Using Skills for Service - Neylan McBaine's Remarks

Neylan McBaine was on the "Using Skills for Service: Serving in the Church and Community" panel of the Women in Business Conference. Neylan founded the Mormon Women Project, which led to a position with the church working on the I'm A Mormon campaign. This is her summary of her remarks on the panel.

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Although Becky Douglas came to our "Using Your Management Skills for Service" panel concerned that she hadn't brought management skills to her service but learned them on the job, I came with a different concern: My efforts at service had led directly to a paid job. As the founder of the Mormon Women Project (MWP), a digital library of interviews with LDS women from around the world at www.mormonwomen.com, I had been invited by the Church's advertising agency of choice, Bonneville Communications, to work on "I'm A Mormon" and other missionary-driven initiatives. Did the fact that I was now making money through my Church work discredit or devalue the service I had originally set out to offer through the MWP? Had I sold out for "filthy lucre"?

I answer a resounding no for several reasons. First, the MWP is still going strong and I am dedicated to continuing that effort in the face of professional constraints on my time. The goodness that results from those volunteer efforts has not diminished. In fact, it has only been strengthened by the support I receive from my professional workplace. Second, I believe it is a damaging fallacy that women in the Church cannot "serve" our communities through paid work. Although much of our people's heroic humanitarian efforts and local fellowshipping is done quietly and without reward, Mormon men with paid jobs are regularly recognized for the good examples they are in their work communities, the productivity or acclaim of their work, and the (mostly) positive attention they bring to us as a people. (Steve Young, Bill Marriott, or Brandon Flowers, anyone?) I am not comfortable with the assertion that men can be both paid workers and contributors to the betterment of our communities, while women have to choose between either work or service. My work at Bonneville, while paid, empowers me as a member missionary, offers me a productive outlet that makes use of my unique professional skills and allows me to be an ambassador for the church in a professional industry.

As I discussed in our panel, I had an ideal example growing up of a woman who's work seamlessly permeated the boundaries between profession and service. My mother sang for 18 years at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City as a professional opera singer. In this job, she served to pave the way for many future LDS opera singers who have sung from the Met stage since then, and, more importantly, she helped establish a culture of acceptance and recognition for LDS singers within her industry. In addition, she offered her skills liberally to the Church community, traveling the country as I was growing up and performing firesides, appearing in official Church videos, singing for prophets and apostles whenever asked. Although retired from professional singing for many years, my mother continues to stay busy performing in sacrament meetings, funerals, conferences, etc.

We are a volunteer church and that is one of our greatest strengths as an earthly organization. However, that doesn't have to mean that all goodness flows from efforts that are purely sacrificial. I know that the Lord prepared me for years and years before I got the call from Bonneville, building my skills, molding my heart, strengthening my family so that when the time came for me to work for the Church, I was ready.