media campaign “Family. Isn’t it about… time.”
More significant was the presentation of “The Family: A Proclamation to the World" by President Gordon B. Hinkley in September 1995, which again emphasized that "In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners."
As the Church entered the 21st Century, General Conference addresses increasingly framed the relationship between husbands and wives, and the role of Fathers, in terms of co-equal partnership.
In April 2004, Elder L. Tom Perry clarified the doctrine of presiding, framing it strictly as an equal partnership:
"There is not a president or a vice president in a family. The couple works together eternally for the good of the family"
The discourse of the 2010s focused on the unique, irreplaceable, and non-interchangeable contribution of fathers to their families amid cultural trends that increasingly characterized fathers as either superfluous, redundant, or comical.
Thomas B. Holman pointed out that a father's "psychological or emotional absence can be just as hurtful… as physical absence" urging fathers to show nonverbal affection through eye contact, smiles, hugs, and setting aside dedicated one-on-one time.
In April 2013, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf compared a father's love to how a parent treats a toddler learning to walk:
"What father would punish a toddler for stumbling? We encourage, we applaud, and we praise because with every small step, the child is becoming more like his parents".
Sister Elaine S. Dalton delivered powerful counsel in In October 2011 on how fathers shape their daughters' expectations of manhood and protect their virtue:
"How do you raise a girl? Love her mother… Watch over [your daughters], strengthen them, model virtuous behavior, and teach them to follow in the Savior's every footstep".
In April 2016, Elder D. Todd Christofferson delivered a seminal address simply titled Fathers, defending the specific necessity of the male parental role:
"As a Church, we believe in fathers…. Some see the good of fatherhood in social terms... We know that fatherhood is much more than a social construct... Fatherhood exposes us to our own weaknesses and our need to improve. Fatherhood requires sacrifice, but it is a source of incomparable satisfaction, even joy".
Elder D. Todd Christofferson also highlighted the specific spiritual impact of a father who engages in scripture study with his household:
"A father who reads scripture to and with his children acquaints them with the voice of the Lord".
As we look across history we see continual evidence and teachings of the fundamental doctrine that Fatherhood is divine. It does not change from era to era. We can also see that the principles taught about how to be a father shifted between loving partnerships, authority and protection, structure and checklists, quality time, vulnerability and emotional availability – all according to the needs of the era.
What is the application of this brief survey for us? We must evaluate whether we are too comfortable with a certain set of tools. Are we being less effective by overusing certain methods and techniques? If we as fathers resort to the rigid, unilateral hierarchy of the past because we are uncomfortable with the emotional vulnerability and equal partnership that is emphasized today, we are missing the teachings of a living prophet telling us what is needed in our day.
My invitation to you today is to look at your own stewardship: What does my family need from me right now? I’d suggest that you can find the answer by listening to our living prophets. And when you know better, do better.
Fatherhood is an eternal doctrine, but how to be a father is a living, breathing thing. I leave you my testimony that we have a loving, perfectly attentive Heavenly Father. He does not leave us to guess how to navigate the changing winds of the world. He speaks through living prophets to hand us the exact tools we need for our day so that we can successfully guide our most important project - our families - safely back home.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
