Special Testimonies for Ministers and Workers—No. 6

Necessity of Diversity of Talents in Conference Management

How my heart aches to see presidents of conferences taking the burden of selecting those whom they think they can mold to work with them in the field. They take those who will not differ with them, but will act like mere machines. No president has any right to do this. Leave others to plan; and if they fail in some things, do not take it as an evidence that they are unfitted to be thinkers. Our most responsible men had to learn by a long discipline how to use their judgment. In many things they have shown that their work ought to have been better. The fact that men make mistakes is no reason why we should think them unfit to be caretakers. Those who think that their ways are perfect, even now make many grave blunders, but others are none the wiser for it. They present their success, but their mistakes do not appear. Then be kind and considerate to every man who conscientiously enters the field as a worker for the Master. Our most responsible men have made some unwise plans, and have carried them out because they thought their plans were perfect. They have needed the mingling of other elements of mind and character. They should have associated with other men who could view matters from an entirely different point of view. Thus they would have helped them in their plans. SpTA06 64.1

This same character of spirit is found here in Europe. For years Elder ----- held the work back from advancing, because he feared to entrust it to others lest they would not carry out his precise plans. He would never allow anything to come into existence that did not originate with him. Elder ----- also held everything in his grasp while he was in -----, and as a result, the work is years behind in ------. Elder ----- and Sister ----- have the same spirit of having everything go in the exact way in which they shall dictate, and no one is being trained in such a way as to know how to get hold of the work for himself. What folly it is to trust a great mission in the hands of one man, so that he shall mold and fashion it in accordance with his mind, and after his own diseased imagination! Men who have been narrow, who have served tables, who are not far-seeing, are disqualified for putting their mold upon the work. Those who desire to control the work think that none can do it perfectly but themselves, and the cause bears the marks of their defects. SpTA06 65.1