200: Let’s Collaborate!

This short episode announces two projects I’d love to work on with collaborators from the Mormon Matters listening community.

The first is a call for stories that would become part of a podcast episode, or a series of episodes, and possibly also a book (or series of books). Right now I want to call this project “Good Shepherds.” It will be stories of LDS leaders–bishops or bishopric members, Relief Society presidents/presidencies, Young Women’s and Young Men’s presidencies and advisors, visiting teachers, home teachers, stake leaders, others–who in the capacity of their callings have been amazingly open, creative, loving, welcoming, concentrating on building community and fellowship rather than being narrow in doctrine or policies that can divide and make folks feel unwelcome, unwanted, or somehow “less than.”

Please listen to the podcast for more details, but, in short, if you have a story of someone like this you’d love to share about, please write me at mormonmatters at gmail dot com and we’ will set up a time to record with you. I’ll then gather yours and other stories together for release as a podcast episode or series. I’ll then later talk with contributors about possibly writing up their stories as essays to put into a book.

The second project does not yet have a name (let’s have a contest to come up with one!), and it is also far more complex than the first but really exciting, I think! It is a call for collaborators who would like to be part of a team to contribute to a book(s) and app that would help open up Sunday or other church-related discussions to greater depth, life, insight, spirit, and that might help us find ways we can share our insights in discussions that often feel like they are operating on a different wavelength than where we are, that are using language and speaking from frameworks that perhaps don’t match where our spiritual journeys have taken us. It is too complex an idea and project to describe here, so please listen to the episode and then write me if you would like to be in on the fun and (I think, rewarding) work it would entail.

Thanks! I look forward to my email inbox filling up with replies that you’d like to be involved in one or both of these!

Thanks for your responses here and for all you do to contribute to Mormon Matters and its continued viability and to the great community that has grown up around it!

Dan Wotherspoon

P.S. We’ll be back to releasing new Mormon Matters full episodes beginning next week!