Line upon Line

“And the church did meet together oft to… [talk] one with another concerning the welfare of their souls”.

Church can be hard when you feel like a misfit. And many of us have felt like one more often than we would like to admit. Church can be hard for those who feel like misfits because they doubt, or struggle with obvious and stubborn weaknesses, or when they look or act differently than the leaders. Church can be hard when leaders offend or disappoint.

But Church doesn’t have to be so hard. Church immediately becomes less hard when we can talk openly about hard things. The path from stranger and foreigner to ‘fellow citizen with the saints’ ² is not uniformity, but conversation. It’s not about eliminating the concerns
that make us feel like misfits, but rather it’s about making them discussable.

I have great hope for our potential to grow together. I know it can be done because I see it in wards and branches that lean into discomfort—wards where members don’t just sit beside each other facing forward in worship but turn towards each other with an invitation
to share the messiness of their differing lives.

I’ve spent 40 years studying the social conditions that make it possible for groups of imperfect people to accomplish extraordinary—and exalting things. I think of Zion as an exalting community. It’s a place where heavenly power and social patterns combine to
help broken misfits (i.e., all of us) become saints by learning to become one. I have confidence we can get better at this because I’ve watched it happen magnificently in one of the most unlikely of places. Welcome to a secular Zion called The Other Side Village. ³ While the Village is not faith-based, I’ve learned a great deal here about social patterns that could help us invite greater heavenly power as we strive to create our own exalting communities… or Zion.

The Other Side Village is two things. First, it is a self-reliant, permanent home for 500 men and women who have been chronically homeless. And second, it is a rambunctious community of people who are working harder to improve their lives than most of us ever will. Before arriving here, a typical Villager was sleeping outdoors and eating out of dumpsters for over 8 years. All come with significant disabilities, including profound mental health challenges like schizophrenia, chronic depression, and bipolar disorder. I’ve learned as much about how to create an exalting community from these remarkable cast offs from society as from any equivalent group of the well-groomed. Think of The Other Side Village as Zion with frequent F-bombs. ⁴

Charene before joining The Village (All photos shared with permission)

Charene came to The Other Side Village after enduring the unspeakable horrors of homelessness for years. She is a veteran of the violence, sexual abuse, addiction, frostbite, infections, incarceration, hunger, and fear that attend that life. Her first months in The Village were whiplash. She went from idle and rootless to busy and connected in 24 hours. Her new colleagues expected her to get up early, work hard, and, most unsettling of all, invest in the growth of everyone around her. They accepted her as she was but unapologetically expected her to become something better. She felt safe for the first time in memory not because her new friends had achieved any kind of moral excellence, but simply because they wanted to.

Self-awareness is a precondition of exaltation. And none of us achieve it alone. Charene was unaware of how lazy, dishonest, sneaky, and lustful she was. So when her weaknesses became apparent, her new friends pointed them out. When she was discouraged, hopeless, or doubtful, her Village dragged it into the open and worked through it with her. In the early days, she felt offended, resentful or crowded by others’ invasions into her melancholy. But over many months, she began to see their meddling for what it was: love. Then, she felt her soul stretch as she mentored other newcomers. She came to see love as a willingness to surrender the ease of isolation for the risk of intrusion
into others’ growth.

Did You Come for Information or Exaltation?

We are all Charene: Convinced of our brokenness and doubtful about our potential. Our future depends on the community we choose. We join communities because we hope they’ll bring us something we want. For example, we might crave belonging, safety, entertainment, or education. When Charene joined The Other Side Village, she simply wanted housing. She soon discovered the Village offered much more. It offered a better way of living.

The same happens at Church: people come for a variety of reasons, but the good stuff doesn’t happen until we discover it doesn’t exist just to offer better information, it’s there to offer exaltation. We may join simply because we think one place has better claims on truth than another. But miracles don’t happen until we crave vigorous help embedding those truths in our lives. For example, we may arrive because we’re pumped about the idea of eternal relationships. But the payoff is when we become the kind of people who can create them! ⁵ An exalting community isn’t just a group with whom to believe, it’s an intimate bond with those who help us to become.

The Village began with a commitment to self-reliance. Villagers believe that self-reliance is the foundation of self-respect. Early residents banded together to start businesses. Their first was The Other Side Donuts. The donut business is hypercompetitive. No one buys your donut because they feel sorry for you. They buy it because it’s delicious. If they hoped to prosper, Villagers had to find a way to do delicious.

The Other Side Donuts has delicious options!

Employing people no other business would hire, they created a demanding, peer-accountability culture. They rise at 1:00 a.m. to have products ready for morning sales. They hold each other to exacting standards to be sure every confection is irresistible, and that tomorrow’s product will be better than today’s. The result is a workplace that forges souls while making donuts. In their first year of operation, they were recognized at the prestigious Utah Dough Show for having the best donut in Utah! It’s hard to compete with a team that is of one heart and one mind. ⁶

The Other Side Donuts Flagship Store at 760 S Redwood Road, Salt Lake City, Utah

In the past ten years I’ve had contrasting experiences: As I’ve watched The Other Side Village and The Other Side Academy ⁷ try to become exalting communities, I’ve seen trends in some church congregations that weaken our capacity to exalt.

An exalting community thrives or fails depending on how people show up in two moments: weakness and disbelief. In these situations, a fragile community either ignores or expels. They either soften their convictions in order to avoid offending, or exile their misfits in order to maintain perceived integrity. We weaken our church when we do either. These days I hear passionate arguments at times for relaxed truth claims from some and hostile condemnation of dissenters from others.

Likewise, the weak or disbelieving can diminish both their individual growth and our collective potential to exalt when they choose to quit or blame. They either quietly withdraw or noisily attack. The healthier the community, the more likely it is that these commonplace concerns lead instead to sincere dialogue.

It’s my conviction that the health of a congregation is measured by the lag time between when a member has concerns and when those concerns are truthfully and lovingly discussed—independent of whether they are “resolved.”[/perfectpullquote]

One friend decided to withdraw from the Church after an insensitive member asked him if he was ashamed of his face tattoo. We got weaker and he got weaker when he left. Another dropped out in loving solidarity with her transgender son. We all lost something when she left. Others have stepped away because the Church did too little about the pandemic, said too much about the pandemic, spends too little on social causes, or hasn’t apologized fully about previous racist policies. Their departure removed potentially exalting friction from all of us.

A recent study found that a majority of respondents report some level of conflict about how they experience church. ⁸ Concerns include discomfort with church culture, disappointment that it’s not more Christlike, an emphasis on conformity, or a lack of inclusivity. ⁹ There’s nothing new in indictments of defects in our ranks. After all, we’re here for exaltation not information, right? Jesus’ disciples struggled with petty rivalry ¹⁰ and even bigotry ¹¹, Nephites at times turned worship services into a fashion show¹², and both Joseph Smith and his colleagues were called out by the Savior Himself for cowardice, pride, and greed. ¹³ We are here to grow, not to preen. What’s new is that flaws in members and leaders today are seen as evidence of illegitimacy rather than an invitation to engage with each other.

. At one time or another, we are all the misfit. These moments are when we either develop greater muscle for atoning growth or atrophy into easy separation.

To that end, I propose—semi-seriously—that every member of the Church be required to accept an EULA (End User License Agreement) at the beginning of every year certifying that we understand the terms and conditions of membership. The “term” is that we understand the Church is trying to be an exalting community. Before being allowed in the chapel, we must click “accept” to four conditions inherent in that kind of community. We accept our individual responsibility to be:

Intrusive AND Vulnerable
Truthful AND Loving

Forty years of studying thousands of organizations and countless misfits has persuaded me that all four of these conditions are essential ingredients of a life-changing social system.

An Exalting Community is both Intrusive & Vulnerable

When in doubt, members of exalting communities open their mouths. To less connected groups they may even appear intrusive. They never use “respect for privacy” as a fig leaf to hide from interpersonal discomfort. In a former ward, members kept “respectful distance” for months from a family whose mother had attempted suicide. No one broached the subject with mom, dad, or older children. Nor did I. I told myself, “I don’t want to embarrass them”. That was a convenient lie.

Following this experience, I heard that a dear friend with whom I had lost contact was on his way out of the Church. I reassured myself that it would be weird to suddenly make contact based on this rumor. Then I was haunted by words I’d heard once in a Sunday School lesson, “The fastest way to make Mormons scatter is to express doubt.” I felt ashamed of my instinct to run and hurriedly dialed his number before I could manufacture another excuse.

That kind of hesitation never happens at The Other Side Village. Villagers don’t scatter; they swarm. When someone freaks out, melts down, slacks off, or looks ready to give up, their neighbors never shy away. Rather, they lean in.

Any community with strong norms practices what the Village calls 200% Accountability. That means that every community member is 100% responsible not only for their own welfare but they are also 100% responsible for everyone else’s as well. Community norms are formed through intrusive interactions.

At The Other Side Village, we call these “Coke can moments.” When a new person joins the Village, it’s inevitable they will do something inappropriate—like throw an empty Coke can on the ground. It doesn’t bother us when they do because weaknesses are normal. What matters to us is not their misbehavior, but rather how those who see it respond. If they immediately engage with the person, we know our community is safe. Drug dealers, crime, and prostitution will never invade our community because we watch out for each other. If, however, people let the Coke can slide, we’re doomed. The Other Side Village is sober, safe, and beautiful because at the Village, everyone is their sister’s keeper—especially when it’s uncomfortable.

Jennifer Davis prior to joining The Other Side Village

The lowest place in Jen’s life was Skid Row. Not the metaphorical one, but the 50-block hellhole in downtown Los Angeles that is home to over 10,000 homeless people. One day while on a drug binge Jen staggered in front of a fast-moving car. Her last thought before passing out after the car hit her was “Oh good, it’s over.” Six weeks later she was released from the hospital back to Skid Row with a shattered pelvis and
knees, a subdural hematoma, and a used aluminum walker. Through a series of miracles, she found her way to The Other Side Village. While the idea of safe and beautiful housing was appealing, what captivated her was the hope of genuine happiness. Jen yearned for a better way of living.

I believe that the friction of relationships is the process through which we become like God. Jen agrees. Months of learning to live with other struggling souls was exalting. She learned a full contact form of love… not the feeble form that maintains comfortable distance, but one of vigorous vulnerability and presumption.

Jennifer Davis after graduating The Other Side Village Prep Schoo

She is now the crew boss at The Other Side Donuts. The other day she drove by the donut store on her way to a social commitment. Knowing that someone a bit iffy was running the store she pulled into the parking lot to deliver stern counsel before resuming her evening. None of that was the Jen of a year ago. She has a peace and presence grown only in an intrusive community.

If we want our wards to be more exalting, we must learn to be more forward. Don’t offer help, just do it. Don’t wonder if someone is depressed, ask. Don’t shrug when someone is agitated about Church history. It’s not someone else’s problem, it’s yours!

I want to be clear what exalting intrusiveness is not. It is not motivated by judgment, coercion, or voyeurism. It’s not a self-righteous critique of someone who’s struggling. It never manipulates toward compliance. And it takes no pleasure in discovering others’ shame. Its sole motive is holy connection to the struggling and suffering. I use the cheeky word intrusive to acknowledge the disturbing forwardness we feel when offering that connection.

A friend recently stepped away from the Church, announcing that she couldn’t be part of an organization that disrespected the life choices of one of her children. Challenged by the example of my Village friends, my wife and I made the intrusive call to invite her to lunch. At lunch, seeing no other way into a real conversation, I began with, “I understand you’re withdrawing from the Church.”

She nodded.

“That must have been a very heavy decision for you,” my wife continued. “We’re happy to talk about that or not talk about that as you prefer. We just wanted a chance to say to you that for our part, this changes nothing about our love for you.” Her eyes moistened. My wife went on, “We know when people leave a group it’s easy to tell yourself stories about what those who remain think of you. So, we want to make it clear what we think of you. We believe you are an honorable and good mother.”

She shared why she’s leaving. We listened. We shared why we’re staying. She listened. No judgment. No coercion. Love deepened. Lunch was exalting.

The lunch was exalting partly because we were intrusive, and primarily because she was vulnerable. Vulnerability is the widow’s mite of connection. While intrusiveness is taxing, the relative cost to the vulnerable is far greater because it’s often given at a time of emotional poverty. Our friend offered intimacy when she had few gifts to grant.

Early Latter-day Saints were not just unapologetically intrusive, they were also breathtakingly vulnerable. Sabbath services for them included “confessing thy sins unto thy brethren.” ¹⁵ Yikes. Imagine an Elders Quorum, Relief Society, or youth meeting that opens with a few minutes of group self-disclosure. One brother stands and acknowledges he hid a costly speeding ticket from his wife; another pleads for advice to help her stop overeating; which leads a handful of others to tearfully divulge problems with pornography. Sound daring? Maybe. But early Church leader William E. McLellin consented to the wide publication of a revelation in which the Savior counseled him to, “Commit not adultery—a temptation with which thou hast been troubled.” ¹⁶

We’ve tiptoed toward greater intimacy in our modern Church but only in controlled circumstances like the Addiction Recovery Program and Self-Reliance Groups. Our capacity to exalt can never exceed our capacity to connect. And vulnerability is the passport to connection.

A normal day at The Other Side Village includes a Morning Meeting in which neighbors check in with one another. A check-in could include one admitting she pocketed money from the group tip jar at the Donut store, another trembling as he describes a nightmare on the anniversary date of his being stabbed, and another saying she can’t stop thinking about using drugs.

Vulnerability is only difficult when it’s unusual. Villagers speak easily because they open up frequently. This morning, Jared announced the results of his colonoscopy as easily as you and I would compliment someone’s shoes. When I recently asked a Prep School student somewhat mechanically, “How’s it going?” he responded, “Still not sure if I want to quit masturbating. Why should I?” The conversation took a turn for the meaningful. As did our relationship.

When vulnerability and transparency are not the reigning norm, hiding and faking quickly replace them. No one loves a community where the norm is maintaining appearance rather than achieving growth. There is no path to oneness that doesn’t travel through vulnerability. I’m confident this is why President Russell M. Nelson was inspired to retire Home and Visiting Teaching and call us to minister. “Teaching” is about a lesson. Ministering is about a connection. Home and Visiting Teaching was transactional. Ministering might become relational, if we are vulnerable enough to achieve it. No one can help you bind up a wound that you aren’t willing to reveal.

Two member friends and I were talking lightly about maintaining healthy grass in summer heat when one blurted out that, “DNA evidence has shattered the credibility of the Book of Mormon.” My stomach tightened and my breath became shallow. By contrast, my other friend leaned forward comfortably and said, “Done with lawn talk for now?” Vulnerability is evidence of confident conviction. Different than me, this friend’s reflex was openness not defensivness. It takes vulnerability to listen deeply to doubts without attempting to coerce easy resolution. It takes vulnerability to be patient with others’ interrogation of our beliefs. This second friend continued with, “Let’s do this!” The subsequent conversation was notable for both candor and kinship.

None of us arrive at an exalted understanding of our faith—and our selves—without occasional interrogation by others. For example, in a priesthood meeting many years ago someone said something about “the gay people.” The older brother next to me let out a deep grunt of disgust. Moments later his hand shot in the air. When he got the floor he said, “Those people are disgusting. I hope AIDS kills them all.” A handful nodded their heads. Most froze and stared uncomfortably forward, hoping we’d move on. We did.

A while later a middle-aged brother intruded both lovingly and vulnerably. “I’ve been struggling for the past twenty minutes.” he began. “I need to say something. When I was a deacon’s quorum president a new boy named Lonnie joined our quorum. He didn’t like sports. He preferred drama. He was raised by a single mom. He had effeminate mannerisms. One day one of the boys in our quorum called him a fag. Later, I did, too.” Several of his brothers now hung their heads. “At times our advisor would hear us say it and do nothing” he went on. “Lonnie put up with my abuse for three years then finally stopped coming to Church.” At this point he could hardly talk through his tears. Finally, he continued: “I’ve done everything I could think of in the last twenty years to find him to apologize for making him think there was no place for him in Jesus’s Church. My fear is that the next time I will see him will be in the presence of the Savior where I will fall down at Lonnie’s feet and beg him for forgiveness.”

A few in the quorum quickly wiped something from an eye. And a little exalting happened. The Church exists not for perfect saints, but for the perfecting of the saints. It is in moments of vulnerability—when we invite others to examine our deepest places—that we come into “the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect [person]…”¹⁷

One Stake President turned a stake priesthood meeting into a possible relationship Pentecost when, after an opening hymn and prayer, he announced, “We aren’t having any talks today. I have microphones ready and I invite you to stand and share what you are concerned about regarding your life and your loved ones.” Many in the audience scanned their periphery anxiously. The uncertainty dissipated when one brother summoned a microphone. Then another did the same. With the dam broken, men who were used to worshiping in comfortable passivity – instead stood and wept, sharing stories of dying marriages, lost children, addiction, economic woes, and other fears. I pray that those in the audience responded afterward to inevitable promptings they felt in response to their brothers’ vulnerability. If some were as intrusive as those who spoke were vulnerable, then Zion shone much brighter when the sun set that day.

An Exalting Community is both Truthful & Loving

No community that truly helps people grow fails to take a strong stand on a set of proprietary truths. And it doesn’t equivocate about them. It’s that very confidence about a better way of being that attracts us. If it’s not willing to take a strong stand on a special claim to reality, it won’t engender the engagement needed for deep change.

Change accelerates when people are helped to see more truthfully how their actions affect their stated goals. And they’re most likely to absorb rather than resist that truth when it’s delivered by those who love them. Love without truth is collusion. Truth without love is coercion. Only truth and love can produce exalting connection.

Residents of The Other Side Village stand united as an exalting community—one built on love, accountability, and personal transformation.

Those who want to join The Other Side Village must first attend The Other Side Prep School. The Village and Prep School take a strong stand
about what they believe makes both life and a healthy community work. For a year or so they Prep School students practice living their new beliefs at a higher moral level than most people ever do. And (as Beliefs #4 and #6 below suggest) they get there through relentless
correction.

By age 33, Edgar had been kicked out of over 40 foster homes, rehabs, schools, and shelters for being violent. He started sleeping with a knife under his pillow when he was four-years old. He had been homeless since he was 18-years old. On the streets, theft and aggression were second nature. One day at the Prep School he blithely stole another student’s last three cans of food. Nothing personal. Edgar wanted it so he took it. Then he lied about it and became hostile when confronted.

An exalting community finds a way to be exactingly truthful without being judgmental. They may express disappointment about someone’s conduct, but they never diminish a person’s worth. The Village community is okay with people feeling guilty or embarrassed when they fall short. Those who want to be part of a growth-oriented group often choose to do so because they believe this social discomfort will motivate them to do better. We sometimes join exercise classes, coaching groups, and even book clubs because we want social pressure to support us in doing something we wouldn’t do without them.

So, why do we complain when churches espouse exacting standards? Jesus was clear in the New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine & Covenants that an exalting church would be messy. They’d thrash about for a way to not just be loving, but to be truthful as well. They’d learn to be unflinchingly honest about what’s true and unnaturally patient while members learned to conform.

And when did conformity become a dirty word? I suspect Jesus knows His social science. When He ministered in the Old World, the New World, and the Restoration, He didn’t simply announce doctrines, he launched immediately into social engineering. He organized aspirants into congregations complete with authority systems, rituals, and regulations.¹⁹ If the scriptures are to be believed, all of that was His idea, not some power hungry mortal’s!

Why? Because to Him there is no inherent conflict between conformity and agency. When we join an exalting community, we should consciously opt in to the natural peer pressure that is inseparable from it. We ask for the group’s truth, and hope for its love. Conformity becomes toxic when we surrender resentfully to social influence rather than consciously inviting it. Our congregations are not supposed to be suffocating forces of passive obedience, but rather communities of active commitment to collective growth. We decide which we make it. According to Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, God says, “Come as you are. [But] don’t plan to stay as you are.”²⁰ It is in community that this is accomplished.

After administering the Sacrament in the New World, Jesus gives two commandments: First, “ye shall not forbid any man from coming unto you when you shall meet together.”²¹ Apparently, He is in favor of loving tolerance. And second, “ye shall not suffer any one knowingly to partake of my flesh and blood unworthily.”²² In other words, if you know something about someone, I expect you to say something to them. I imagine Him wearing a wry “good luck with that!” smile at that point. He wants a strike to be called a strike and a ball to be called a ball. And He wants people to have lots of turns at bat.

Occasionally Villagers feel dubious about one of the community’s core beliefs. For example, some might chafe at our strict sobriety, saying, “But I have a medical marijuana card!” or “A beer now and again was never my problem!” They may also push against our firm conviction that connection is an essential condition of happiness. At one point a faction resented requirements to attend frequent community meetings: “I graduated the Prep School,” they moaned, “Why can’t I be left alone, now?” An exalting community is rigid about its core beliefs but tolerant with challenges to them. It’s through such challenge that two things can happen:

1. The community grows by confronting unexamined inconsistencies in beliefs—even
   if afterward the beliefs remain unchanged; and
2. The dissenter grows through deeper examination of their dissent—even if afterward
   they remain unconvinced.

Through healthy debate about sobriety, for example, Villagers recognized an inconsistency between their stated goal of saving lives and their rigid practice of demanding sobriety from day one. More thorough debate also helped the dissenters see that strict sobriety as an issue of community safety rather than personal deprivation—concluding that ‘It’s more important to me to protect my brother than to smoke a joint.’

If beliefs can’t be tested, believers become brittle and intolerant. They perceive questions as threats. Likewise, if beliefs aren’t vigorously defended, the community loses its identity. A community that demands little produces little change in its adherents.²³

The night of the canned food caper, Edgar was confronted in a group meeting by twenty of his peers. Finally, succumbing to relentless feedback, his posture softened, his bluster dissipated, and he said, “I stole the Cokes.” He fully expected to be expelled. After all, that’s what happened to him in every other place he had lived. But that’s not what an exalting community does. The Village will kick you out only for behavior that is repetitive, willful, and dangerous to others.²⁴ Stealing some canned food? Nah. If the community’s goal is to help you grow it must see faltering as evidence that you’re in the right place. Just as Jesus commanded, Villagers unflinchingly confront lapses and hold every one close as they do.

I once watched this happen at a Stake Conference. I arrived late and found myself on ahard metal chair in the back of the cultural hall. As I settled in to listen, I heard sharp clicking sounds. The source was a man with a new electronic device whose keyboard emitted a pop for every letter pushed. The man was a semi-active member of my ward who appeared to be transcribing contacts into his new gadget. He had a very tall stack of business cards left to process. As the minutes passed those around him (including myself) got increasingly agitated—but said nothing. Even our noisiest nonverbal scowls had no effect. Finally, a man in front of him turned, put his hand on the brother’s knee and whispered, “That noise is distracting to me. I know how to change the keyboard to silent mode—may I?” I silently cheered his directness. That is, until the first man’s face turned red, he thrust his papers into a bag and stomped out of the cultural hall.

At that, the second man hurried out after him. As the door swung shut, I heard him yell, “Wait up! Wait up! Wait up!” I don’t know what happened in the parking lot, but it was something exalting. Fifteen minutes later they both walked back in. Together.

Truth and love.

Friction is the Path to Atonement

On more than one occasion, President Gordon B. Hinckley said to groups of missionaries “You’re not much to look at, but you’re all the Lord has.”²⁵ We are never more like the Savior than when we willingly choose to connect with flawed people.

This belief has given me a way of thinking about one of the mysteries of Gethsemane. I’ve often pondered what the mechanism was that caused such infinite pain. I’ve concluded that part of it might have been a complete collapsing of distance between a spotlessly perfect infinite being and billions of hopelessly imperfect mortals. Intimacy with broken people offers both the potential of surpassing joy and exposure to searing pain. The closer we are to the sins of others, the more they affect us.

What would it be like if you had to relive the worst thing done by every one of the next five people you meet? And not as a memory or from a distance. You are experiencing it as though you were the actual actor: seeing it, hearing it, feeling it and its consequences on others. Now imagine it wasn’t just the one worst thing, it was every sin of all five people. Simultaneously. Now multiply that by a hundred, then a million, then billions. What pain might it generate in our Savior to be in all of it all at once?

Jesus invites us to understand in the smallest degree by collapsing the distance between us and each other—our glorious gifts, our aching weaknesses, and our baffling differences.

• He expects a ward to figure out how to embrace both The Family Proclamation and a transgender believer.
• He pleads with you to stay even when others are dismissive of your disdain with parts of Church history.
• He summons “come, follow me” especially when you feel left out.
• He’d love it if you could stay peacefully in a quorum with a brother who sued you.
• He asks you to be a relief society president in ward council with a sexist bishop.
• And He calls on that bishop to solve the mystery of why his relief society president resents him.
• He hopes wards will figure out how to honor parents’ demand for safety while ministering to a registered sex offender.

The very pain you feel (including your impulse to flee), produced by the friction of your weaknesses and those of others, is your Gethsemane.

Not passively, but actively. Jesus Christ is the perfect example of intrusive, truthful, loving and vulnerable ministering. He intrusively asks a woman at a well about her serial failed relationships.26 He pulls no truth punches on those who pollute a temple.27 He lovingly embraces an adulteress—while truthfully acknowledging her sin.28 And he vulnerably confesses a moment when His cup was overwhelmingly hard to drink.29 He invites us to endure the pain of our messy wards so that we can receive the at-one-ment on the other side of it. We become one by learning to love imperfect people. Misfits just like us. 30

A community’s capacity to exalt is a function of its capacity to atone—to collapse the distance between us in a way that offers growth at the price of discomfort. The Other Side Village is far from perfect. But the beauty of community is that there is no relationship between the capacity to exalt and the stature of its constituents. We’re told Enoch’s ward members were on the 365-year plan31, and yet we think of them as a success story.

Why should we think the path to Zion in our congregations would be any different than the path to oneness in our messy marriages or messy families?

My hope is that more of us can come with both the proper expectations and the exalting offerings that will make us the Zion God longs for us to be.

Have you seen an example of a Church leader or member who helped a congregation become more exalting? Have you participated in a difficult conversation about struggles in the Church that went remarkably well? If so, please share it with me at ex****************@***il.com.

If you or a loved one would benefit from joining The Other Side Village, go to www.TheOtherSideVillage.com to learn more.

1 Moroni 6:5
2 Ephesians 2:19
3 Full disclosure: I am a co-founder and board chair of The Other Side Village and The Other Side Academy. The Village is built on extensive study of over two dozen other community models—often referred to as therapeutic or democratic therapeutic communities.
4 Joseph Smith said: “I love that man better who swears a stream as long as my arm yet deals justice to his neighbors and mercifully deals his substance to the poor, than the long, smooth faced hypocrite.” Documentary History of the Church, 5:401.
5 Russell M. Nelson teaches that “In God’s eternal plan, salvation is an individual matter; exaltation is a family matter.” Salvation and Exaltation, April 2008 General Conference.
6 Moses 7:18
7 The Other Side Academy (The Academy) is a 2.5-year, residential, no-cost program for people with long histories of crime and addiction based on the same principles as The Other Side Village. The Academy has campuses in Salt Lake City, Utah and Denver, Colorado.
8 Strong, J., & Dotson, J. (2025). Torn: Why people we love are leaving the Church and how we can help. Manuscript in preparation.
9 From Faith Matters: The Ongoing Tug-of-War Between Tradition and Change – A Conversation with Jeff Strong, Mar 8, 2025
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/faith-matters/id1307757928?i=1000698374121&r=1666
10 Luke 22:24
11 Galatians 2:11-14
12 Jacob 2:13 is one example among many
13 See DC 3:4-8; 58:39,41,60; 63:55; 64:17; 66:10; 67:5; 82:2; 90:17, 35; 93:41, 44, 47; 106:7; 117:4, 11.
14 A study by Einav Hart et al showed that people systematically overestimate the risk of asking sensitive questions. This reluctance results in lost opportunity for accelerated friendship. “The (better than expected) consequences of asking sensitive questions” in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol 162, Jan 2021, pp 136-154, Einav Hart, Eric M. VanEpps, Maurice E. Schweitzer
15 D&C 59:12
16 D&C 66:10
17 Ephesians 4:12-13
18 Ephesians 4:15: [By] speaking the truth in love, [we] grow up into him in all things…
19 See for example 3 Nephi 11:18-22. Immediately after his profoundly intimate self-introduction, Jesus organizes a Church and specifies the mode of baptism.
20 Holland, Jeffrey R., “Songs Sung and Unsung” April 2017 General Conference
21 3 Nephi 18:22
22 3 Nephi 18:28
23 In his March 2001 Ensign article “Missionary Work and the Atonement” Elder Jeffrey R. Holland wrote: “Salvation never was easy. We are the Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him?”
24 Thanks to my colleague Jeff Strong for this language.
25 Hinckley, Gordon B., “What Will the Church Do For You, a Man?” April 1972 General Conference.
26 John 4:7-18
27 Matthew 21:12-17
28 John 8:9-11
29 Matthew 26:36-39
30 As we saw earlier, the Doctrine and Covenants is chock full of public outings of deeply personal weaknesses of most every early leader. No one in spared the Savior’s inspection—especially Joseph Smith. See footnote 3 above for a sampling.
31 Moses 7:68 – 69 – Sure, the City of Enoch was translated, but it took a third of a millennium to make it happen.