Counseling with Your Public Affairs Council

The Lord’s Church is organized with councils at every level, beginning with the Council of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and extending to stake, ward, quorum, auxiliary, and family councils.  Public affairs work is organized and implemented through councils.  President Stephen L. Richards said: “The genius of our Church government is government through councils. . . . I have had enough experience to know the value of councils.  Hardly a day passes but that I see . . . God’s wisdom, in creating councils: to govern his Kingdom. . . . I have no hesitancy in giving you the assurance, if you will confer in council as you are expected to do, God will give you solutions to the problems that confront you” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1953, 86).

You will be guided as you meet regularly with your public affairs council, search the scriptures together, and pray for guidance.  Acting in a united effort, you will create spiritual synergism, which is increased effectiveness or achievement as a result of combined action or cooperation, the result of which is greater than the sum of the individual parts.

All councils in the Church should encourage free and open discussion by conferring with one another and striving to have clear, concise communication.

Focusing on the core purpose of public affairs work, public affairs councils should follow the Three-step Process for Building Relationships with Opinion Leaders. Step one involves identifying the priesthood objectives that the public affairs council should be working to achieve. Consequently, your involvement at this stage is most critical.

Priesthood advisers to public affairs councils are encouraged to attend as many regularly scheduled council meetings as schedules permit. Directors of public affairs should be assigned to prepare an agenda for council meetings and review it with you in advance.  Also in advance of the meeting, you may wish to consult with the priesthood leaders of the units that correspond to your public affairs council regarding any specific agenda items—especially those regarding priesthood objectives and local issues that are currently affecting or may affect the Church’s mission and/or reputation.

Identifying Priesthood Objectives and Local Issues for Public Affairs Councils

The Three-step Process for Building Relationships with Opinion Leaders can be summarized as follows: (1) identify priesthood objectives and local issues, (2) identify key opinion leaders, and (3) create a “road map” or action plan for establishing or strengthening relationships with the opinion leaders identified in step two.

As the priesthood adviser to your public affairs council, you oversee this work—beginning with the step of identifying priesthood objectives and local issues that can or will affect the Church’s reputation or ability to fulfill its mission.  Although your calling entitles you to receive inspiration about such objectives and local issues, you have the opportunity to counsel with your public affairs council members and others for their inspiration and insight.

Utilizing Other Priesthood Leaders and Councils

You may consider surveying the other priesthood leaders within your geographic area of stewardship (bishops, stake presidents, Area Seventies) regarding their priesthood objectives and the issues in their communities that can or will help or hinder the Church’s mission or affect its reputation. Members of the Presidency of the Seventy and Area Presidencies can do this in an area council meeting; Area Seventies can do this in a coordinating council meeting; stake presidents can do this in a meeting with bishoprics. Or you may wish to assign a member of your public affairs council to survey these priesthood leaders by phone or in a personal visit.

In addition to benefiting from the information and inspiration of priesthood leaders, your public affairs council may wish to survey other associated public affairs councils. This surveying could also take place in stake and ward council meetings where auxiliary and other leaders are present.

This work of surveying and compiling can be repeated as often as needed. Changes in community issues and leadership and progress toward building relationships and resolving local issues could all indicate a need for further surveying.

Possible Questions to Pose When Surveying and Identifying Priesthood Objectives and Local Issues

Some questions that may help to identify priesthood objectives and local issues include:

• What do priesthood leaders feel are the needs that the Church and its members face now or will face over the next five years?
• Have priesthood leaders set specific objectives, and if so, what are they?
• What do priesthood leaders specifically want to have happen in their area, nation, or community?
• What are priesthood leaders’ current and planned initiatives?
• What obstacles or threats are hindering the Church’s progress?
• What issues affecting the Church are likely to arise over the next five years? (racial problems or contention? social issues? relationship challenges with other faiths? confusion or ignorance in the media about Church doctrines or practices?)
• Which of these issues will affect the Church’s reputation?
• Which of these issues will hinder the mission of the Church or have an impact on what priesthood leaders want to achieve in their area, nation, or community over the next five years?

Possible Priesthood Objectives

Because they are primarily concerned with building relationships and with creating understanding, your public affairs council can be a remarkably versatile tool for achieving or positively affecting  a wide range of priesthood objectives. Following are some of the ways that priesthood leaders at various levels have utilized public affairs councils to achieve their objectives.

• Helping, when appropriate, to clearly communicate the Church’s position on important moral and social issues.
• Helping to respond to attacks on the Church’s credibility and integrity.
• Helping missionaries find greater acceptance in an area.
• Helping the Church receive official recognition in a country.
• Helping missionaries to receive visas to enter a country.
• Helping to enable the distribution of Church humanitarian aid in a country.
• Helping to open doors to the filming of genealogical records.
• Helping to mitigate the negative effects of inappropriate actions by Church members.
• Helping the community accept the Church’s plans to build a new temple, meetinghouse, or other facility.
• Helping to build better relations between the Church and ethnic communities.
• Helping to organize and appropriately communicate Church relief efforts in the case of natural or man-made disasters.
• Helping to communicate the progress of the Church in the area.
• Helping Church members feel more comfortable about discussing their beliefs with friends and neighbors.
• Helping local Church units to identify, plan, and carry out large-scale Mormon Helping Hands or other service projects.
• Helping to build bridges of understanding with other faiths, local government, media, or other organizations that harbor unkind feelings or misinformation about the Church.
• Helping to defend the Church’s reputation when it is falsely accused of being involved in inappropriate activities.
• Helping the Church to recognize good works performed by members of the community who are not members of our faith.
• Helping the Church to appropriately defend and bolster traditional community or family values.
• Helping to “localize” and clarify national or international stories about the Church that may be misunderstood by the local media and their readers, viewers, or listeners.

Assigning Council Members to Compile and Monitor Priesthood Objectives and Local Issues

Once priesthood objectives and local issues are gathered, a public affairs council member could be assigned to compile them and identify the most frequently mentioned ones from which your public affairs council can select one or two.

This council member could be the council’s steward or monitor of these priesthood objectives, updating the information as needed and regularly keeping it in front of the public affairs council. He or she or other council members could be assigned to do the same with local issues.

Sometimes, extra work is required to identify local issues in the community that are affecting or will affect the mission of the Church or its reputation. The assigned council member should regularly check local newspapers or their Web sites, blogs, television and radio news reports, organizations that address and speak out on specific local issues, and other sources. He or she should visit the Church Newsroom daily to stay current on how Church Public Affairs is dealing with and responding to the same or similar issues.

Measuring the Success of Your Public Affairs Council

The effectiveness of a public affairs council is measured by its achievement of priesthood objectives. Successfully implementing the Three-step Process for Building Opinion Leader Relationships is a good predictor of council success. Priesthood leaders should work with the council members to ensure they remain focused on what should be done, rather than only on what can be done.

It is a normal human tendency to aim for what appears more easily achievable. Public affairs councils should be constantly reminded of what is truly needed, then exercise faith in the Lord to help them achieve it. Council meetings should be devoted to developing, acting upon, and revisiting road maps—action plans or contact plans that help your council establish and nurture relationships with opinion leaders. These road maps are the substance of a public affairs council's annual project plan.

Your personal involvement in outreach activities with opinion leaders will also help you to gauge your council’s success.

Dealing with Sensitive Issues

As priesthood adviser to your public affairs council, it is crucial that you immediately contact the priesthood leader to whom you report, your area public affairs council director, and your area’s contact in the Public Affairs Department at Church headquarters if you become aware of a highly-sensitive incident that has drawn or could draw media attention locally, nationally, or globally. 

Examples may include charges of abuse or other serious crimes by Latter-day Saints or media inquiries about Latter-day Saints as victims of serious crimes. In such cases, and until clear spokesperson instructions and an official statement are communicated to you through your priesthood leader or the Public Affairs Department (working closely with the Church’s Office of General Counsel), nothing should be said to the media.

When facing negative or inaccurate information about the Church in local media reports, please refer to the section of this Web site titled, “Dealing with Negative or Inaccurate News Reports.”