Welcome and Background on the Experiment

John Dehlin [00:00:01] This audio was recorded at the first ever Community of Good meeting held in Logan, Utah at the Unitarian Church in Logan, Utah on September 27, 2015. John Dehlin is giving the main presentation and Tanner Gilliland is conducting. Hope you enjoy.

Tanner Gilliland [00:00:20] Welcome everybody to the first ever official Community of Good meeting. As I'm sure you are aware, this is a secular community, a sort of non religious church and emphasis on not being a church. We know that humanity has historically evolved to take part in tribes that have been somewhat divisive, exclusive, distrusting of differences.

Tanner Gilliland [00:00:53] And today we are working on the evolution to the next thing. Those who do not have a religious home, who don't affiliate with organized religions, but who want that sense of community and the benefits that we get from learning from people, visiting different perspectives and sharing this communal experience together. So we hope that this is the start of good things to come. Everybody is welcome.

Tanner Gilliland [00:01:22] There's all sorts of perspectives that are able to be shared here and we hope we can learn and grow together and provide the strength and support that comes from being in a tight knit community. My name is Tanner Gilliland. I am maybe, contrary to what you're thinking, I'm not 15 years old, I'm 25.

Tanner Gilliland [00:01:41] And so I'm conducting today, just kind of volunteered to do this. And we're going to turn some our time over to John Dehlin here who's going to say some words and then after which we're going to take a minute to just introduce ourselves, each one because we'd like to get to know each other and discuss what we, what kind of needs that we have as far as this sort of group where we, what we'd like to see what sort of experience we'd like to create for the people here in Cache Valley. So thank you all for coming today. This is going to be a wonderful thing. So John, we'll turn the time over to you.

John Dehlin [00:02:16] It's. All right. Wow. It's kind of fun. We're almost full and we've only just started. So I'm really happy to be here with everyone. Really glad that everyone has come today. Tanner, thanks for conducting. Where'd Tanner go? Oh, hi, Tanner. And a lot of the planning, a lot of the early planning was made by Kimberly. What's your last name?

Tanner Gilliland [00:03:26] Nelson.

John Dehlin [00:03:27] Kimberly Nelson. This is Kimberly over here. I want to thank Kimberly for putting us together.

Guest [00:03:35] Yeah.

The Role of Religion and the Challenge of Community

John Dehlin [00:03:36] So. I'm guessing that the majority of the people here were LDs at one point in their lives. Now, is there anybody for whom that's not the case? Okay, so Three of you. Excellent. That makes me really happy because.

John Dehlin [00:03:59] But I'll ask your forgiveness While. While I start out speaking from my perspective a little bit and maybe the perspective of a few others, There are some people who maybe leave their religious tradition because they had a really awful experience.

John Dehlin [00:04:22] Something really bad happened, or it just wasn't working for them, or it just isn't kind of what. What they're looking for. That's not. That's not. That's not where I'm coming from. I. I grew up in Houston, Texas, mostly in a town called Katy. And I was raised lds. And I feel like I had a really good experience growing up in the church.

John Dehlin [00:04:48] Youth activities, singing, adults who cared. It was a really, really special thing for me. And so for me, that's kind of where this idea for a community like this. Come on in, have a seat. Sort of began. There's.

Tanner Gilliland [00:05:14] So

John Dehlin [00:05:18] I believe that one of the reasons why religion has evolved over time and has been with us for so long is because it actually has provided a lot of valuable things for us as a species. I think the most important thing that is provided is community.

John Dehlin [00:05:38] I think that if you think about 20,000 years ago on the savannah, right? And, you know, there's predators out there looking to. Looking for lunch, basically, right? And we have to figure out some way to not get eaten. I think it's through forming groups that we were able to survive and thrive.

John Dehlin [00:06:03] When we were hungry and needed food, right? We specialized. And the women maybe would stay back and take care of the children. I'm just making this up. You know, the women would stay back and take care of the children, and the men would go out and hunt, right? And they would go kill the.

John Dehlin [00:06:20] Kill the animals and then bring them back and prepare them, and then everybody would have food. And if. And if predators did come to harm the members of the community, people would fight off the predators and protect each other and watch out, and there'd be someone on the lookout, right? And that's. I think it's just. It's through communities that we were able to protect ourselves. But I think that life is about more than just protection. I think that life is about thriving, right? And so it's through communities that we educated each other, learned more advanced forms of communication, started to do things like music and art and more intricate social groups and education and learning.

John Dehlin [00:07:03] I just think that the communities are kind of. They have to be the secret sauce to how we've advanced to where we are in the animal kingdom. That's just my gut and it seems like religions have been sort of the guardians of community mostly for millennia.

John Dehlin [00:07:28] It's kind of. That's how people have formed groups and protected each other and supported each other. And I think for many people, that's worked for a long time. However, over the past several hundred years, I also think that religion for many years was the way that we explained things that we didn't understand.

John Dehlin [00:07:51] So when a hurricane would come and wipe out a bunch of people, or someone would die, or there'd be some famine or disease that spread that killed off people, it was just a way of explaining kind of what was going on.

John Dehlin [00:08:10] If you've heard of the God of the gaps, Right. It's basically, I don't get this. This is scary. This is wonderful. How do I explain this? Well, it must be God. And so entire religious texts and religious organizations sort of sprung up out of people's attempt to explain what they didn't understand. And that's okay.

John Dehlin [00:08:31] However, as science sort of took off in the Enlightenment, we became better and better as humans at sort of understanding what was going on around us. And when, before we thought maybe God's wrath sent a plague to kill off a huge population, scientists were able to figure out that it was actually little germs or little bugs that were infecting people. Right. And all of a sudden, it wasn't so much a matter of God wanting people to die, but instead it was sort of people not understanding how germ theory worked.

John Dehlin [00:09:05] And with hurricanes and with other types of things, humans became good at sort of understanding their surroundings. And instead of sort of attributing it to this sort of placeholder in the sky called God, we started just understanding the world around us.

John Dehlin [00:09:23] And so, as science has gotten better at explaining what's going on around us, I believe that the more developed world has found religion to be less and less an important part. And I think the challenge that religions have brought us is that a lot of sometimes baggage comes along with these.

John Dehlin [00:09:51] With these other beliefs and perceptions. So as good as religion has been for so many of us, right. It is sometimes carried along with it. Racism and sexism, tribalism, homophobia. Right. And other types of superstitious beliefs or beliefs about morality that in some ways might have been adaptive and helpful, but in some ways maybe caused a lot of harm.

John Dehlin [00:10:20] And so I stand here in front of you today as someone who feels like religion was an incredibly positive influence in my life. Right. I feel like I'm a happier, healthier human being generationally because of the positive influence that my church had in my life. Unfortunately, I reached a point where two things happened.

John Dehlin [00:10:46] I couldn't believe many of the central teachings of the church that I belonged to. And at some point, my church decided they didn't want me, so that made it easy. But I still have this longing for community. Like, as I'm standing in front of you today, I'm like, I've missed this.

John Dehlin [00:11:10] I've missed getting together with people that I share interests with, that I have positive feelings for, where I feel a sense of, like, health and happiness that we're all together right now and that we're uniting around hopefully, a common set of values.

John Dehlin [00:11:28] And that we have a desire maybe even to kind of look out for one another, to maybe try and help each other, to. To maybe be there for each other in some way. And that just the promise of that makes me really excited.

John Dehlin [00:11:46] But the challenge is, here's the challenge. How in the world we're sort of bucking against the trends of humanity, right? We have millennia of knowing how it works, and this is how it works. Some guy, and it's almost always a guy, claims that he has some interaction with the divine, right?

John Dehlin [00:12:10] So it's Moses with the burning bush, or it's Muhammad wherever he had his thing, or it's Jesus, or it's Joseph Smith in the sacred grove, right? And they have that experience, right? And then. And who knows whether they actually had that experience or not, or whether they made it up or whether they were deluded or what. Like, we don't know, right? All we know is that we were asked to believe that they had that experience.

John Dehlin [00:12:35] And then when we tried to have that experience ourselves, I bet for most of us, we didn't have that experience. Maybe we had some emotional experiences that then we were taught to sort of interpret in a way to where it would make us believe those original things we were taught. But my guess is that we're here because we didn't have that experience.

John Dehlin [00:12:57] Who's that? Is that true for anyone here? Okay, the rest of you did talk to God, So I'm just being silly. So. The two problems. Well, so we were asked to sort of believe on someone else's experience, right? Because we couldn't have it ourselves.

John Dehlin [00:13:28] And then someone rose up as either we were living around that prophet or when that prophet died, other people rose up and said that they're the ones that carry on the knowledge of that divine access and that we're supposed to sort of believe on their words, right? And believe on their interpretations of the holy words that that prophet wrote down.

John Dehlin [00:13:50] And again, I'm not saying that that's bad or evil. I'm just saying that at some point, I think many of us here sort of felt like, wait a minute, if God has something really, if there's a God first of all, and if God really has something important to say, can you please kind of just cut out that middle person and talk to me? And I'm curious if there's anyone here who maybe spent long hours on their

Guest [00:14:17] knees

John Dehlin [00:14:19] trying to get that answer, trying to get that communication directly. I know I did. I remember when I was 16 years old and I had remembered Moroni's promise, which is a scripture in the Book of Mormon where it says that if you lack wisdom, you'll ask of God and that he'll testify unto you the truth of these things. I'm munging together some scriptures here, but I knelt down and I prayed and I said, God, come talk to me. I'm here. I read the book. I did what you asked. I've lived what I think is a moral life.

John Dehlin [00:14:51] And then I didn't get an answer. And I tried again, and I tried again and I never got the answer. And slowly, when I went back to my leaders and said, hey, I did that thing you told me and I didn't get the answer. Usually the response was something like, well, you've been feeling it all along. Have you felt good during these meetings? Or, well, that's it. You shouldn't look any further or keep trying. Maybe you're just not quite worthy enough yet. But if you keep trying, you will be right.

John Dehlin [00:15:24] And I just. I think there's a group of us in humanity for which that model just isn't going to work. We don't. We don't need. We're not. It's not going to be sufficient for us to sort of believe on some experiences somebody else had.

John Dehlin [00:15:44] And it's not going to be sufficient for us to be looking to an external source of truth or wisdom or authority to then decide how to live, right? But there's a lot that's really powerful about that model. You know, what it is is that we don't have to figure out what's true and good, right?

John Dehlin [00:16:09] Somebody just tells us, and we don't have to worry about, like, who leads or how things get done. There's a leader telling everyone who does what and what to do. And there's this incredible sense of, like, empowerment that comes from feeling like you're part of God's one true group of people. That's pretty cool.

John Dehlin [00:16:32] Like, it's awful in some ways because it becomes racist and sexist and homophobic and tribal, and sometimes people abuse power in really awful ways. But there's a good side to that because there's order and there's leadership and there's structure. And then the members themselves that are part of that organization, well, they're willing to give everything, right, 10% of their income, probably 10 to 20 hours a week in service.

John Dehlin [00:17:00] They're willing to obey what is told to them for the most part. And they're willing to pick up chairs at the end of the meeting or come early to bring the casseroles. Like, they'll do what they're told because they believe they're doing what God wants them to do, and they believe that they're part of God's chosen tribe.

Finding a Humanist Alternative to Religious Belonging

John Dehlin [00:17:20] And I think that's the most difficult part of what we may be trying to do here today. My guess is how many of you might consider yourself allergic to the idea that we are God's chosen people? Okay. Every hand went up there, okay?

John Dehlin [00:17:40] And I feel the same way. I don't think we're better than anybody, right? And how many of you are, you know, how many of you are allergic to the idea that some leader should be the one telling you what's true and what's good and how you should live your life?

John Dehlin [00:17:58] Yeah. Right? And how many of you are, like. How many of you are, like, a little bit more skeptical at sort of a white male standing up in front of you? Right. Come on in. You know, sort of presenting him or himself as a leader? Right. I mean, that's. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:20] And so here's the question. Can a community be created, right, that isn't exclusive, that isn't tribal in the unhealthy ways, that isn't setting itself, the leadership up as an authority, a moral authority over the members. Right. And can to be set up in a way where charismatic, vital white male ends up ascending to the leadership of the organization and then sleeping with the women and abusing his power and stealing money.

John Dehlin [00:19:04] Right? Because that's like every religion that's ever been created at some point, some are better at hiding it than others. But that's like, really every religion has done that, had that. And so how do we create a community where we care enough to come not just one day to, like, who's this? What's this freak show? And, you know, is this like, how do we create a community where you want to come back maybe one or two Sundays a month where, like, If a service opportunity gets called, you actually, like, would rather push pause on Netflix and come to the thing, you know, than actually just stay in your comfortable room and enjoy, you know, the 15th episode of your favorite current TV show.

John Dehlin [00:19:52] Right. Like, one of the most beautiful things about leaving a church is that you get your Sundays back. Are any of us excited to lose that? Not necessarily. And yet my guess is some of you are here because you feel like you're missing something or that something could be added to your life.

John Dehlin [00:20:20] That would be positive for you. And so that's the tricky proposition I think, that we have in front of us. And that's kind of the question of this very first meeting. I think that this is. I've had a lot of crazy ideas over the past 10 years. A lot of crazy ideas. This is for sure the craziest idea I've ever had. And it's not just my idea, the Sunday Assembly. It's this group out of London. They're doing this.

John Dehlin [00:20:54] I've been to their international conference. A couple comedians started it. And in probably 50 cities around the country, this on Sunday, they'll meet once to twice a month. They'll have a fun little one hour inspirational thing with music and with comedy and with inspirational talks, educational talks. And then the second hour will be just mixing like coffee and just community building, right? That's what Sunday assembly does.

John Dehlin [00:21:23] And then what Sunday assembly also does is they create these things called small groups. They call them smoops, right? And in these small groups, think of it like a book club, right? Or a biking group, like a mountain biking group, or guys night out or a playgroup for mothers with children, right?

John Dehlin [00:21:49] And they'll have monthly small group meetings where people build community around common interests and really enjoy each other in multiple ways. And then it's sort of the Sunday experience once or twice a month. Twice a month. It's sort of the hub that the wheel turns on, right? And these small groups are like the spokes in the wheel. Does that make sense? So that's Sunday assembly.

John Dehlin [00:22:17] I considered like starting a Sunday assembly franchise here in Utah, right? But the group is as awesome as they are in many ways. The culture of the group, like singing and dancing to Bon Jovi as a part of the Sunday morning service, like, that was fun, but I was just, I wasn't sure that that would fly with the post Mormon audience.

John Dehlin [00:22:39] Like, if I was like, hey, everybody, come on, let's dance. I mean, that's. It's a really fun feeling. That's what they do. If you Go watch the Sunday assembly, you know, meeting. That's what they do. And there's a real fun feeling to it. I was part of it, but it just. I don't know. I'm not sure if you guys think that that's the way we should go. Let's explore that.

John Dehlin [00:23:05] You want me to dance? Yeah. There's another group called Oasis that has a few congregations, like in Houston and Kansas City and other places. They're trying to do the same sort of thing with some type of, you know, church for atheists where they meet every Sunday. And so this isn't like, you know, this is something that we're a couple years late to the game on. And in some way, the Unitarian Universalist Church has been doing this stuff for decades now. A lot. You know, when I posted this stuff to Facebook today, the immediate response on probably three of the four threads I posted was, why don't we just all go to the UU Church?

John Dehlin [00:23:43] And we've been to the UU church, and we like the UU church, and we're very grateful for the UU Church for sponsoring us here. My research that I've done with post Mormons and ex Mormons sort of shows that many of us are just sort of burned to the idea of a church at all.

John Dehlin [00:24:03] That, like, no more churches. Like, let's not have that. Let's build around other types of things. But anything that sort of smells of a church, we're just kind of going to lose our appetite for immediately. And so I don't say that to disparage the you use at all. I think they're amazing.

John Dehlin [00:24:22] And if any of you decide to try them out on Sunday mornings, I'll be thrilled, you know, so try them out. And we hope. One of the reasons why we're doing this with them is that they, you know, they have about the same number of people attending each Sunday as are here, but they have a lot of youth.

John Dehlin [00:24:41] And like, for those of you who are interested in sort of like children's groups or youth groups, why can't we join with the Unitarians to have a bit more of a critical Mass for us to have activities together? They don't mind. They're thrilled. I'd be thrilled. But the values of that community are just outstanding. The caliber of the individuals attending there, like a third of the congregation are like professors at the university. Like, it's a really.

John Dehlin [00:25:06] That shows a bias of mine that I like highly educated people, but I do not only them, but I do like them anyway. Great people, but that's why we haven't just said, let's all join there. Honestly, if all of you came, we wouldn't all fit because they kind of fill up this room every Sunday and there wouldn't be room for you. That's another reason why we're not necessarily joining the EUS right now.

John Dehlin [00:25:33] Anyway. The idea is that we consider building a community, and the community meets once or twice a month on a Sunday. I would love having music be a part of the services because I think music, I don't think that should be reserved only for, you know, the religious. I think religion moves and inspires. Art moves and inspires. I think we can have inspirational talks. I think we can have something like a testimony meeting where people just share, you know, you've heard of Brene Brown and sort of the importance of vulnerability and authenticity, where members can just share what they're going through. Like, just the act of being able to share with other people how you're feeling is like a huge percentage of mental, you know, mental health counseling.

John Dehlin [00:26:23] It's just like having someone I can share something with, having people listen, who care. So this can be a place where people can share how they're doing, what they're feeling, celebrate their joys, share with the community, hard or sad things that are happening to them. And then there's a community here who can listen, who can show empathy and even provide support.

John Dehlin [00:26:44] We can have barbecues. We can have youth groups. We can have children's groups. We can have a little educational group where kids are taught morals and values with some of us here volunteering as teachers. We can have youth groups where youth can have incredible activities like LDS youth and other youth of other religions. Do, you know, campouts and hikes and fishing and water skiing and all sorts of things. We could do that. We could have young adult activities where we could let the university know that.

John Dehlin [00:27:20] We could let people at the university, students at the university who are single, know that we're doing this. And then we can have singles even throughout the valley come and have single activities, right? And people could date and get to know each other and maybe even, you know, we could help people find their lifelong mate through this sort of community and just have fun together, right? And service projects. Like, what if we were able to identify in Cache Valley opportunities to serve, to fix a fence or to mow an elderly person's lawn, or visit someone who's in the hospital or sit with someone who's in chemotherapy or take casseroles to someone who's had a baby.

John Dehlin [00:28:11] Or who's sick? Like, wouldn't that be amazing? And we could just get back all that beautiful stuff that we had when we were part of something before. And so that's, you know, that's. And dang talent shows, right? And roadshows and like, fun, creative stuff. Who knows?

John Dehlin [00:28:35] So that's the idea. But it's actually bigger than that. And I didn't prepare anything, so I'm sorry, I'm talking too long. I'll hurry and finish. Okay, Maybe some of you have heard some of the stats that are out there. But as we stand today, in September 2015, we know that 1/5 of the United States no longer identifies as a member of any religious group. When asked what religious group are you affiliated with, what's their response?

John Dehlin [00:29:14] None. Right? That's a fifth. That's 20% of the entire US population. Come on. Anybody? So that's the United States Overall. Within the LDS Church, 1/3 of all the people in the world who were baptized LDS are currently still attending, right?

John Dehlin [00:29:38] In the United States, the 20 somethings, right? The millennial generation, the numbers are much higher. A full 36%, I believe, of millennials, 33 to 36% of millennials no longer identify with any religious tradition. Right? And the craziest thing, which even defies the law of large numbers, this is the fastest growing religious group in the United States, right?

John Dehlin [00:30:09] So it's not just that we're really big, it's that we're actually growing really fast. And if you look at Western Europe and the more educated parts of Asia, you'll see that sort of the societies are almost completely secular.

John Dehlin [00:30:29] And I'll tell you something, As a mental health professional who spent six years and over a thousand trained hours serving people who are sad and sick and lonely, right? Loneliness is not the answer to positive mental health. Isolation and separation from community is not the answer to positive mental health.

John Dehlin [00:30:54] Community. When you read statistics that religious people are more happy, and then you tease out why religious people are more happy, do you know what the reason is?

Guest [00:31:05] Community.

John Dehlin [00:31:07] Community. It's not the actual beliefs that are the main critical factor. It's the community. And so what's so funny? Did I say something? And the free food. That's true. Food is good when we have food. But should we cede all that goodness to the need to affiliate with the religious tradition? I think what we're doing here is bigger than just the people in this room, and it's bigger than Cache Valley.

John Dehlin [00:31:49] I think that what humanity needs, at least in the developed world, is Some type of secular solution, some type of secular alternative to what religion has offered. And the reason why it hasn't already developed yet is because it's probably kind of hard and there hasn't been a critical mass yet of people determined enough to really make that happen.

John Dehlin [00:32:15] And so what if what we're doing today is incredibly positive for us, but what if it's actually bigger than this? What if we put out to the world, right, what we are going to try and do, just like Sunday assembly, just like Oasis, what if we say, hey, guys, Phoenix, or Salt Lake City or Utah county or Boise or wherever, Southern California, why don't you guys try this, too?

John Dehlin [00:32:49] And then what we'll do is we'll have this sort of centralized website or whatever, Facebook group where we can all, like, go back to it each every other Sunday or whatever and say, hey, we held a meeting and this is what happened and this is what we learned. And hey, we started a youth group and it bombed and here's why. And hey, you know, we started a, you know, you know, we started an adult group and adults started acting crazy like they were in college again, and we had to, like, end it. Like, all sorts of crazy things will likely happen, right?

John Dehlin [00:33:21] But what if instead of like, oh, it was hard and so we all quit? We've got lots of different communities all trying this, sharing what works and what doesn't, back all feeling part of something bigger, right? And then it leads towards a solution for mankind. Right? Now, that's like, in my field, that's called histrionic. It's actually a mental illness, right?

Tanner Gilliland [00:33:52] It is.

John Dehlin [00:33:53] It's a personality disorder, which is people who, like, don't have a firm grasp on reality.

Tanner Gilliland [00:33:59] Okay?

John Dehlin [00:34:00] And I know that that is exactly how this sounds to me, who's listening to myself right now. But I believe in at least the. The possibility, right? I know there's a need, and I believe in the possibility. And I think it would be really fun even if we failed spectacularly, I think it would be fun to try.

John Dehlin [00:34:24] And more importantly, I think it's worth trying. And if it totally bombs, then we tried something cool, right? And for whatever time, we're able to meet each other's needs. We were meeting each other's needs the best we could, and we weren't so alone.

John Dehlin [00:34:43] And maybe we had a bit of an identity and we had some fun along the way, and maybe we even served some people. So that's the vision. That's the idea. No, that's not the vision. That's a starting Vision. Right.

John Dehlin [00:34:59] And so I put that out to you as, like, a first draft. Right. Not wanting to be a charismatic leader of this community. Right. Not wanting to be the next cult leader.

Guest [00:35:14] Right.

John Dehlin [00:35:15] In fact, knowing that if that's the way this community shapes up, it's going to fail, because we'll be, like, repeating the lessons that have been shown for millennia. Right. So instead of it being something that I convince you all to do, it's got to be something that we all sort of really sit with ourselves, contemplate, decide if we want it, decide if we're committed to it, and then together, we decide we care enough to make it happen.

John Dehlin [00:35:48] And so I think it would be really fun to turn the time over to you guys and have you share. And, Kim, you can tell me if you don't want to do this or, Tanner, if you guys have other ideas. Here's an idea. What if we turn the mic over to you guys, whoever wanted to come up? You can introduce yourself to the community and you can share, like, why you're here, what brought you here, why did you even come?

John Dehlin [00:36:18] Is there something you've been missing? Is there something you've been wanting? Is there something that you're needing your life? Feel free to be candid. Feel free to be vulnerable, because it's vulnerability that allows connection, and connection allows intimacy.

John Dehlin [00:36:37] And intimacy is how you build community. When you get to know people and you connect with them and you care about them because you understand what they're going through. And so come on up and introduce yourselves, everybody. I want to make sure everyone has a chance to introduce themselves.

Next Steps, Organization, and Closing

John Dehlin [00:36:53] So maybe the people that don't get up and talk at the end, we can just have everyone stand up and just tell us your name and where you're from. But what if we just spend a little bit of time and. I'll take copious notes. I'm actually recording this.

John Dehlin [00:37:06] I can either cut out your part if you really don't want to be, you know, and we can decide we don't want to share this more broadly. We can decide to only share this within people who live in Cache Valley. We can do with this what we want, but I think it's kind of cool to just have a little bit of a record, right?

John Dehlin [00:37:28] So share your name, share where you're from, share why you came, and then share if you have a little bit of an addition or a correction to the vision that we kind of laid out, share it. I'll be taking copious notes. It'll be recorded here, and we can Just decide if this is something we want to build together. Is that all right?

Tanner Gilliland [00:37:51] And they close in the name of Charles Darwin.

John Dehlin [00:37:53] In the name of. Yeah, yeah, Charles Darwin's fine. You know, the real. You know, I thought a lot about a name, right? And I picked Community of Good for a couple reasons. I don't care if we use that name ever. Right? But what's something that no one can argue with? It's goodness, right? And what's something that you can want to base your life on? Right? I want to be good. I want to do good. I want a community that supports good. No one can argue with that. All your parents that are like, oh, you're going to some scary secular thing, you can say, you know what? It's a community dedicated to goodness. Do you have a problem with that?

Guest [00:38:34] Right.

John Dehlin [00:38:34] There's no prophet. There's no scripture. It's goodness. That is the God, right? Goodness. But I don't care if we use that name or not. But you can end in the name of goodness if you want as well. So I'm done. And I'm sorry this took so long, but I am grateful that you're here, and I have no idea whether anything is ever going to come from this, but I know that it feels good, and I know that it seems good.

John Dehlin [00:39:06] And I look out in the audience, and I think I see a lot of really good people here that I would love to get to know. And so I am excited about the promise, and I'm excited to see whether we can pull this off. And if not, I think we'll be fine either way.

John Dehlin [00:39:21] So I say these things in the name of goodness. Thank you. Is there anybody else who wanted to. Okay. Boy, I've loved hearing everybody's stories and experiences. I just wanted to say a couple things really quick. Just before everyone left, there is a Facebook group. It's called the Cache Valley Big Ten Mormons. How many of you are not a member of that group?

John Dehlin [00:39:56] That's a way that we communicate. So if you want to join that group for now, we'd love to have you there. That's the way I imagine that we'll be advertising future events. We may. But right now, that's got a really big critical mass of people that are. It's got probably 300 people.

John Dehlin [00:40:16] And a lot of those people that couldn't make it today still want to come to things like this. So at a minimum, let's have that be our Facebook group for now, where we can advertise the event, where you can follow that Our events, you can follow it there. If we decide to create our own group or page at some point, we'll get there. But right now there's so many people there. Let's just, let's just have that be our community, if that's okay. So it's Cache Valley. Big tent. Mormons. Mormonism. Big tent or big tent. Big tent. Big tent. Big tent. Tent cities. Yes. Just like Julie Rowe.

Guest [00:40:51] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:40:53] Really quick show of hands. I think everybody. Well, is there anybody here that would want to meet every Sunday? Raise your hand if you would want to do this every Sunday? There's one, two, raise a high. Raise a high every week.

Guest [00:41:13] I feel like if we don't, I don't really want to, but I feel like if we don't, then every other week thing might just never happen.

John Dehlin [00:41:21] Okay, so one thing I thought about is something every week. It can be a Sunday service or like a barbecue at someone's house or a service project, but an event every week, but not necessarily a Sunday event every week. Okay, all in favor? Okay, so a Sunday event every other week and then like at least one weekly fun get together and one weekly, one monthly fun get together, one monthly service project. Maybe we work towards that. How does that sound?

Guest [00:41:59] If you guys think of or hear of volunteer opportunities. Totally. Let us know. Everybody help look for stuff. But I gotta bring up one little thing. The Buddhist group that meets here every Monday night, they pay $160 a month to meet here. So if we're gonna keep using this place every week, we're gonna have to pay around 160, they said. So that's not much for all of us. But sorry, but we do got to help pay for the rental building.

John Dehlin [00:42:27] There's a lot of people that work really hard.

Tanner Gilliland [00:42:29] There's a small group of people that

John Dehlin [00:42:31] work really hard and donate a lot of time.

Guest [00:42:33] Yeah. So I just want to make sure everybody knows that we do gotta help pay the rent if we're here. But if anybody has some other venue idea, let us know. But they're willing to help us here.

John Dehlin [00:42:42] I counted like 50 people here today. The LA church started with six, so we're already doing really well. Yeah, but if everyone paid three bucks a month, that kind of covers it. So we could, we could have a treasurer.

Guest [00:42:57] We have one.

John Dehlin [00:42:58] We have a treasurer. So we'll come up with a mechanism

Guest [00:43:02] for people, people donating and we're gonna make it a. What are we. So it's tax deductible?

John Dehlin [00:43:07] Well, you know, we can form a non profit. Yeah, and be tax deductible so that your donations will go. But we will. We'll probably will need that. Connor, whoever our treasure is going to be. Can they use Venmo or the Cash app or something? Because I don't carry cash and I feel guilty if we're in a passive. So beautiful idea. We'll. We'll post discussion about that in the group. And will you put those apps. Will you put links to those apps there? Because I. Yeah, because we need your generation to help us. Sweet. Okay. Okay. So join that group for now. That's how we'll. We'll make anybody not on Facebook.

Guest [00:43:48] Hey, can we ask one more thing while everybody's in here? How many people want to do the support group?

Guest [00:43:54] Group?

Guest [00:43:55] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:43:56] Are you taking a weekly support group?

Guest [00:43:58] Do you want to do, like, probably a month? Like,

John Dehlin [00:44:02] we can figure it out anyway.

Guest [00:44:04] I just want to know how much interest there is.

John Dehlin [00:44:05] Raise your hand high if you want are interested in a weekly or semi weekly or monthly.

Guest [00:44:10] We talked about before, and we kind of felt like doing it weekly. And if you don't want to come weekly, fine. You feel like weekly, then you got the option every week. And if there's not a ton of people, we can just do it at the house and then not paying a rent. Is that fine with everybody?

John Dehlin [00:44:22] Love that idea. Also, the Relief Society group. What's the URL. What's the Facebook name for that? Cash Valley post? Mormon Relief Society. Is it. Is it a. At least an open group or at least a closed group?

Guest [00:44:36] Is it secret?

Guest [00:44:37] I think.

Guest [00:44:38] Yeah, I think.

John Dehlin [00:44:39] Okay, so how does someone join that? If they want to join it?

Guest [00:44:42] Message. Somebody has to have that.

John Dehlin [00:44:46] Okay, so you can message Kimberly.

Guest [00:44:50] Yeah, just message one of us.

John Dehlin [00:44:52] Eunice Kim. So start at the Cache Valley group, and then if you want to join the Relief Society group, you can.

Tanner Gilliland [00:45:03] And then there's the young single adult group,

John Dehlin [00:45:07] uncorrelated Cash Valley Singles.

Tanner Gilliland [00:45:09] We're going to consolidate all of these things.

John Dehlin [00:45:13] Okay. We'll get. We'll get a social media strategy going. But there is a singles group. There's also Cache Valley Heathens, which has like 500 people. Anyway, lots of good groups just know about them because that's the way we can advertise this stuff. Okay, next meeting. Should we do it in two weeks? Should we do it? What do you guys think?

Tanner Gilliland [00:45:38] The church is not available next Sunday.

John Dehlin [00:45:40] It's my farewell party. You're all welcome. So two weeks from now. Tentatively.

Guest [00:45:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:47] And then if we want to do a social next week, we can Organize. And someone step up and organize, like a barbecue or conference. Conference. Party. We're all watching. Conference and like going. Popcorn? Yeah, whatever.

Guest [00:46:04] Good.

John Dehlin [00:46:05] Okay. Thanks again to Kim, Kimberly and the dinner for opening and Broady. Okay. I think we should have a song. Do you have a song? We have one, but we don't do. People don't know the words, do they?

Guest [00:46:28] It's okay. We figured they could join in on the chorus. Thank you, Tom.

John Dehlin [00:46:35] What's the song? Imagine.

Guest [00:46:37] Imagine by John Langley. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:43] We should have had. We should bring, like, the overhead projector with the words on it. Smartphones. Watch your smartphones. To imagine. Brilliant. Who said that? Nice. Who's leading? No needle here.

Guest [00:47:46] Imagine all the people living for today. Is it hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for no religion too Imagine all the people living life in peace can you they say I'm a dreamer I'm not the only

Tanner Gilliland [00:48:46] one

Guest [00:48:50] I hope someday you'll join us and the world will be as one Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can low, hungry or hunger Brotherhood of man Imagine all the people sharing all the world. I hope someday you'll join us

Guest [00:50:01] and

Guest [00:50:01] the world will miss one.

John Dehlin [00:50:13] Thanks, everyone. We'll see you online in a couple weeks. Thanks for coming. Make sure and turn in your papers at Kimberly.

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