What’s the Difference between LDS, CoC, & Bickertonite General Conferences? Is it a week long like CoC? Every 6 months like LDS? A combination? Evangelist Josh Gehly will tell us more. Check out our conversation…
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GT 00:31 Now, do you have what we would call a general conference every–so, in our church, we do it every six months. In the Community of Christ, they do it every two or three years, usually three years.
Josh 00:40 Yeah, every six months.
GT 00:41 Yours is every six months, April and October?
Josh 00:43 Yeah, our spring conference is really our spiritual conference. There’s very little business per se. But it’s more of a big gathering to bring the saints all together. It’s wonderful. And then October is our Business Conference. I mean, there’s spiritual things, too. We’re always rallying our young people and doing youth activities and just bringing the saints together. But October is our business part of the conference, as far as that goes.
GT 01:09 So, in the LDS Church, it’s generally Saturday, Sunday, it’s a two-day conference. In the Community of Christ, because they only do it every–well, with COVID screwed up. I think they went four and now they’re going to go two, to get back on track. But it was like, eight, nine days, I think.
Josh 01:27 Wow. Awesome.
GT 01:31 Theirs was very interesting, very different from LDS General Conference, in the fact that they would have what would they would call legislation and it was really interesting.
Josh 01:46 Legislation, what is that?
GT 01:47 So, for example President Veazey announced that he was going to retire in two years, at the last conference, last April. And right after the conference, he had some serious health problems. I’m still not totally clear. I’m not clear. I just talked to somebody from their church, and she said, “I don’t know, either.”
Josh 02:12 Well, that’s helpful.
GT 02:14 They’re very hush-hush about it, for whatever reason. But at any rate, he announced he was going to retire in two years. He announced that they would discern who the next president would be, who’s actually going to be a woman, Stassi Cramm.
Josh 02:27 I saw that.
GT 02:28 So she will be official–I think she’s president-designate for the next, what’s going to be a year now. She was just called a few weeks ago. She will be officially installed as president next year, next April, I believe. I might have to see if I can go to that again.
Josh 02:46 That’d be amazing.
GT 02:55 What we would call stakes, different mission centers will say, for example, this was really interesting to me. “We want to apologize for our past practices with race.” Now, of course, in the LDS Church, we had a ban. The Community of Christ/RLDS Church never actually had a ban, but they did have–well, there were two things. There was one where the Prophet Joseph Smith, III had referred to what we would call a politically incorrect term of Negro. Of course, we don’t use that term anymore. And so, people wanted to de-canonize the whole revelation, because basically, he had said, ‘we’re not going to deny blacks the priesthood, or he would say, negros, but we’re not going to be hasty in in ordaining them, because we need to be careful about that.’ And so there was a big debate. Should we de-canonize, I think it was their Section 116, if I remember right. There was a debate on should they de-canonize it or not? Then there was another resolution where a different mission center said, “We want to apologize on behalf of racism.” The strange thing was, they would have whereas, whereas, whereas; let it be resolved that…this. People would argue over the wording, over the whereas-es for, like, hours. “No, I don’t like that wording. I like this wording.”
“Okay, well, let’s vote on that.” People would vote and vote and vote. It would take, like, two days to get through resolution.
Josh 04:52 Wow.
GT 04:52 One of the resolutions was, which was I thought was pretty interesting. And I couldn’t understand why it got defeated.
Josh 04:58 Were you there the whole time?
GT 04:59 I was there for the week. Yeah.
Josh 05:03 It sounds grueling?
GT 05:07 Well, it was, because my back was hurt.
Josh 05:08 It’s interesting.
GT 05:10 I was really in pain.
Josh 05:11 And it’s good that people cared about the resolution.
GT 05:14 So, they were arguing about the resolutions. Then there was one resolution, we want the church to put the scriptures online, which to me was like, why would anybody oppose this? And it got shot down. And I was like, are you kidding me?
Josh 05:30 What? So, we have an app. Look up the Bible and Book of Mormon on Apple or Google Play. It actually has tens and tens of thousands of downloads.
GT 05:43 I have it on my phone.
Josh 05:44 Get a red-letter edition of your Book of Mormon today through the Church of Jesus Christ.
GT 05:50 But they were worried about the cost, because they wanted to translate it into Spanish and French and English.
Josh 05:55 Yeah, sure. Sure, sure. That’s a huge endeavor.
GT 05:57 And so I could not believe that it got voted down. It was crazy to me. It didn’t make any sense to me, but then I hear that they’re going to do it anyway. (Chuckling) And so, they talk about it as a legislative session. A new Presiding Bishopric was called. I guess you guys don’t have a Presiding Bishopric?
Josh 06:17 No, no. The only thing that might look similar is for our region breakdowns, we have a region president, and that reports to our church presidency. So, you have your presiding elders that are overseeing the branches. They’re reporting to a region president who’s reporting to the church presidency. So, it’s all under the Twelve and all under the church presidency overseeing the general church as a whole. And so, that is the bishopric, although we wouldn’t use that word. Those are the overseers, to use the New Testament term, where, those are the overseers, per se, that you would find in Scripture.
GT 06:57 So, in my understanding, we in both the LDS and the RLDS position of Presiding Bishopric, they deal a lot with the finances of the church and real estate holdings, and that sort of a thing.
Josh 07:11 Okay.
GT 07:12 So, it’s a little different, I guess.
Josh 07:14 That’s a little different. Yeah, it’s a little different.
GT 07:18 But they also called the first woman in India to be a Seventy, and that was voted. In the LDS Church, of course, everybody can’t fit in Salt Lake City. They have a giant Conference Center, but it’s broadcast to everybody. If you’re outside of Utah, I mean, at home, you can watch it anytime you’re supposed to sustain a new apostle or whatever. They do it as delegates. And so each congregation will send a delegate to the conference and then the delegate will vote on behalf of the congregation. So, it’s very different.
Josh 07:54 Yeah.
GT 07:56 Whereas in the LDS Church, it’s rare that anybody ever opposes anything, a new apostle. Occasionally you’ll get some crazies, but…
Josh 08:08 Gotcha.
GT 08:09 But in the Community of Christ, they will actually have voting machines and, like, on the Scripture resolution to put them online. They were like, ‘okay, all in favor, say Aye. All opposed, say Nay.’ And they were like, we can’t tell [who won.] We’re actually going to vote. I don’t know what the final percentage of it was, like, 51-49. It was a super close at the end of the day.
Josh 08:34 Wow, wow. Okay.
GT 08:36 And so that’s why I’m asking about your conferences. Are they more LDS style or RLDS style, or neither?
Josh 08:46 No, we do vote on things. We operate our business through our conferences and organize and map out. Now, a lot of things do happen by committee. Then it comes and gets passed on conference floor. So, there’s a Finance Committee of the church. The presidency is involved in that, general church trustees are involved in that. There are elected offices from the general church into those positions; that includes brothers and sisters on our finance committee. In fact, our primary treasurer per se, of the general church is Sister Heather.
GT 09:28 She’s not a priesthood holder.
Josh 09:29 No, she’s not.
GT 09:32 That would be a no-no in my church.
Josh 09:34 Gotcha. So, we have brothers and sisters in elected offices, all throughout every level of the church. That’s wonderful for us. So, none of those, by the way, I think one important thing to say here is that there’s zero, there’s not a single paid person in the entire church…
GT 09:57 Not even the President?
Josh 09:58 Trust me, not even the president.
GT 10:00 Wow.
Josh 10:01 Yeah. So, everybody, we’re tentmakers. We’re carpenters. We’re a church that is a bootstrap church trying to spread and evangelize the glorious message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ in these, the latter days, but nobody’s paid.
GT 10:19 But the church would pay for airfare and things like that.
Josh 10:22 Yes. Yeah, there’s reimbursements for missionaries, but really not stipends, per se. But reimbursements for expenses. Yeah. And I’m not going to say never a stipend. Like, if we’re planting a new missionary in Mexico into a new area, there might be a three-month stipend, and then the brother is expected to get his job and provide for himself. So, there might be a transition period in the international fields a little bit. But it’s with a phase out. It’s never permanent. It’s short term, ‘hey, we want to get you here.’ And then then the expectation is you’re going to find a job and work. But as far as conferences go, and back to your question at hand, I would say we’re somewhere in the middle, maybe. Because things go out to committee, there are certainly times when everybody’s raising their hand. Do people stream? We stream the spiritual parts of our conference, the meetings, the preachings, that gets streamed out. The elders and teachers, the closed meeting for the ministry, that’s not publicly streamed or accessible around the church.
GT 10:45 So, when they are calling a new evangelist or apostle or something like that?
Josh 11:42 That’s on the floor at conference. That’s for those that have made the trip and are part of the conference floor that day. That vote would be for those that are physically present in the room. That’s how we’re operating today. Obviously, the world has changed, and there’s a lot more Zoom happening. And there is business happenings around the church through a lot of Zooms. And conference calls have always happened. But the actual general church activities and voting happens on the floor. It is open for discussion. There are open mics on the floor. Everything that’s getting passed is open for question, open to be approved or disapproved. The apostles do not approve a single thing in the church. They can only recommend. The full authority of the priesthood of Jesus Christ lies within the complete priesthood body. So, the apostles help lead us. They may bring things to the floor for a vote. But the vote happens, including their vote as one vote per person. All of the priesthood elders and evangelists and apostles have a vote on conference floor and a voice. All teachers have a voice on the floor. So, that’s our operations. I have watched revelations come to the floor and been turned down by the body.
GT 13:05 Oh.
Josh 13:06 And I have been in meetings where revelations have come to the floor. When it’s a revelation of God, there are manifestations of the Spirit throughout the room, and tongues and singing in the spirit and vision. Nobody wants to break for lunch. It’s just a good moment. Or you’ve got to go into, like, the finances and we’re like–I think everybody is like, do we have to do that right now? This was pretty good. The Lord just–sometimes we just take a moment, because the Lord was with us. So it’s a blessing.
GT 13:48 Well cool. So, the headquarters are still in Monongahela?
Josh 13:54 Yeah, there’s a branch of the church in Monongahela. It is our headquarters. There’s not a single conference in Monongahela. We would not fit.
GT 14:06 Okay.
Josh 14:07 So we have a World Conference Center in Greensburg, close by, within 40 minutes of Monongahela that probably could easily fit 500 people. I mean, probably significantly more than that, actually. And that’s where our conferences are held.
GT 14:28 Okay, how close is out to Pittsburgh?
Josh 14:30 Oh, fly in to Pittsburgh, and you’re within an hour.
GT 14:34 Okay. So there’s a good chance that I’m coming in October.
Josh 14:39 I want you to come, please come.
GT 14:40 To the, it’s called the SSSR. Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.
Josh 14:46 Great.
GT 14:46 Last year was it in Salt Lake City. Next year, it’s in Pittsburgh. I would love to get a tour of the world headquarters.
Josh 14:54 Done. We can make that happen. Yeah, let’s plan it. Maybe if you’re there in October, close enough to our conference time?
GT 15:02 The conference is like, I want to say–I don’t think I can do the whole thing. I’m probably going to be there on a weekend, like October 18 or something I want to say.
Josh 15:12 We would probably be before then. I don’t have the dates memorized.
GT 15:17 Our general conference is usually the [weekend] in October and the first [weekend] in April.
Josh 15:20 Usually, we’re usually around the second, I think, weekend of October. We’re close. Sometimes they overlap, too. There is some flexibility there. It’s something we vote on at conference.
GT 15:35 Maybe we can hit a [Pittsburgh] Pirates games while I’m there.
Josh 15:37 That’d be cool. They don’t make the playoffs, though.
GT 15:39 Except for October, It will be the World Series, then.
Josh 15:41 They don’t make the playoffs.
GT 15:41 They don’t have Barry Bonds anymore or Jim Leyland.
Josh 15:46 No Roberto Clemente.
GT 15:48 Or Clemente, oh man, that was a long time ago. (Chuckling) Alright, well, anything else we’ve missed?
Josh 15:57 No, Rick, you’re amazing. Thank you for your time. I don’t know how you do it. It is a real blessing for me to be on and you guys, Gospel Tangents gives me a platform to share my love, to share the church, share my love for the Lord share our common love in the Restoration. So, thank you.
GT 16:17 I know you don’t call yourself a Mormon, but I still call you my Mormon cousin.
Josh 16:21 Well, yeah. Thank you, brother.
GT 16:27 If you believe in the Book of Mormon, you’re a Mormon cousin.
Josh 16:29 Certainly, I’ll take that. I’ll take the association that comes for being connected to my brother, Mormon, in the text.
GT 16:36 I guess we’re not supposed to call ourselves Mormons. But I still do. I’m grandfathered in, I think. All right, I want to say Elder Josh Gehly, but you don’t call yourself elder.
Josh 16:47 I’m not an elder.
GT 16:48 Evangelist Josh Gehly, thank you so much for being here on Gospel Tangents.
Josh 16:52 Thanks, Rick. I appreciate your time. Thanks.
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