Saving boys

At a Little Philmont training I attended last Saturday, brother Gary Dollar, who was influential in establishing the Varsity program said this:

If I gave you a program, already developed that could save most, if not all of your boys, would you use it?

 Anyone who cares about boys would immediately answer YES. If the program is already there, why not take advantage of it? If it works, why not use it? His point, of course, is that we already have such programs: Boy Scouts, Varsity Scouts, and Venturing. We just have to use them.

Too often leaders think they can do better. A lot of the time, "better" means disorganized basketball.

I had a conversation with a stake young mens president a few weeks ago. Over the summer he had an opportunity to attend LDS week at Philmont.  

[Someday I will go to Philmont. I don't know when or how, but I will go.] 

During that training he and his stake president were challenged to develop a program that would be better than the Scouting programs we already have. For two hours they sat and thought and brainstormed and developed. Every time they though they had a good idea and presented it, they were told "that's pretty good, but it looks just like this." And they were handed a document or something from one of our current Scouting programs. Every good idea they had was already in use in our Scouting programs.

We have programs that will save our boys. We just have to use them.