Using LCR and Bishopric Board Together: What Belongs Where
Leader and Clerk Resources (LCR) is the Church's official, authoritative system for ward records — membership, callings of record, ordinances, finances, temple recommends, and the ministering assignments your stake submits. Bishopric Board is not a record. It's a working surface for the things that are still in motion: the candidate you're considering, the calling that hasn't been extended yet, the program you're drafting for next Sunday, the interview cadence you're trying to hold. Used together, the two never conflict — because each one is doing what only it can do.
What LCR is — and what it isn't
Leader and Clerk Resources is the Church's official platform for ward and stake leaders. It's where the bishop, clerks, and the stake presidency keep the records that have to be right: who is a member, who holds which calling, who has been baptized or endowed, who has a current temple recommend, what the ward's finances look like, and how ministering brothers and sisters are assigned.
LCR is excellent at being the record. It's not designed to be a planning workspace — it doesn't track the conversations you're having about a calling before you extend it, the candidates you've considered and set aside, the speaker you're inviting next Sunday, or the interview you keep meaning to schedule. That's not a flaw — that's just not what LCR is for.
What belongs in LCR
If it needs to be the official record of the Church, it belongs in LCR. That includes:
- Member records — names, contact info, household composition, ordinance dates.
- Callings of record — once someone is sustained and set apart, the calling is entered in LCR.
- Ordinances and progress records — baptisms, priesthood ordinations, endowments, sealings.
- Temple recommend tracking — issued dates, expirations, interview records.
- Ministering assignments — the brothers and sisters assigned to each household.
- Finances — tithing, fast offerings, ward budget, donor statements.
- Action and interview lists generated by the Church for the bishop and clerks.
Every bishopric should know how to navigate LCR for these tasks, and every executive secretary and clerk should be using it routinely. If your ward isn't, that's the first habit to build — before any third-party tool is added on top.
What belongs in Bishopric Board
Bishopric Board is a working surface for everything that's still in motion. It's the place to think out loud as a bishopric without committing anything to the record yet. That includes:
- Open callings the bishopric is considering, with candidate lists and notes on each candidate.
- Sacrament meeting programs being drafted, with speakers and topics for upcoming Sundays.
- Bishopric and ward council meeting agendas and items of business still being worked.
- Interview cadences — dates and labels only — so you know who is due for a temple recommend renewal or a youth interview.
- Tithing declaration scheduling, including the public booking page and reminders.
- Reusable templates — invitation messages, recurring announcements, default music leaders.
None of this is a record. Every item is provisional until the bishopric decides, the calling is extended, the program is printed, the meeting is held. The point of the workspace is to give those provisional things a place to live so they aren't being recreated from memory every week.
The handoff between the two
The simplest way to keep the two systems healthy is to make the handoff explicit. When a calling moves from "extended" to "sustained" in Bishopric Board, the clerk enters it in LCR. When the calling shows up in LCR, the Bishopric Board card moves to "set apart" and then to the archive. The Bishopric Board archive becomes the bishopric's institutional memory of why a calling was extended and to whom it was first considered; LCR becomes the official record of who is serving today.
The same handoff applies to interviews. Bishopric Board tracks the cadence — when the last temple recommend interview happened, when the next one is due. The interview itself, and the recommend that comes out of it, lives in LCR. Bishopric Board never stores what was said.
Things that should never live in Bishopric Board
A few categories should never end up in a third-party tool, no matter how convenient it might seem at the moment:
- Interview content — what a member said in a worthiness interview, a temple recommend interview, or any pastoral conversation. These belong in the bishop's private notes, if anywhere.
- Financial details — donor amounts, ward budget specifics, anything tied to tithing and fast offering records. LCR is the only correct home.
- Membership data — addresses, birthdays, family relationships, ordinance dates. LCR is already the authoritative source; copying it elsewhere just creates a stale duplicate.
- Disciplinary council notes or any record tied to membership council proceedings.
Bishopric Board's data model is intentionally narrow on purpose. There are fields for a calling's title, candidates, and stage — and no field for "why this brother shouldn't be considered." That's a feature, not a limitation. The tool stays trustworthy because it stays out of the parts of the work that don't belong in a shared workspace.
How a healthy ward uses both
In a ward where both systems are being used well, you'll see a clear rhythm. The clerk opens LCR on Sunday morning to print the ministering assignment changes and the temple recommend list. The executive secretary opens Bishopric Board on Tuesday night to prep the next bishopric meeting agenda and review the open callings the bishop is considering. Wednesday's bishopric meeting works through the candidates, decides who to extend a calling to, and the clerk enters the sustaining vote in LCR after sacrament meeting on Sunday. Each tool stays in its lane, and nobody has to remember which system is the source of truth — because the answer is always obvious from context.
Frequently asked questions
If LCR is the official record, why use Bishopric Board at all?
Because LCR doesn't track the parts of the work that are still in motion — the candidates you're considering, the program you're drafting, the interview cadence you're trying to hold. Those things still need a home, and a shared bishopric workspace is much better than a spreadsheet, a group text, and the bishop's memory.
Could I just track open callings in LCR's notes field?
You could, but you'll quickly find that LCR isn't built for that workflow — there's no candidate list, no kanban view, no shared editing model designed for the bishopric to work together between meetings. LCR is excellent at being the record; it's not trying to be a planning workspace.
Where do interview records go?
The fact that a temple recommend interview happened, and the resulting recommend, goes in LCR. Bishopric Board tracks only the cadence — when the last interview was and when the next one is due — so you don't lose track of someone's renewal window. The content of any interview belongs in the bishop's private notes, never in a shared workspace.
What about ministering interviews?
Ministering assignments are managed in LCR. Bishopric Board can help you track the cadence of ministering interviews with elders and Relief Society leadership — the same way it tracks any other interview cycle — but the assignments themselves and any record of the interviews belong in LCR.
Should we copy our member roster into Bishopric Board?
No. LCR is the source of truth for member data, and duplicating it elsewhere just creates a stale copy that drifts out of sync. Bishopric Board only stores the names that show up naturally in the work — a candidate for a calling, a household booking a tithing declaration slot, a speaker on Sunday — and treats them as references, not records.