Preparing the Youth for Controversial Subjects | An Interview with David Snell

David Snell is a host on the Latter-day Saint YouTube channel, “Saints Unscripted.” He served a mission in Chihuahua, Mexico, and then studied journalism at Brigham Young University. He married his incredible wife in 2017, and they now spend most of their time having a blast raising their baby boy. David loves diving into Church history, but also enjoys gardening, power tools, and onion rings. Highlights 2:00 Introduction to David Snell. He explains what Saints Unscripted is. 5:30 Saints Unscripted is a YouTube channel aimed towards helping people with tough questions. It’s a place that shares the gospel to people in our faith and outside of our faith. They make it possible to understand difficult concepts without having to read an academic article. 10:50 David gives suggestions on teaching and guiding the youth and young adults. Be prepared for the youth to find antagonistic material and be prepared to talk about it with them. 13:50 The days have passed when you were able to respond to questions by telling people that they need to have faith or by bearing your testimony to them. Youth today want more facts. 14:20 We trust social media influencers way more than we should. Influencers give us quick answers instead of us going and doing our ‘homework’ and studying things out to come to our own conclusions. 18:20 Leaders should remember that youth are growing up in a much different world than we did. We need to take them seriously and understand what they are going through. They are our future leaders. 22:10 The faith and beliefs videos on Saints Unscripted are valuable for new converts or for members that are learning about new controversies, for missionaries to help answer controversial questions that instigators might have. These videos are even valuable for those just wanting to know more about the church but not necessarily wanting to meet with the missionaries. 25:00 Leaders aren’t trained on how to answer controversial questions and Saints Unscripted helps leaders have resources and videos to help them. 27:20 David talks about how he comes up with content for his videos. 30:00 While conference talks and the standard stuff on the Church’s website is great, it doesn’t always address the things that people are really struggling with today. David encourages leaders to check out Saints Unscripted because it could be a way to connect with someone that is struggling and provide them with more resources. 36:15 David’s journey with Saints Unscripted and how it has made him a better follower of Jesus Christ Links Saints UnscriptedFacebook: Faith and BeliefsFacebook: Saints UnscriptedFaith is Not Blind, by Bruce & Marie Hafen Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcastListen on YouTubeGet 14-day access to the Core Leader Library The Leading Saints Podcast gets over 300,000 listens each month and has nearly 10 million total downloads as part of nonprofit Leading Saints’ mission to help latter-day saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, J. Devn Cornish, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Whitney Johnson, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, DeAnna Murphy, Michael Goodman, Richard Ostler, Ganel-Lyn Condie, and many more in over 500 episodes. Discover podcasts, articles, virtual conferences, and live events related to callings such as the bishopric, Relief Society, elders quorum, Primary, youth leadership, stake leadership, ward mission, ward council, young adults, ministering, and teaching.