Foreword

The Parable of the Bus Driver

“The self-reliance initiative is like a bus which requires a licensed driver.

“The bus is built by the Self-Reliance Services staff. It is delivered through the self-reliance resource center, and the stake self-reliance committee does the maintenance. The stake self-reliance specialists and group facilitators help members get on the bus (but they must get on the bus on their own). The stake president and bishops are the bus drivers.

“All must do their part to help members achieve self-reliance; however, if the stake president and the bishops do not turn their keys to start the engine and drive the bus, no one goes anywhere.”

Ronald Aban, Self-Reliance Services manager in Tacloban, Philippines

There are great needs among us. Many members are not self-reliant and lack the ability to “provide the spiritual and temporal necessities of life for self and family.”¹ Bringing people to self-reliance is the work of salvation. President Thomas S. Monson has taught: “[Self-reliance] is an essential element in our spiritual as well as our temporal well-being. … ‘Let us be self-reliant and independent. Salvation can be obtained on no other principle.’”²

Those who need help becoming more self-reliant may include those receiving fast-offering assistance, returning missionaries, recent converts, less-active members, and local priesthood leaders needing better work. Through His Church, the Lord is now providing the powerful new tools, resources, and processes described in this guide to help members on their path to self-reliance.³

As a priesthood leader, you are one of those to whom the Lord has said, “I have given unto you … the keys … for the work of the ministry and the perfecting of my saints” (D&C 124:143), and, “To whom these keys are given there is no difficulty in obtaining a knowledge of facts in relation to the salvation of the children of men” (D&C 128:11). Read “The Parable of the Bus Driver” on the right. Please ponder carefully your role in driving this essential initiative forward.

This leader guide has been developed to assist you as you exercise your keys, implement these new tools, and help members help themselves toward self-reliance. As you do so, the Holy Ghost will guide you and the Lord will cause you to be His instrument in lifting the poor and needy and hastening His work of salvation.

Published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Salt Lake City, Utah

© 2015 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
All rights reserved.

English approval: 6/15
Translaton approval: 6/15
Translation of Leader Guide
Language
12373 xxx

1. Handbook 2: Administering the Church (2010), 6.1.1.

2. Thomas S. Monson (quoting Marion G. Romney), “Guiding Principles of Personal and Family Welfare,” Ensign, Sept. 1986, 3.

3. For more information, see srs.lds.org.