A good friend of mine who belongs to another faith related an experience when her college-student-son was home for a weekend visit. When this young man went to church that Sunday, two ushers warmly greeted him. My friend said, “Matt was happy to see these men who were always so friendly and interested in him while he was growing up.”
I realized during this conversation how blessed the young men in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are not only to have adults who are “friendly” and “interested” but also to have a structured program that provides meaningful experiences, spiritual instruction, opportunities to serve, and exemplary leaders. During a recent fast Sunday testimony meeting, a father of three sons expressed his gratitude for the Young Men program of the Church. He said he was thankful to those brethren who take time off from work and away their families to spend a week at Scout camp, youth conference, and other activities with his sons. He expressed how helpful it was to him as a father to have other adults interacting with and teaching his children. As a mother of five sons, now all adults, I have been very grateful over the years for the good influence of their leaders and for the marvelous program designed to prepare and strengthen them as priesthood holders.
The first organization for youth, the Young Gentlemen and Ladies’ Relief Society of Nauvoo, arose from a gathering of young men and women in January 1843 at Elder Heber C. Kimball’s home. The group lamented “the loose style of their morals—the frivolous manner in which they spent their time—and their too frequent attendance at balls, parties, etc.”[1] Elder Kimball suggested a more formal meeting be held so that he could instruct them about their duties to their parents, their worthiness, and their avoidances of “evil company.”
The name was soon shortened to the Young People’s meetings. Officers were elected, and resolutions adopted to be charitable and to help the poor. Membership required a person to be under thirty years of age and of “good moral character.” Meetings were held the last Tuesday of each month until the Saints were driven from Nauvoo.
More than thirty years later and in the Salt Lake Valley, a separate organization for young men was formed. In 1869, Brigham Young had organized the Young Ladies’ Department of the Cooperative Retrenchment Association (forerunner to the Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Association and Young Women.) According to Church History professor Scott C. Esplin, a number of “Mutual Improvement Associations abounded in the early 1870s prior to general Church organization. . . Edward H. Anderson, former general secretary of the Mutual Improvement Association, recalled, ‘In 1873 it became the rule in some of the more thickly populated settlements of the Saints for the young people to form associations for entertainments and improvement. These were called night schools, literary societies, debating clubs, young men’s club, or any other name that indicated the object of the gathering.”[2]
As some of these organizations “degenerated into debating societies” and thus fostered “much ill feeling,”[3] President Brigham Young instructed Junius F. Wells to formally organize the young men of the Church “to provide an opportunity . . . to serve, learn public speaking, and bear testimony.”[4] Thus on June 6, 1875, Brother Wells created the first ward Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association. Heber J. Grant was among the eighteen young men thus organized that evening. (He later served as secretary of the general superintendency, as an Apostle and then as seventh Church President.) While today every ward and branch in the Church has a Young Men organization, in the early days, an organization had to be created within each ward. Thus “Mutual Improvement missionaries” traveled to various wards until 1905 to accomplish this purpose.[5]
The YMMIA functioned as an auxiliary, with meetings that focused on “theology, science, history, literature, athletics, dance, drama, music, and public speaking.”[6] Joint meetings with the YWMIA were initiated, study classes were instituted, and the Boy Scout program was adopted. As each auxiliary in the Church published its own magazine, the YMMIA, under the direction of the general board, produced the Improvement Era. (This later merged with the Young Women’s Journal, and some years after that, a section called the Era of Youth was added. In 1971, when all Church magazines were revised, the New Era was published for youth.) Members of the YMMIA ranged in age from 14 to 29 years of age, with older members belonging to M-Men, Special Interests, and Mutual Study classes, whereas today’s program serves boys ages twelve to eighteen.
Initially the YMMIA was separate from the priesthood though supported by it. However, in 1880 President Wilford Woodruff, then an Apostle, was called as the first general superintendent to create a stronger relationship between the auxiliary and the priesthood. A collective declaration from the Quorum of the Twelve stated, “This institution must not interfere with the priesthood of any of its members. Each individual member must be subject to the quorum of which he may be a member.”[7] Still, the organization was not tied directly to the priesthood at the ward and stake levels.
In 1972, President Harold B. Lee restructured the organization: the Aaronic Priesthood Mutual Improvement Association, for youth ages 12 to 18, and the Melchizedek Priesthood Mutual Improvement Association, for single adults over 18, thus more firmly “tying the youth of the Church to the priesthood” as “the overarching theme of the change.”[8] Two years later, under the direction of Church President Spencer W. Kimball, “MIA” was dropped and the Presiding Bishopric given responsibility for the Aaronic Priesthood. What this effectively accomplished was to “shorten the lines of responsibility” and to more directly connect the young men (and young women) to their bishops. President Kimball said, “It is the utmost importance that the bishops realize that their first and foremost responsibility is to the Aaronic Priesthood and Young Women of their wards. . . . It is our intent that no one stand between the bishopric, at either the general or ward level, and their ministry with the Aaronic Priesthood.”[9] Finally, the name Young Men was designated in 1977, when organizational responsibility was given to the Priesthood Department. The ward Young Men presidency now serves “as advisers to the Aaronic Priesthood quorums”[10] not “as quorum leaders.”[11]
Though many organizational and name changes have taken place since the first young men’s organization was established in 1875, the basic purposes have not—to strengthen testimonies of Jesus Christ and the restored gospel and to help young men become worthy priesthood holders. Following the initial organization, “a decrease in loitering and misbehavior by young men throughout the territory was noted as associations multiplied.”[12] Today, with so many evils blatantly broadcast and alluring, with many young men of the world “loitering” on pornographic Internet sites and “misbehaving” in diverse ways, we can be very grateful for inspired leaders— then and now—and for this organization which protects and provides sure guidance for our young men.
[1]Joseph Smith, “A Short Sketch of the Rise of the Young Genlemen’s and Ladies’ Relief Society of Nauvoo,” Times and Seasons, April 1, 1843, 154, in “An Interesting Outgrowth of the Relief Society of Nauvoo,” Relief Society Magazine 4, no.
3 (March 1917): 123.
[1]Scott C. Esplin, “Tying It to the Priesthood: Harold B. Lee’s Restructuring of the Young Men Organization,” in A Firm Foundation: Church Organization and Administration, eds. David J. Whittaker and Arnold K. Garr (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011), 467.
[1] Edward H. Anderson, “The Past of Mutual Improvement,” Improvement Era, November 1897, 1.
[1] John P. Livingstone, “Young Men,” in Encylopedia of Latter-Day Saint History, eds. Arnold K. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000), 1385.
[1] Ibid.
[1] Livingstone, 1386.
[1] Esplin, 474.
[1] Esplin, 477.
[1]Spencer W. Kimball, in J. M. Heslop, “Priesthood to Direct Youth of the Church, Church News, June 29, 1974, 3, 14.
[1] Handbook 2: Administering the Church (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2010), 53.
[1] Handbook, 51.
[1] Livingstone, 1385.
