Editor’s note: To support personal and family gospel learning, the Church News is publishing articles on messages from April 2025 general conference. It is recommended to listen to or read the full address in addition to reviewing these resources.
About this talk
- “Participate To Prepare for Christ’s Return”
- Elder Steven D. Shumway | General Authority Seventy
- Sunday morning session of April 2025 general conference.
- Theme: Participating in God’s work, including accepting callings, helps prepare people for the Savior’s Second Coming.
Read the full message here.
Read a summary of Elder Shumway’s message here.
Outline
- After Elder Shumway was called as a new general authority and feeling inadequate to fulfill the calling, Elder Neil L. Andersen reassured him that everything would get better — in five or six years. “Have you ever wondered why we are asked to do things in God’s kingdom that feel beyond our reach?”
- Participating in God’s work prepares all for Christ’s return through callings, ministering, temple worship, following promptings and other ways.
God is pleased when we engage in His work
- As the Church grows, so does the need for willing souls to engage in God’s work. Selflessly serving is the essence of Christlike discipleship, even though it is rarely convenient, like how missionaries set aside desires and challenges to serve. God delights to honor any who serve Him in righteousness, for saying yes to serving is saying yes to Christ and eternal life.
- Elder Shumway learned the blessings of service when called to serve in his college singles ward as an activities planner. At an activity, he met his future wife and shudders to think of missing out on her.
Our participation is preparation for Christ’s return
- Participating in God’s work blesses and helps His children to prepare to meet the Savior in three ways; they can progress toward “the measure of [their] creation” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:19), elevate homes and churches to holy places, and feel God’s grace and love.
Help others receive and rejoice in the gift of callings
- Callings are sacred gifts to help bring others closer to Christ. Leaders can seek those without callings and encourage them to engage in God’s work.
- When Elder Shumway’s friend John was inactive, the bishop invited him to quit smoking. John tried for three weeks with some success as “he felt an unseen power helping him.” After those initial weeks, the stake president invited John to be in the bishopric and, despite John’s objections, insisted that the Lord had called him. John accepted the call.
- Christ can do His own work, but He sends Saints in His place to learn and be His representatives. This can bring the members joy and help them become more like Him.
Reflection questions
How might participating in God’s work prepare us for the Savior’s Second Coming?
What changes in yourself have you seen from serving?
When has someone been a blessing to you as they served in their calling? How can you similarly bless others in your calling?
In your calling or ministering assignment, what can you do “to help bring others with [you] to Jesus Christ”?
What are you learning from your callings and ministering assignments?
Speaker quotes
- “When we say yes to serving, we are saying yes to Jesus Christ. And when we say yes to Christ, we are saying yes to the most abundant life possible.”
- “Callings do not determine or validate a person’s worth or worthiness. Rather, as we labor with God in whatever way He asks, we grow into the measure of our own creation.”
- “God rejoices in our progress, and so should we, even when we still have work to do.”
Reference scriptures
- “Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day. Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work; For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul.”
- “For thus saith the Lord — I, the Lord, am merciful and gracious unto those who fear me, and delight to honor those who serve me in righteousness and in truth unto the end. Great shall be their reward and eternal shall be their glory.”
- “And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life.”
Invitations and promises
- “I invite leaders and each of us to more intentionally seek those without callings. Encourage and help them engage in God’s work to help them prepare for Christ’s return.”
- “While the easier path may be to give faithful members a second calling, the more excellent way is to invite the unlikely to serve and let them learn and grow.”
- “When we serve to magnify Christ and not ourselves, our service becomes joyful.”
Stories
- After Elder Shumway got called as a new General Authority, he met Elder Neil L. Andersen in a hallway. Elder Andersen joked with him about feeling inadequate before reassuring him that everything got better in five or six years.
- While in a college singles ward, Elder Shumway was called as an activities planner. It was a nightmare calling for him, but he accepted. It was not easy, but at one activity he met a beautiful girl. That girl would become his wife, Heidi.
- John was an inactive member who struggled with smoking. The bishop visited him one day and invited him to quit. Though John had tried before, he took the bishop’s invitation and felt an unseen power helping him. Three weeks into this endeavor, the stake president visited him and extended the calling to serve in the bishopric. John tried to decline but accepted after the stake president reaffirmed that the Lord was asking.
From the footnotes
- 9. In the Savior’s parable of the talents, the Master gives responsibility over “a few things” to each servant. The Master was more focused on each servant’s progress toward becoming masters “over many things” and less concerned with the return of His goods. The one servant who was afraid and unwilling to labor was left condemned and without progression. (See Matthew 25:14-28.)
- 22. The Latin root of the word “sacrifice” is “sacer,” meaning sacred or holy, and “facere,” meaning to make. As we sacrifice for God, He makes us holy (see Helaman 3:35; Doctrine and Covenants 132:50).
- 33. In Jacob 1:17, 19, Jacob’s errand was the Lord’s errand. He did not magnify his office unto himself but unto the Lord so that he could teach God’s word and thus “be found spotless at the last day.”
Additional resources
- Related image: “Primary Chorister”
- Related video: “Dominoes”
- Related hymn: No. 243, “Let Us All Press On”
Recent conference talks on serving
- Elder Gary E. Stevenson: “Days Never To Be Forgotten” (October 2024)
- Elder Aroldo B. Cavalcante: “The Wind Did Never Cease To Blow” (October 2024)
- Elder Ronald A. Rasband: “How Great Will Be Your Joy” (October 2023)
Who is Elder Shumway?
- Elder Steven D. Shumway was sustained as a General Authority Seventy on April 6, 2024. He earned his degree in chemical engineering from Brigham Young University in 1996. Elder Shumway served a mission in the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission and was later the Illinois Chicago Mission president.
