Elder Craig C. Christensen

*I started writing this post back in 2012, but forgot to post it. Now I can't remember anything beyond what I have recorded here.*

Elder Christensen invited me into his office for a visit today. (This sort of thing doesn't happen every day. It was a pretty big deal for me!) Here are some of my personal impressions from our 30-minute visit:

Global church growth cannot be sustained on pioneer tithing. Chapels are probably the Church's most significant cost. Brick and mortar worship, as we know it, may have to go.
There is a disconnect between exercising faith to serve a mission and exercising faith to get married. In Elder Christensen's era, returned missionaries said, "well it [faith] worked for me on the mission, I guess I'll exercise faith now and get married." He asked me why I thought that had changed? Not wanting to pass the buck, but determined to speak my mind I responded that I thought my generation had witnessed to too many failed marriages to let a decision of this magnitude forfeit control. I suggested that we might be blinded by these non-examples too difficult to look to God and trust in Him. Marriage is no longer a societal norm. Additionally, the risk seems too great—missions are only two years, while eternal marriage is an eternal commitment.
Like most Christlike men I've known, Elder Christensen is genuinely concerned with the personal welfare of others. He will do what he can to lift and help another. My meeting with him, at the request of someone else he was looking to serve, is a prime example of this.
Elder Christensen doesn't mess around. He is a businessman through and through. I enjoyed hearing him talk about deals that lead to his success and deals that went horribly wrong. In the hearing of his story, I felt from him that occupational decisions are secondary to the decisions one makes to be a disciple of Christ (a good person).

Elder Christensen's Official, LDS Biography

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