Hello again, everyone! I have breaking news to report right now. The Newsroom has shared an announcement from the First Presidency. Effective in August of 2020, the Africa Southeast Area of the Church will be divided into two separate areas: the Africa South Area, and the Africa Central Area. The announcement notes that this is being done because of the Church's significant growth that is occurring in the nations currently comprising the Africa Southeast Area. More specific details on this area split will be released closer to the time, but the one thing that is certain is that two 3-man area presidencies will be assigned for the two separate areas.\
My personal opinion on those assignments is that the First Presidency may ask 1 or 2 members of the Africa Southeast Area Presidency as it will be constituted in August of this year to continue in the newly-divided Africa South Area Presidency, while the remaining 1 or 2 members of that presidency would be called as the first leaders of the Africa Central Area, since that would allow Brethren with familiarity of all nations in the current Africa Southeast Area to bless the two split areas with their knowledge thereof.
If that were the only news I had to report, it would be reason enough to celebrate. But I also wanted to note a couple of other developments as well. For the last several weeks, lds.org has redirected to churchofjesuschrist.org. It appears that now, however, the only way to get to the Church's official website is to enter the new URL. Additionally, details have been announced about the final 2019 Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults, which will also serve as a Face-to-Face Event. As I noted previously, that event had originally be set for Sunday September 8, but has been pushed back a week to Sunday September 15, which will coincide with the dedication of the Lisbon Portugal Temple.
The featured guests for this Devotional/Face-to-Face event will be Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and Elder Craig C. Christensen of the Seventy. Unless their assignments have changed or will change, Elder Soares is a member of the Missionary Executive Council and the Human Resource Committee, while Elder Christensen is President of the Utah Area (which will be a single area effective August 1 of this year) and as an Assistant Executive Director of the Missionary Department. Based on the fact that they both have a role in missionary work within the Church, it would not shock me in any way if the focus on this devotional is how young adults can continue to be missionaries even after concluding their full-time service in the mission field.
And while I am on the subject of missionary work, that brings me to the other two articles I wanted to share. As many of you know, Elder John H. Groberg, now an Emeritus General Authority, served a full-time mission in Tonga, and would return a decade or two after that to serve as a mission president in the same area as well. A book has been published about his experiences, which has been the subject of the movie "The Other Side of Heaven". As preparations are underway for a sequal to be released (which will focus on his experiences as a mission president), Elder Groberg sat down with the Church News, professional golfer Tony Finau, and Elder Vai Sikahema, a newly-called area seventy, to discuss the powerful church growth in Tonga, and the impact that missionary work has had on each of them individually.
In the meantime, one other article continues coverage of the 2019 Seminar for New Mission Presidents, the latest of which features remarks shared by Bishop W. Christopher Waddell, who is both the Second Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric and a member of the Missionary Executive Council, and his wife, Carol, who covered 5 key points that both mission presidents and senior missionaries should remember when considering how senior couples can best be utilized during their missionary service. And for any who have missed any coverage provided on that Seminar, the full range of articles on that can be found in this special section of the Church News
I was grateful to bring these reports to you today. I continue to monitor all Church news and temple updates, and will do my level best to keep bringing word of those to you all here as I become aware of such things. That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, on any post at any time, as long as such comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. Thank you for the privilege of your time. If you enjoyed what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly-added content, please feel free to subscribe. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.
Friday, June 28, 2019
BREAKING NEWS: First Presidency Announces Initial 2020 Area Division
I have had a lifelong love for Church history, which has extended to ongoing reports of the ministry of our apostles and prophets, General Conference, and all temple developments. This blog enables me to share that love with all who read my thoughts on these developments, which are sometimes reported multiple times per day as needed.
12 comments:
In addition to my life-long love for the subjects which I cover in the posts of this blog, I have long held the belief that we can disagree without becoming disagreeable. Differences of opinion are natural, while being disagreeable in expressing those differences is not. And in that sense, I have no desire to close the door on anyone who earnestly desires to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on subjects covered in the posts on this blog.
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Any comments made by individuals who opt to not give a name by which they can ber identified may, depending on the substance and tone of such comments, be subject to deletion as well. I would respectfully ask that all of us do all we can to keep the dialogue positive, polite, and without malice or ill-will. May the Lord bless us all in our discussion of these important matters.
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ReplyDeleteL. Chris JonesJune 28, 2019 at 4:55 PM
ReplyDeleteI checked LDS.org and mormon.org and they redirected to their respective sites. Churchofjesuschrist.org and comeuntochrist.org
Hey, Chris! I found out the same thing. My guess about what happened earlier is that when a website is transitioning to a new URL, they will remove the redirect for a short time as a test, then restore the redirect once the tests are complete. That's not uncommon. But you are correct that the redirect is working now. At some point, the redirects might fully go away, by which time I assume people will be used to the new URLs. Thanks again for that observation and for taking time to comment.
DeleteRegardless of whether they are used. I hope the church keeps ownership of the old URLs. I don't want them to fall into the hands of antis.
DeleteHey, Chris! Thanks for this additional comment. I fully and firmly believe the Church will retain the "old" URLS. I know that the Church had to wait for one of the new URLS (comeuntochrist, if I remember correctly) to become available. I also know that the URL for "thechurchofjesuschrist" is owned and operated by another religious denomation that I am certain branched off from the main Church restored through Joseph Smith, given their similar albeit slightly different ecclesiastical structure to our Church.
DeleteI imagine that if the rights to the existing URLs are kept, it will be to keep them out of the hands of the antis just as you said. Anything else wouldn't naje much sense, unless they were signed over to an affluent Church member and their family to keep them in the right hands. But that seems to be more unlikely than the Church just keeping them within the organization. Again, Chris, thanks for stopping by to comment.
Hello again, everyone! I wanted to post some additional thoughts on the area changes announced by the First Presidency. First, since this is a Church growth development, I anticipate Matthew Martinich has done or will yet publish his own analysis on this, and I'd encourage anyone interested to look for that on the blog's website:
ReplyDeletehttp://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com
I had a couple of other observations. When I first discussed the creation of an Africa Central Area on this blog earlier, I mentioned that, at minimum, I anticipated that such an area would encompass the 9 nations the world defines as Central Africa. Those nations are: Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, and Sao Tome and Principe.
While I anticipate those nations will be included, I am not of the opinion right now that the new Africa Central Area will be limited to the inclusion of those nations. I say that because the announcement notes that, as of August 2020, the resulting two areas will be the Africa Central and Africa South Areas. So that suggests to me that, where the East Africa nations have, up to now, been part of the Africa Southeast Area, some of those nations closest to the central portion of Africa will be part of the new area, while those closer to the southern portion will be part of the newly-aligned Africa South Area.
As I said, Matt will no doubt have more analysis on this in the coming days (if he has not already provided that) and more details will be released by the Church about these areas closer to the time the change takes effect. But assuming that no other changes take effect next August, the Church will then have a total of 22 geographical areas. However, it should be noted there is still a chance other changes may be made, with the consolidation of the Europe and Europe East Areas into a single area, which may be the same case for the Asia and Asia North Area. Nothing is official until an actual announcement is made, but that does seem possible, based on my own research and what Matt has said on that.
Whatever might actually wind up happening, you can be sure to find my report on such developments ASAP after I hear about those. I also continue to monitor all other Church news and temple updates and will do my level best to pass word of those along to you all here as I become aware of it. My thanks once again to you all.
Just wanted to note here that the analysis from Matthew Martinich which I referenced above can be found on his blog at the following more specific web address:
Deletehttp://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/2019/06/creation-of-africa-central-area.html
It looks like Matt's analysis was posted roughly an hour after my post abovve. But he has specifically offered further insight into the nations which may comprise the new Africa Central Area. And I appreciate his having done so. My thanks once again to you all for your ongoing interest and support.
Hello again, everyone! While I hope any of you who have additional comments on the Africa Area changes will feel free to respond to my coverage of that subject in a new comment, or through replying to my latest comment posted above this one, I wanted to let you all know about some additional Church news coverage which has been provided.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I wanted to note that the Church News has seemingly published an article about the Africa area changes, but there seems to be a problem with the link to it, so if any of you are unable to access that as well via the Church News website, the News & Events subpage on the Church's official website shares the information at the following web address:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/first-presidency-announces-division-of-africa-south-area-into-two-areas?lang=eng
In the interim, a report has also been provided on remarks made by Elder Soares at the Mission Leadership Seminar:
https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2019-06-28/elder-ulisses-soares-2019-mission-leadership-seminar-50251
And another edition of the ongoing series: "This Week on Social" has been published:
https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2019-06-28/social-president-nelson-elder-rasband-cordon-africa-50254
In summary, that article shares posts on a wide range of topics which were published by the following Church leaders:
Church President Russell M. Nelson; Elders Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Quentin L. Cook, Ronald A. Rasband and Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; Sister Bonnie H. Cordon, Young Women General President, and her First Counselor, Sister Michelle D. Craig; and Sister Joy D. Jones, Primary General President, and her Second Counselor, Sister Cristina B. Franco.
For my part, i will continue to monitor all Church news and temple developments and bring word of the highlights and major developments on this blog in either comments on existing posts, or brand new posts with breaking or significqant new developments. My thanks once again to you all.
Hello again, everyone! As a capstone to my coverage of the Seminar for New Mission Leadership, I wanted to note that the Church News has published a summary of the remarks made by Elder Uchtdorf to close out the seminar. And of course, no report on Elder Uchtdorf's public addresses is ever fully complete without at least one aviation reference. In his remarks, Elder Uchtdorf used aviation definitions easily understood by everyone to describe how the seminar had, in essense, been the pilot's training for the new mission leaders, including references to crew, passengers, and plane maintenance. You can read that summary in the following article:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2019-06-28/elder-uchtdorf-2019-mission-leadership-seminar-conclusion-50249
And although I will certainly try to mention any additional coverage that may be provided on the seminar, given that I will be focused on posting a comparative summary of temple progress between the beginning and end of the second quarter of this year on Sunday, if I do happen to miss any subsequent coverage of the seminar, you can find it at the address below:
https://www.thechurchnews.com/category/2019-mission-leadership-seminar
That said, I'd like to again thank you all for your ongoing interest and support.
It turns out the Church News has provided additional coverage of the Mission Leadership Seminar, as I anticipated. The latest article covers remarks made by Elder Brent H. Nielson, who serves as the Executive Director of the Missionary Department:
Deletehttps://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2019-06-29/elder-nielson-2019-mission-leadership-seminar-50206
Once again, my thanks to you all for your onging interest and support.
Hello again, everyone! I wanted to share an additional article from the Newsroom:
ReplyDeletehttps://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/gospel-literacy-program-launched-sierra-leone
I should also probably mention that there are several East African nations which may be closer to the cluster of Central African nations than they might be geographically to Southern Africa, in which case they'd be assigned to the former Church area rather than the latter. It will be interesting to see what happens there. Thanks again, everyone!
The Church News has shared a summary of remarks made by Elder Brian K. Taylor, a General Authority Seventy, who spoke at the recent BYU-Hawaii 2019 Spring Commencement (Graduation) Ceremony:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thechurchnews.com/living-faith/2019-06-29/elder-taylor-invites-byu-hawaii-graduates-to-walk-with-god-50256
Among other assignments, Elder Taylor has been serving since August of last year as Second Counselor in the Idaho/North America Central Area Presidency. In August of this year, he will be relesed from all assignments at Church Headquarters and will serve as First Counselor in the Central America Area Presidency.
Aside from that article, I have not yet come across any additional Church news or temple updates, but will be sure to pass those along as I learn of them in the future. But I will also keep to my intended plan to share later today a series of comparative reports on the temple construction progress which has occurred between April 1 (which marked the beginning of the second quarter of 2019) and today (which will mark the end thereof). So look for those later this evening or tonight. In the meantime, my thanks once again to you all.