Some of My Experiences with Scouting
Here are some of my experiences, observations, and perceptions of Scouting.
As a young boy, I was in Cub Scouts in Utah. I don't remember much, but do remember my mom was my den mother at least once. I remember having fun and earning badges and arrow points. Fun was the key.
We moved to Chile when I was 10, halfway through the North American school year, and before school started in Chile. I don't remember much about the last year of cub scouting, as a Webelos scout, but it was not a Church sponsored unit.
The Scout troop I joined in Chile, and later my brother, was a BSA troop. It was not sponsored by any church. I think it was chartered through a North American school's PTA-like association, who had a lot of contacts through the US embassy. We had a cool council patch, Direct Service Around the World council. The troop consisted of boys from age 12 through 17 and from nationalities around the world. As I remember, only Chileans could not officially join, because Chile had its own scouting organization.
Most of the parents were involved. Our scout camps were great. The week-long scout camps were something we all looked forward to. We worked on merit badges, but the counselors were very strict and made sure we really did pass every requirement. I think it was in case there was any question as to whether or not the boys actually passed, they would have sufficient proof we did the work.
The troop was organized as it was supposed to be. Usually we had three patrols. Troop meetings happened most weeks, and we had skills training, games, business, patrol meetings, etc. Normally the older boys were leading the patrols and the troop.
When my family came back to the states, I was 16. We moved to Oklahoma and I got involved with the scout unit in the LDS ward. Seldom did the priests quorum (16-17 year olds) meet with the other two quorums for a combined scout meeting. I actually don't remember if we ever did. I remember being really unimpressed with scouting in the states.
During the next year and half, I worked to complete my Eagle, and a bronze palm. I had started an Eagle project in the months before we left Chile, but wasn't able to finish that project due to our leaving. It took awhile before I got motivated enough to do another project.
The only scout camp I remember in Oklahoma was a merit badge camp. It wasn't quite a merit badge factory, but close. I earned 5 merit badges that week. My best friend and I both earned 5, which was the most for our ward and, I think, among the highest earned during the week. Most of the merit badges I wasn't real impressed with regarding the quality of counselors. The only merit badge I felt really challenged with was the rifle shooting. As I remember it, my friend and I were the only ones that week to earn that merit badge.
After returning from a 2-year mission, I ended up spending several summer seasons at a high adventure scout camp in south-central Utah. That was fun. It was hard, but it was a good adventure. While we supported anyone who might want to do a merit badge, there were few who came to camp to work on merit badges. Mostly it was the fun and adventure of Scouting.
During the rest of the year I attended college, and spent a couple years trying to decide what to actually get my degree in. I ended up graduating with a degree in recreation management and youth leadership. I was planning to work professionally for the Boy Scouts of America. The idea of working for the organization whose program I enjoyed as a youth was appealing. The thought of being able to spend my summers at camps was also attractive.
Two years after graduating, and after another summer season at camp, I was hired by one of the Boy Scouts of America councils in Utah (there are three which have either part or all of their council area in Utah) as one of their new District Executives.
Within a few months I went off to Texas for professional training.
In some of my college classes I had learned about how important fund raising is to non-profit organizations. During that training I learned that the Scouting professional has three main focuses: money, manpower, and membership.
Money is kind of self-explanatory. One of the DE main jobs is to get money for the council, mainly through donations. This is often done through soliciting past donors, finding new donors, and coordinating the Friends of Scouting drive.
The second focus is manpower, which includes all the volunteers in the district(s) the DE is over. The DE coordinates with two key volunteers to make sure training is available and happening at all levels throughout the district. At the district level this key three comprises the district chair, district commissioner, and the district executive. A key three exists in some form at all levels in scouting, from the units, districts, councils, areas, regions, and national. At all levels except the unit level one member is a scouting professional.
The third area of focus is membership, or those who are actually members of the various units. Most members are boys, although the Explorer program can be a co-ed program for the older youth.
Utah is very unique with the (soon to be previous) strong emphasis on Scouting for all the boys and young men program in the many LDS wards and stakes. For the professional it's relatively easy in the areas of membership and manpower. The wards register all their boys, and callings are made for the various leadership roles. This allows the professional to focus on making sure all district leadership and training roles are filled.
But it's also very difficult for the professional because too many LDS members don't feel like they can really be involved unless it's their calling, and there are parents don't want to be involved unless it's their calling.
Those who are interested, and receive a "calling", usually get training and are good scout leaders. Those who aren't interested, don't.
As a DE we were given (I didn't have really any input) critical achievements, or professional goals, which were used to evaluate us at the end of the year, and which determine how much of raise you get. Most of these goals were centered around one of the three focuses: money, manpower, or membership. The goals with the biggest emphasis were those centered around money in one way or another. These included funds raised through Friends of Scouting to how much revenue the camp you were assigned to made that year.
Raising the money isn't too difficult between existing donors and friends of scouting. Membership goals were usually about increasing the numbers of registered youth, and increasing the number of units in the district.
Increasing the numbers of units was easy. As soon as a new ward is created, which in areas of high growth happened regularly, the district, in most cases, had four new units created (cub scout pack, boy scout troop. varsity scout team, and venture crew). If a stake splits, it's even better.
However, increasing the actual number of registered youth is more of a challenge. In my district I think it was calculated that we had over 90% saturation rate for youth registered. How do you get more than that? Yet, they (the Scout Executive and your program director (supervisors)) expect you to. Thankfully the cities in my district were growing so I wasn't hurting for new youth to be registered.
I heard of one DE who was fired after a few years of declining numbers (membership and units) in his districts, which were mostly in rural areas. There may have been other issues, but the only part I heard about was the continued decline in membership and units. Turns out at least one of his districts was losing population, people were moving out, and very few moving in to the mining community. Kids would grow up and leave. Families would leave. But, very few people were moving back in.
In our council at the time, there was what we (the DE's) referred to as the good 'ol boys club, to which we were not members, but most (if not all) the senior-level executives (program directors and Scout Executive) belonged. Of course, it wasn't a real club, but we were treated differently from those who had been in the council for many years. We received very little support from our "supervisors", but they still expected us to perform. I don't remember ever going with any other DE or director to see how things should be done. I never had anyone mentor me, specifically not at the senior levels, or take any real interest in what I was doing in my job. It was all about the numbers, and most importantly about the money numbers. I was given the basic professional training at the national headquarters and was then expected to do my job.
Something that is often overlooked when it comes to money is that membership brings in money. Every youth (and even every adult leader) pays for registration. Rechartering time, which happens every year, brings in a lot of money for the council (and part of that filters up to the national level). Most people don't realize this because the chartered organization usually takes care of this, and in most cases this is done at the ward level.
My camp assignment was at a camp in the desert. Not fun as I don't like excessive heat. But due to my high adventure experience, and the newness of the camp, I was given the assignment.
My biggest problem was having my supervisor call me up twice during the six weeks of camp and he told me to return to my district because membership numbers needed to be brought up. In one case it was to help my district numbers. In another case it was an attempt to get more numbers to boost the council's overall membership numbers.
I had already seen this happen at the camp I had worked at previously, but it never really made sense to me. At that time I understood. My job was the district. Camp was just an extra. Sure I had some goals that focused on the success of camp (like bringing in a certain amount of revenue to reach the acceptable, and even more revenue to gain an exceptional rating), but I was hired to support the district, so I had to leave my camp responsibilities to the program manager (who incidentally was also a new DE and would also need to attend to his district at times) and leave camp.
I was already getting very disillusioned by this time. Everything seemed backwards. I love the Scouting program, the values Scouting teaches. To me it seems that if you have a great program then it will bring in participants, and the money will come. In the case of the council they appeared to talk about the program, but in reality their focus was on money. The programs seemed to be an afterthought. Many seemed to have the attitude that they needed the money first before a good program could happen. Certainly money is important, and it helps, but providing a quality program seemed foreign to many in the council. Sometimes it seemed the programs were viewed almost with a factory mindset. For others the attitude seemed to be that is was the volunteers who were responsible for the program.
Anyway, I was single at the time and after the summer, when a good excuse came up, I put in my resignation. I cited some education pursuits and interests, but the reality was I was sick and tired of the absolute bureaucracy. It was enough to leave me a little bitter towards Scouting, at least towards the professional side of it, for several years.
I will say that I really liked my district. I enjoyed the district volunteers I worked with. They were awesome. They were the only reason I might have stayed, and they were the only reason I had any hesitancy to leave. I felt bad leaving them without a DE. But I didn't want to deal with the higher-ups in the council anymore.
Sometimes I wonder how things would have turned out if I'd started working as a DE in another state. Maybe I would've lasted longer. Maybe I'd still be working professionally.
This is not to say that all professional scouters are focused on the money. I know this isn't the case. I knew a couple DE's, who had several more years of experience than I did, who just dealt with the politics as needed and focused on the programs in their areas. Basically they did what they felt like they should do for the good of the program. They were awesome to work with, in the rare opportunity. But, they also had the advantage of being retired from another profession and working in Scouting as a second career, and their children were grown up and moved out.
In any case, I'm seeing the organization, at least at the national level, lose its moral compass.
Having experienced a year as a professional, and based on my experience and observations, much of the posturing done by the national organization over the past few years seems to actually be based on money.
The good talk is there, about being inclusive, tolerant, accepting.
But, the reality is until the Scouting organization started accepting gay leaders they were fighting a losing battle. They were losing money as big donors, corporations, businesses, and other organizations were pulling financial support and/or no longer chartering units. They were losing money as membership declined, not just through decreasing interest in the youth but also due to bad press as a result of the previous stance against gay leaders and gay youth. The were fighting expensive legal battles.
So, on a money perspective it makes sense to allow for gay leaders and gay youth. It resulted in better press coverage and increasing support in communities around the nation. All this equates to more revenue.
Lately the talk is on allowing transgenders to join, and to allow girls to join. Nothing formal has been announced, that I'm aware of, but it will be coming.
With the Church pulling out of Scouting for the boys ages 14 through 17, it leaves the local councils with a looming membership gap that will be coming when units begin to recharter. Varsity and Venture groups will not be rechartered. That's a lot of lost income, not just from membership and leader fees but also in potential Friends of Scouting donations. For the professional scouters and councils, this is a blow to membership and unit numbers, not to mention their money-oriented goals.
It is my opinion that at the national level many of the executives will see allowing girls and transgenders, and all other claimed genders, to join Scouting as a way to fill in the financial hole, which become very obvious over the next 1-2 years. They may act sooner to head off that financial downturn by formally expanding their membership to all genders in most, if not all, of the scouting programs. I'm not sure what they might change their name to since "Boy" Scouts of America probably won't be very applicable.
However, the financial side most likely will never be brought up. It will be all about being tolerant, accepting, inclusive, etc. It will result in favorable press. More corporations, businesses, schools, organizations, etc. will be willing to support and sponsor Scouting (which equates to more donations, more chartered units, more membership, and more money that passes up to the national organization).
About that time the national organization might also decide that it's not worth it to continue to legally support chartered organizations who choose to not have gay leaders, basically to not legally support those chartered organizations who aren't willing to follow the recommended guidelines. Right now the BSA will supposedly aid chartered organizations who face legal contests when it comes to the organization not wanting a gay leader. The time will likely come that the BSA will basically state that their policy is to allow all qualified leaders, and while a chartered organization can select who they want to be a leader, the BSA will not legally support those who choose not to adhere to the national policy, if a qualified leader is not permitted to serve, and the chartered organization comes under legal issues as a result. If this happens, the Church will probably pull-out completely.
In any case, I think that when Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts are no longer a boys-only program, if the Church has not already completely pulled out it may do so at that time. Of course, when the Church does completely pull out it will provide more reasons for opponents of the Church to increase persecution towards the Church and its "intolerant, biased, bigoted, non-accepting," etc. actions.
Personally, while I still love the original Scouting program, the one I grew up with, I think it is a good move on the part of the Church to begin its withdrawal from Scouting. I say "begin" because I think the Church will eventually completely pull out. It makes the most sense. The Church is very international and it would be more beneficial to make all of the children and youth programs the same throughout all the world.
As wickedness increases in the world, I think it is becoming even more important that our youth are taught how to be spiritually strong. Camping and outdoor skills will continue to be important, and there can be very spiritual experiences in the outdoors. But it can be beneficial to have less emphasis on the host of awards, recognitions, rank advancement, badges, etc.
The other day I was reading the news releases from the Church regarding this change in the young men's program in the Church. It was good to read that the BSA leaders were "understanding, kind, and very professional" (https://www.lds.org/church/news/church-replacing-varsity-and-venturing-scouting-with-new-activities-program?lang=eng&_r=1&cid=HP_FR_19-5-2017_dPFD_fCNEWS_xLIDyC_") towards the Church's decision.
However, the thought came to me that there are probably some leaders within the BSA who may be very glad that the Church is pulling out from some of the programs, not because of the loss of money, but because it reduces the base of those who may be opposed to the BSA allowing girls, transgender, and others into the program, as youth members or as leaders. It also reduces the base of units who may be opposed to gay leadership. This would make it easier to push these agendas. And, when these agendas are pushed and implemented more fully, the Church will probably pull out, and the LGBTQ+ will have completely hijacked what was once a great values-oriented program, one that helped boys grow into good and honorable men with traditional values.
As a young boy, I was in Cub Scouts in Utah. I don't remember much, but do remember my mom was my den mother at least once. I remember having fun and earning badges and arrow points. Fun was the key.
We moved to Chile when I was 10, halfway through the North American school year, and before school started in Chile. I don't remember much about the last year of cub scouting, as a Webelos scout, but it was not a Church sponsored unit.
The Scout troop I joined in Chile, and later my brother, was a BSA troop. It was not sponsored by any church. I think it was chartered through a North American school's PTA-like association, who had a lot of contacts through the US embassy. We had a cool council patch, Direct Service Around the World council. The troop consisted of boys from age 12 through 17 and from nationalities around the world. As I remember, only Chileans could not officially join, because Chile had its own scouting organization.
Most of the parents were involved. Our scout camps were great. The week-long scout camps were something we all looked forward to. We worked on merit badges, but the counselors were very strict and made sure we really did pass every requirement. I think it was in case there was any question as to whether or not the boys actually passed, they would have sufficient proof we did the work.
The troop was organized as it was supposed to be. Usually we had three patrols. Troop meetings happened most weeks, and we had skills training, games, business, patrol meetings, etc. Normally the older boys were leading the patrols and the troop.
When my family came back to the states, I was 16. We moved to Oklahoma and I got involved with the scout unit in the LDS ward. Seldom did the priests quorum (16-17 year olds) meet with the other two quorums for a combined scout meeting. I actually don't remember if we ever did. I remember being really unimpressed with scouting in the states.
During the next year and half, I worked to complete my Eagle, and a bronze palm. I had started an Eagle project in the months before we left Chile, but wasn't able to finish that project due to our leaving. It took awhile before I got motivated enough to do another project.
The only scout camp I remember in Oklahoma was a merit badge camp. It wasn't quite a merit badge factory, but close. I earned 5 merit badges that week. My best friend and I both earned 5, which was the most for our ward and, I think, among the highest earned during the week. Most of the merit badges I wasn't real impressed with regarding the quality of counselors. The only merit badge I felt really challenged with was the rifle shooting. As I remember it, my friend and I were the only ones that week to earn that merit badge.
After returning from a 2-year mission, I ended up spending several summer seasons at a high adventure scout camp in south-central Utah. That was fun. It was hard, but it was a good adventure. While we supported anyone who might want to do a merit badge, there were few who came to camp to work on merit badges. Mostly it was the fun and adventure of Scouting.
During the rest of the year I attended college, and spent a couple years trying to decide what to actually get my degree in. I ended up graduating with a degree in recreation management and youth leadership. I was planning to work professionally for the Boy Scouts of America. The idea of working for the organization whose program I enjoyed as a youth was appealing. The thought of being able to spend my summers at camps was also attractive.
Two years after graduating, and after another summer season at camp, I was hired by one of the Boy Scouts of America councils in Utah (there are three which have either part or all of their council area in Utah) as one of their new District Executives.
Within a few months I went off to Texas for professional training.
In some of my college classes I had learned about how important fund raising is to non-profit organizations. During that training I learned that the Scouting professional has three main focuses: money, manpower, and membership.
Money is kind of self-explanatory. One of the DE main jobs is to get money for the council, mainly through donations. This is often done through soliciting past donors, finding new donors, and coordinating the Friends of Scouting drive.
The second focus is manpower, which includes all the volunteers in the district(s) the DE is over. The DE coordinates with two key volunteers to make sure training is available and happening at all levels throughout the district. At the district level this key three comprises the district chair, district commissioner, and the district executive. A key three exists in some form at all levels in scouting, from the units, districts, councils, areas, regions, and national. At all levels except the unit level one member is a scouting professional.
The third area of focus is membership, or those who are actually members of the various units. Most members are boys, although the Explorer program can be a co-ed program for the older youth.
Utah is very unique with the (soon to be previous) strong emphasis on Scouting for all the boys and young men program in the many LDS wards and stakes. For the professional it's relatively easy in the areas of membership and manpower. The wards register all their boys, and callings are made for the various leadership roles. This allows the professional to focus on making sure all district leadership and training roles are filled.
But it's also very difficult for the professional because too many LDS members don't feel like they can really be involved unless it's their calling, and there are parents don't want to be involved unless it's their calling.
Those who are interested, and receive a "calling", usually get training and are good scout leaders. Those who aren't interested, don't.
As a DE we were given (I didn't have really any input) critical achievements, or professional goals, which were used to evaluate us at the end of the year, and which determine how much of raise you get. Most of these goals were centered around one of the three focuses: money, manpower, or membership. The goals with the biggest emphasis were those centered around money in one way or another. These included funds raised through Friends of Scouting to how much revenue the camp you were assigned to made that year.
Raising the money isn't too difficult between existing donors and friends of scouting. Membership goals were usually about increasing the numbers of registered youth, and increasing the number of units in the district.
Increasing the numbers of units was easy. As soon as a new ward is created, which in areas of high growth happened regularly, the district, in most cases, had four new units created (cub scout pack, boy scout troop. varsity scout team, and venture crew). If a stake splits, it's even better.
However, increasing the actual number of registered youth is more of a challenge. In my district I think it was calculated that we had over 90% saturation rate for youth registered. How do you get more than that? Yet, they (the Scout Executive and your program director (supervisors)) expect you to. Thankfully the cities in my district were growing so I wasn't hurting for new youth to be registered.
I heard of one DE who was fired after a few years of declining numbers (membership and units) in his districts, which were mostly in rural areas. There may have been other issues, but the only part I heard about was the continued decline in membership and units. Turns out at least one of his districts was losing population, people were moving out, and very few moving in to the mining community. Kids would grow up and leave. Families would leave. But, very few people were moving back in.
In our council at the time, there was what we (the DE's) referred to as the good 'ol boys club, to which we were not members, but most (if not all) the senior-level executives (program directors and Scout Executive) belonged. Of course, it wasn't a real club, but we were treated differently from those who had been in the council for many years. We received very little support from our "supervisors", but they still expected us to perform. I don't remember ever going with any other DE or director to see how things should be done. I never had anyone mentor me, specifically not at the senior levels, or take any real interest in what I was doing in my job. It was all about the numbers, and most importantly about the money numbers. I was given the basic professional training at the national headquarters and was then expected to do my job.
Something that is often overlooked when it comes to money is that membership brings in money. Every youth (and even every adult leader) pays for registration. Rechartering time, which happens every year, brings in a lot of money for the council (and part of that filters up to the national level). Most people don't realize this because the chartered organization usually takes care of this, and in most cases this is done at the ward level.
My camp assignment was at a camp in the desert. Not fun as I don't like excessive heat. But due to my high adventure experience, and the newness of the camp, I was given the assignment.
My biggest problem was having my supervisor call me up twice during the six weeks of camp and he told me to return to my district because membership numbers needed to be brought up. In one case it was to help my district numbers. In another case it was an attempt to get more numbers to boost the council's overall membership numbers.
I had already seen this happen at the camp I had worked at previously, but it never really made sense to me. At that time I understood. My job was the district. Camp was just an extra. Sure I had some goals that focused on the success of camp (like bringing in a certain amount of revenue to reach the acceptable, and even more revenue to gain an exceptional rating), but I was hired to support the district, so I had to leave my camp responsibilities to the program manager (who incidentally was also a new DE and would also need to attend to his district at times) and leave camp.
I was already getting very disillusioned by this time. Everything seemed backwards. I love the Scouting program, the values Scouting teaches. To me it seems that if you have a great program then it will bring in participants, and the money will come. In the case of the council they appeared to talk about the program, but in reality their focus was on money. The programs seemed to be an afterthought. Many seemed to have the attitude that they needed the money first before a good program could happen. Certainly money is important, and it helps, but providing a quality program seemed foreign to many in the council. Sometimes it seemed the programs were viewed almost with a factory mindset. For others the attitude seemed to be that is was the volunteers who were responsible for the program.
Anyway, I was single at the time and after the summer, when a good excuse came up, I put in my resignation. I cited some education pursuits and interests, but the reality was I was sick and tired of the absolute bureaucracy. It was enough to leave me a little bitter towards Scouting, at least towards the professional side of it, for several years.
I will say that I really liked my district. I enjoyed the district volunteers I worked with. They were awesome. They were the only reason I might have stayed, and they were the only reason I had any hesitancy to leave. I felt bad leaving them without a DE. But I didn't want to deal with the higher-ups in the council anymore.
Sometimes I wonder how things would have turned out if I'd started working as a DE in another state. Maybe I would've lasted longer. Maybe I'd still be working professionally.
This is not to say that all professional scouters are focused on the money. I know this isn't the case. I knew a couple DE's, who had several more years of experience than I did, who just dealt with the politics as needed and focused on the programs in their areas. Basically they did what they felt like they should do for the good of the program. They were awesome to work with, in the rare opportunity. But, they also had the advantage of being retired from another profession and working in Scouting as a second career, and their children were grown up and moved out.
In any case, I'm seeing the organization, at least at the national level, lose its moral compass.
Having experienced a year as a professional, and based on my experience and observations, much of the posturing done by the national organization over the past few years seems to actually be based on money.
The good talk is there, about being inclusive, tolerant, accepting.
But, the reality is until the Scouting organization started accepting gay leaders they were fighting a losing battle. They were losing money as big donors, corporations, businesses, and other organizations were pulling financial support and/or no longer chartering units. They were losing money as membership declined, not just through decreasing interest in the youth but also due to bad press as a result of the previous stance against gay leaders and gay youth. The were fighting expensive legal battles.
So, on a money perspective it makes sense to allow for gay leaders and gay youth. It resulted in better press coverage and increasing support in communities around the nation. All this equates to more revenue.
Lately the talk is on allowing transgenders to join, and to allow girls to join. Nothing formal has been announced, that I'm aware of, but it will be coming.
With the Church pulling out of Scouting for the boys ages 14 through 17, it leaves the local councils with a looming membership gap that will be coming when units begin to recharter. Varsity and Venture groups will not be rechartered. That's a lot of lost income, not just from membership and leader fees but also in potential Friends of Scouting donations. For the professional scouters and councils, this is a blow to membership and unit numbers, not to mention their money-oriented goals.
It is my opinion that at the national level many of the executives will see allowing girls and transgenders, and all other claimed genders, to join Scouting as a way to fill in the financial hole, which become very obvious over the next 1-2 years. They may act sooner to head off that financial downturn by formally expanding their membership to all genders in most, if not all, of the scouting programs. I'm not sure what they might change their name to since "Boy" Scouts of America probably won't be very applicable.
However, the financial side most likely will never be brought up. It will be all about being tolerant, accepting, inclusive, etc. It will result in favorable press. More corporations, businesses, schools, organizations, etc. will be willing to support and sponsor Scouting (which equates to more donations, more chartered units, more membership, and more money that passes up to the national organization).
About that time the national organization might also decide that it's not worth it to continue to legally support chartered organizations who choose to not have gay leaders, basically to not legally support those chartered organizations who aren't willing to follow the recommended guidelines. Right now the BSA will supposedly aid chartered organizations who face legal contests when it comes to the organization not wanting a gay leader. The time will likely come that the BSA will basically state that their policy is to allow all qualified leaders, and while a chartered organization can select who they want to be a leader, the BSA will not legally support those who choose not to adhere to the national policy, if a qualified leader is not permitted to serve, and the chartered organization comes under legal issues as a result. If this happens, the Church will probably pull-out completely.
In any case, I think that when Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts are no longer a boys-only program, if the Church has not already completely pulled out it may do so at that time. Of course, when the Church does completely pull out it will provide more reasons for opponents of the Church to increase persecution towards the Church and its "intolerant, biased, bigoted, non-accepting," etc. actions.
Personally, while I still love the original Scouting program, the one I grew up with, I think it is a good move on the part of the Church to begin its withdrawal from Scouting. I say "begin" because I think the Church will eventually completely pull out. It makes the most sense. The Church is very international and it would be more beneficial to make all of the children and youth programs the same throughout all the world.
As wickedness increases in the world, I think it is becoming even more important that our youth are taught how to be spiritually strong. Camping and outdoor skills will continue to be important, and there can be very spiritual experiences in the outdoors. But it can be beneficial to have less emphasis on the host of awards, recognitions, rank advancement, badges, etc.
The other day I was reading the news releases from the Church regarding this change in the young men's program in the Church. It was good to read that the BSA leaders were "understanding, kind, and very professional" (https://www.lds.org/church/news/church-replacing-varsity-and-venturing-scouting-with-new-activities-program?lang=eng&_r=1&cid=HP_FR_19-5-2017_dPFD_fCNEWS_xLIDyC_") towards the Church's decision.
However, the thought came to me that there are probably some leaders within the BSA who may be very glad that the Church is pulling out from some of the programs, not because of the loss of money, but because it reduces the base of those who may be opposed to the BSA allowing girls, transgender, and others into the program, as youth members or as leaders. It also reduces the base of units who may be opposed to gay leadership. This would make it easier to push these agendas. And, when these agendas are pushed and implemented more fully, the Church will probably pull out, and the LGBTQ+ will have completely hijacked what was once a great values-oriented program, one that helped boys grow into good and honorable men with traditional values.
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