This week, we’re bringing you an interview with Kurt Francom, author of a new book titled, Is God Disappointed in Me? Removing Shame from a Gospel of Grace. It seems to us that culturally, Latter-day Saints don’t usually imagine an angry vengeful God but we may very well imagine a god who is perpetually disappointed with us when we inevitably fail again to live up to our highest ideals. Kurt’s book unpacks what hurts about the idea of a disappointed God and why this belief can be a real stumbling block to our growth. He explores the ways sin is very often a response to woundedness and how understanding these core vulnerabilities can help us to heal from shame instead of hiding or numbing.
We've linked to a sweet video Kurt posted of his daughter learning to walk; though she is fumbling and struggling to learn, the video reminds us that as parents, we're not disappointed by this process of growth. Instead, like Kurt's voice in this little video, he was bursting with pride at her growth, joy when she got back up, and excitement that he got to be with her in the journey of learning to walk. Is this what we imagine God -a loving heavenly father and mother feels, when we make mistakes?
We think these ideas are so transformative. You can find Kurt’s book on Amazon or Benchmark Books. We also invite you to check out Kurt’s “Learning to walk” video with his daughter, which we’ll link to in the show notes. We hope you enjoy this episode.
Is God Disappointed In Me? (on Amazon): https://a.co/d/2soZzs5
Learning to walk video: https://youtu.be/nC9CIIXRJS0
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.