In my presentation on following the prophet, I described what it means to me to sustain the people who are called to the governing councils and committees of the church.

For learning by contrast, below is a list of statements that indicate to me the opposite of what it means to sustain.

• “I definitely sustain the prophet. He is 100% conveying God’s will as long as he agrees with me.”
• “I sustain my leaders. Their views are not any more valid than my views or anyone else’s, but what really matters is saying that I sustain them.”
• “The 1st Presidency and Q12 are definitely receiving revelation. I know that their guidance is inspired in all those instances when they see eye to eye with me. And that happens pretty regularly, which is why I’m so enthusiastic in sustaining them.”
• “When church leadership are wrong (which I am always qualified to judge, of course), I point it out and become their public accuser. But I still raise my hand to sustain, because I have a special form of sustaining called critical/accusatory sustaining. Or something. I just made that up, but yeah.”
• “I’m happy to sustain church leadership because I’m able to keep them in this little mental box where they are not able to interfere with things that are not their business, like my views of how things should be in the church and elsewhere. They are so easy to sustain in their cute little box!“
• “Sustaining is defined as ‘sometimes sort of maybe possibly having some amount of agreement with someone.’ So yeah, I totally sustain church leadership and a number of other people!”
• “If every other church member were to sustain like I do, we would not have any ability to maintain any functioning community. But that’s not my responsibility, right? My responsibility is just to say that I sustain.”