Come As You Are - A Conversation with Jen and Sam Norton
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ก.ค. 2024
- We’re excited to bring you an episode with a genuine ‘lift-where-you-stand story’ of a family in the UK. Sam and Jen Norton have served young people in the church for more than twenty years and most recently as FSY Session Directors in London. FSY stands for “For the Strength of Youth”, and refers to the week-long summer events held for youth around the world.
As FSY leaders, Jen and Sam began facing difficult questions about how to include and support youth with a range of perspectives and lifestyles. They wanted to affirm the wisdom of the standards set by the Church for youth; they also noticed that many youth were driven away the fear of exclusion they would experience if they fell short. As a result, many youth would drop out of Church activity before giving a chance to learn what it’s really about.
Through prayer, open conversations, deep listening, and creativity, Jen and Sam were taken on a truly transformative journey; they found their way to loving the younger generation more than they thought possible, and learning how to really champion them and their unique spiritual gifts. In short, they believe in believing in the next generation and giving them a more gentle on-ramp to following Jesus and reminds them that perhaps the most important word in the sacrament prayer and baptismal covenant is ‘willing’. Their story will be valuable to anyone working with youth, or who is interested in blending top-down and bottom-up approaches to Church callings.
If you want more of what you hear in this conversation, Sam wrote a book about it called Come as You Are: Creating Space for the Rising Generation to come to Jesus Christ. The book aims to be an accessible guide to parents, leaders and teachers and invites us all to rethink about how we support our young people’s faith discovery.
THIS is the gospel of Jesus Christ!!
Amazing episode. So much love and understanding ❤️
I cried and cried throughout this podcast. What a beautiful vision of what the church could be that truly showcases the gospel as it should be. Thank you!!!
This was beautiful. I love, love, love this!! I was one of those "chapel builders", both literally when I was young, and spiritually until the last fifteen years or so. Certainty, duty, don't question and so on. But that had to change as I came face to face with new information in publications from faithful sources, including the Saints volumes, and finally admitting that my own wonderful experience with our loving father in heaven didn't fit the narrative that I thought I had a very certain "testimony" about. I love to hear from people, like the Nortons and the Givens who are articulating what I've been feeling for the past 10+ years. This is so important! Thank you!
So many tears while listening to this conversation, yes, yes, yes!
This was deeply inspiring. Thank you for having Jen and Sam on your podcast, they have beautiful spirits, and their meekness Christ-like souls have touched me and is life changing.♥️
Jen and Sam 🥳🥳🙌🏼🇬🇧 made fsy special for me as a counsellor
I was so happy to hear that the area seventy trusted Jen to make decisions for their particular circumstances. The church needs that more. Let the Spirit work how it may and leaders get out of the way.
Thoroughly helpful interview. Thank you.
Jen and Sam need to speak at General Conference. But until then, 😊 I am personally so grateful for their wisdom, love, and foresight. I have sent this conversation to many in my family because I think it’s a perspective that so many of us need to adopt. As always, Faith Matters is an enormous inspiration to me!
Wow, what a wonderful couple. I could feel the spirit witness to me so strongly the love they have for the Saviour and the desire to help those in the church who are struggling. Thank you for your service.😊 from Canada
This conversation is so enlightening! This feels like the direction we should all be leaning towards to keep our youth interested and involved. Thank you!
Spectacular podcast, great perspectives.
Can I give this a hundred thumbs up? "There has to be a wider lens." My wife and I have identical conversations.
Brilliant interview - love the way they are facilitating a church culture among youth that is more inclusive and down to earth while also being theologically-grounded. Have them on again please. Would love to hear how they personally approach their faith and relationships to the church.
Inspiring episode, the topics they describe in discussing them with the youth are timely and needed and can bring the way we practice our faith to a higher level.
Concerning the all in or all out approach in our faith community, I don't think this is going to go away any time soon unfortunately. On the contrary if someone does not fully conform with a Church standards, even if you do so from a place of integrity, you will still be seen as a broken thing who is not spiritually exemplary. For example, if a youth (or any member of the church) decides to have sex before marriage or drink coffee on a regular basis and even has worked this out with God for him/herself, most wards would never consider you spiritually whole or exemplary. You would not receive leadership positions, would possibly be bared from serving opportunities and many would not take your spiritually serious, cause mainly, despite all the good things you do, you are still a sinner in their eyes. In that sense there is no true spiritual diversity within the church and youth who don't comply with church standards will find out soon that it is difficult to find a respectable place within the church when you don't comply with all standards.
I hope one day, our church will truly be a place of spiritual belonging and that people who make choices that are against church standards, but are done from a place of integrity, will still have a respectable place within the church without being looked down at or seen as broken.
Jen and Sam for 🇺🇸president!
So uplifted by this ❤
I love this podcast so much. The God and Goddess who I believe in will welcome us with open arms.
I do have a question, did you ask any stake relief society presidents how many members of their stake will make it to the celestial kingdom? I would love to know how their answers would differ from their priesthood counterparts.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Bless you! Bless you! Bless you! ❤❤❤
This conversation sparked so many inspiring ideas for me. I found myself scouring the scriptures for these themes and saw them in surprising new places. I know this is delicate work without one-size-fits-all answers - but I loved hearing how the Spirit's targeted guidance (and their own best efforts to apply it) yielded such remarkable results. Thank you for facilitating and sharing this conversation. Great work!
Awesome interview. I’m a universalist too. I don’t think God sends anyone to ‘Hell’. What on Earth would he or we gain by that?
I’m guessing that he may ask us what we have learned during our life and where do we want to go next.
I cannot fathom why God would put a Veil of Forgetting in place and give us the gift of free choice and send his son to save us in the way that he did then punish us so damnably for making the wrong choices.
Yes it makes more sense that we eternally progress, mortality is just one part of that process.
In a sense, there is a Hell. Hell is the consequences of bad decisions made here in life but we live out those consequences here in the mortal world. They don’t follow us into the next.
What happens in Fight Club stays in Fight Club.
This theology gives me a much stronger incentive to live righteously.
Scaring me to death with eternal damnation just makes me want to give up because I cannot measure up to perfection.
👏👏👏👏👏
💜💜💜💜💜
Eternal progression. .. (from seminary)
"Here, then, is eternal life -- to know the only wise and true God and you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power. . . . JS
Perhaps a substitute word for worthiness could be qualified. Worthiness seems like such a final state. Whereas qualified is what we are working towards. Sam's answer to the question of how many people will make it to the celestial kingdom is certainly a hopeful one but one I cannot agree with. I think a better answer is that everyone who wants to will enter the celestial kingdom. But there will be some who do not want to.
I think he is saying that too - but he’s also acknowledging that eternity is a long time. Read his book. He makes that very clear. People may stubbornly refuse for a season - but “every knee shall bow” suggests supplication…
@@Ramman1983
My bottom line is that none of us is qualified to pronounce the future damnation or exaltation of any individual.
@@redhotsnow14Agree. The tragedy is that it’s the higher ups that train stake presidencies 😢
Loved this. But What's the Grandpa episode they're referring to?