Helping Saints Find Purpose in Church Service

Simon Fagg lives in Colchester, England, and runs his own leadership development consultancy. He is an executive coach where he helps his clients lead their teams more purposefully. For the last 25 years he has been facilitating learning and strategy workshops to some of the world’s leading companies, enjoyed working in nearly 40 different countries across the globe, and has learned so much from different national and organizational cultures. A lifelong member of the Church, Simon's service includes a full-time mission to England Birmingham, bishop, stake president, stake Young Men president, and FSY director. He currently serves alongside his wife as an assistant national director for communications in the UK. Simon loves to learn, sing, read, walk, ski and play volleyball. He and his wife Leah are the blessed parents of six daughters and one son, and grandparents to three wonderful granddaughters. Their youngest daughter was stillborn 20 years ago and this bittersweet experience was transformational for their family and faith.

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Seven Gospels

To kick off the new year, we recently had the privilege to speak to academic duo and long-time friends, Adam Miller and Rosalynde Welch about the new book they co-authored together, titled Seven Gospels: The Many Lives of Christ in the Book of Mormon. 

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The Divinity and Humanity of the Book of Mormon

Today we’re sharing a conversation that we had a lot of fun with, along with an exciting announcement about the work we’re doing at Faith Matters. Our guest was our friend Jared Halverson. Few people we know exude as much enthusiasm for scripture—the Latter-day Saint canon in particular—as Jared does. He’s someone who clearly loves and cherishes these holy texts, and has taken the best they have to offer to heart. He’s as genuine, loving, and big-hearted as they come.

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Finding Peace at Christmas

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year! But it can also be one of the most challenging. Speakers Jenn Zingmark, Blake Dalton, and Ganel-Lyn Condie talk about love, loss, and finding solace in the Savior as we celebrate His birth.

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Who is the Church for?

Nearly everything we do in the Church — from missionary work and ministering efforts to baptisms and temple work — hinges on an underlying question: who is the Church for? Is the project of the Restoration to find and shepherd the elect of God to exaltation in the next life, or is it to create a Zion community here that strives to include those on the margins, the way Jesus ministered? Should it be one or the other?

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The Natural Result of Your Presence

When you walk into your home, what is the natural thing that happens? Do your brothers and sisters run for cover like cockroaches? Or does everyone run to greet you? Perhaps this Christmas season, you might take a step back and evaluate just how much your natural presence affects others, not only in your community and neighborhood, but specifically how you lead and warm others within your own home

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The Power of Validation

We all have had those moments in our lives when we have needed someone to listen to an experience we have had, hear it, and simply validate the way we are feeling. When someone does it properly, it allows us to calm down, draw closer to the person validating, as well as draw closer to ourselves. The problem is that finding someone who can do that for us is often difficult. Many times other’s don’t know how to validate or they are in a mode of trying to “fix” our problems instead of just hearing them.  Meg Tilton is on the podcast today teaching you the importance of self-validation and how when you can learn to do this you will not need to seek validation from anyone else. Meg is a firm believer that when you can learn to validate yourself, you have more love for yourself and others in your life. You drop expectations of others and know that you can take care of yourself. 

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An Inside Look at Perspectives that Challenged the Top of Mind Team this Season

We’ve spent the last several months on Top of Mind assessing the assumptions that drive our decisions. And we hope you’ve had a few “Stick With It Moments” as you’ve heard a perspective that challenged you, but you chose to stay open and curious – and keep listening! And hopefully that’s been good practice for “sticking with it” when you encounter challenging perspectives in your daily life. Because leaning into that discomfort leads to new empathy, more clarity on complicated issues, and a better ability to advocate for the things you really care about. While we’re producing the podcast, we have Stick With It moments, too. So in this podcast episode to wrap up Season 4, our host Julie Rose talks with the Top of Mind team about moments that challenged them in recent episodes about adoption, end-of-life decisions, immigration, police reform and political disagreement.

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How I Lead as Stake Music Coordinator

Emily Poaletti grew up in southwest Wisconsin, went to Brigham Young University-Idaho and got a vocal music degree, then moved with her husband to Northwest Arkansas. She has taught private voice lessons for eight years and has been the music director for five different children’s musicals. Emily has served as a ward choir director, ward music coordinator and stake music coordinator, as well as in Primary, Young Women, and Relief Society presidencies. She loves having the chance to sing with others of faith, and served on the music committee for the Bentonville temple open house and dedication this year, also directing one of the dedicatory session choirs. Emily is the parent of five boys. She loves to be in nature with them and convinces them to sing with her at least once a day. Links

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