I love being a dad. Fatherhood has been a rewarding experience that helped me increase my testimony of my Father in Heaven and His love for me.
Parenthood is also challenging. I’m grateful to have a wonderful wife to navigate parenting’s trials and successes.
Currently, all four of our children are teenagers. And each of them is going through their own opportunities for growth. We do our best to read the scriptures together. We pray as a family most nights. Outside of those moments, our days are all vastly different.
Our interests are different. Our hobbies are different. Our tastes in food and music and fun are all different. And our testimonies are also all different.
At the beginning of this year, I spoke with Young Men General President Timothy L. Farnes and Young Women General President Emily Belle Freeman about this year’s “Walk with me” theme for the youth of the Church. They shared that gospel study can help youth have transformative experiences as they accept the invitation to walk with the Savior.
I perhaps naively thought of my family walking hand in hand down the trail of life when President Farnes and President Freeman shared their insights.
Each of the six of us in the family is walking a path that only our Heavenly Father completely understands.
On Nov. 3, the Church announced refinements to the programs of children and youth, and I feel that these refinements can be helpful to me as a parent and to my children as they make important life decisions as teenagers that will help them maintain the right course as they move toward and into adulthood. When I heard the revised three pillars of the program, I started to ask myself some questions.
How can I help my children believe in Christ more? What gospel learning experiences do we facilitate at home?
How can I help my children feel they belong at Church? What activities do we engage in? How do we serve our neighbors and others?
And how do I help my children to become more like Christ? What do I do to help them grow into the individuals that God wants them to become?
In a podcast interview with the Young Men general presidency about the new refinements, President Farnes said the three pillars are “all about lifelong discipleship.”
In that moment, I flashed back to my own experience in the Church as a teenager. I was blessed to have some great adult mentors serving as youth leaders at that time. They augmented lessons I was taught at home by my parents.
Young Men participated in a different kind of program when I was growing up. But most of my leaders showed more interest in me and my personal growth than they did my program accomplishments. I’m grateful for each of those leaders.
They helped me set some personal goals that were a stretch for me. They sometimes involved aspects of my life that I didn’t care about. But in this process, I heard them pray for me and the other young men in our ward. I saw them serve with us — both at Church and in the community.
I knew that they believed in Jesus Christ. I watched them work to help us feel belonging in the Church of Jesus Christ. And I saw examples of men becoming more like Jesus Christ.
Back then, we had a uniform. Today, our uniform is the armor of God.
Back then we had a motto, oath and law. Today, we proclaim divine lineage and learn to honor covenants with God.
Back then we earned patches and medals. Today we strive to reflect the Light of Christ.
As I listened to President Farnes, President Freeman and Primary General President Rosemary K. Chibota and their counselors, I heard a higher and holier call that aims to help the youth and children of the Church focus their lives on Christ and prepare for His Second Coming.
So while our children are all unique, God is asking to help them become unified. He isn’t asking them to all be the same. But He is asking them to all be covenanted as His.
And the steps taken to refine the Children and Youth program of the Church may help all of us — adult, teenager and child — become better disciples of Jesus Christ.
— Jon Ryan Jensen is editor of the Church News.
