I learned in church today

[sparky]

My 13 yr old son had his first sac mtg talk yesterday. He insisted on preparing it himself, so we pointed him to lds.org and let him have at it. The topic was repentance. He managed to find some of the most fire-and-brimstone quotes on repentance by SWK. A-la repentance is all about tears of guilt, bearing your soul to the bishop, self-flagellation (not really), otherwise you are a worthless lying bastard, etc... I was actually impressed by his public speaking skills, but the talk was not very uplifting.

[falafel]

My 13 yr old son had his first sac mtg talk yesterday. He insisted on preparing it himself, so we pointed him to lds.org and let him have at it. The topic was repentance. He managed to find some of the most fire-and-brimstone quotes on repentance by SWK. A-la repentance is all about tears of guilt, bearing your soul to the bishop, self-flagellation (not really), otherwise you are a worthless lying bastard, etc... I was actually impressed by his public speaking skills, but the talk was not very uplifting.

Sounds like you've got a little more repenting to do.

[mtnbiker]

I actually had a great and controversy free Sunday. Which is not to say I didn't learn something.

In my GD class I have made an effort to do two things: use the NT a lot and teach with narrative instead of cold scripture. I do the former because it's something that investigators are usually comfortable with and because I think we generally do a poor job of reading and understanding it. I do the latter because we are magnificent at taking things out of context.

Yesterday the lesson was on the Holy Ghost, and I was not in a mood to spend most of the class talking about the usual gift/non-gift split. So instead - without telling anybody what the topic was - we talked about Peter. I split the class into small groups (something I regularly do to force members and investigators to interact) and gave each of them a story from Peter's life. And we went chronologically, looking at Peter who tried but was scared to walk on water to Jesus and had the courage to follow the captive Jesus but not to admit association, to the Peter who heals the crippled, defies the very people responsible for the death of Jesus, and rejoices in his worthiness to be flogged in the name of Jesus.

And then we read about the day of Pentecost, and spent the last few minutes musing on the power and influence of the Spirit on Peter in him making this change over the course of only a few weeks.

Probably one of the best lessons I've ever done. I'm a big believer in teaching principles through story now.

Nice job, Niku. I really detest lessons where the teacher splits people up into groups and has them do a little research and discussion. Normally that's a last-second EQ tactic when the instructor doesn't show up. But I do like your point about Peter's spiritual progression.

[sparky]

Sounds like you've got a little more repenting to do.

Guilty

[Pheidippides]

Nice job, Niku. I really detest lessons where the teacher splits people up into groups and has them do a little research and discussion. Normally that's a last-second EQ tactic when the instructor doesn't show up. But I do like your point about Peter's spiritual progression.

Yeah, you have to be really careful about that because it is a tactic of a lazy teacher. But it has great value in my case because it fosters fellowship, which is frankly the most important thing I can do for the new attendees. And in this case I assigned specific scriptures and asked the small groups to summarize the narrative - we had some long passages and we couldn't have all read them all.

I'm a pretty unorthodox teacher. I make no secret of the fact that I pretty much ditch the lesson manual and use it as a resource in the same way I use Wikipedia (actually, I find wikipedia more useful and credible). But I'm attracting quite a following - may not be a good thing - and I'm finding that people have a real thirst to talk about simple religious concepts using stories and context from the NT and BOM. It has the dual benefit of giving me a place where I can avoid the parts of our religion I'm not sure I buy into.

[kccougar]

Yeah, you have to be really careful about that because it is a tactic of a lazy teacher. But it has great value in my case because it fosters fellowship, which is frankly the most important thing I can do for the new attendees. And in this case I assigned specific scriptures and asked the small groups to summarize the narrative - we had some long passages and we couldn't have all read them all.

I'm a pretty unorthodox teacher. I make no secret of the fact that I pretty much ditch the lesson manual and use it as a resource in the same way I use Wikipedia (actually, I find wikipedia more useful and credible). But I'm attracting quite a following - may not be a good thing - and I'm finding that people have a real thirst to talk about simple religious concepts using stories and context from the NT and BOM. It has the dual benefit of giving me a place where I can avoid the parts of our religion I'm not sure I buy into.

Newsflash: Your methods may be unorthodox given the poor efforts of many of our lay clergy, but they are exactly what is promoted and taught in the Church's teacher development program.

[Pheidippides]

Newsflash: Your methods may be unorthodox given the poor efforts of many of our lay clergy, but they are exactly what is promoted and taught in the Church's teacher development program.

Not a newsflash - this I know. Although my doctrinal take is unarguably unorthodox.

[Moliere]

The EQ got assigned to set up chairs for the 5th sunday combined lesson. Since my 4 year old daughter was the first one up, I took her with me and we went to set up the chairs before church. She loved riding around on the big carts. She would pull the chairs up straight on the cart so that I could pull them off easier. We actually had a pretty fun time serving together.

It's actually interesting to find out what is a priesthood assignment. For many decades I was unaware that the following assignments required the priesthood to fulfill them: setting up chairs, ushering, directing traffic in the parking lot, cleaning the church (although we let the women help in this one), driving people to church, working on the temple grounds (weeding, pruning, etc.), and mowing lawns. I'm sure there are more that I can't come up with off the top of my head.

It's no wonder that the majority of women in the church don't want the PH. They'd probably rather stick to serving the sick and needy.

[YOhio]

Not a newsflash - this I know. Although my doctrinal take is unarguably unorthodox.

Wait a minute. You're not orthodox? Have you mentioned this before?

[Pheidippides]

Wait a minute. You're not orthodox? Have you mentioned this before?

Perhaps in passing. It's not something I would, say, make a big deal of on an Internet message board over a span of years until I came to terms with it. Not me.

[Brian]

niku: sounds like it was very nice.
What's his name used to teach using stories as well.

I gave a talk in Sac. meeting 3 or 4 months ago, and the topic I chose was "Jesus as artist". Dug into 3 or 4 of the stories/parables from the gospels. I introduced the basic idea by telling how when Michelangelo wanted to teach us what courage and determination was, he got a big hunk of marble and carved The David.
Our species has evolved with stories, which is I guess what makes them so effective.

[mUUser]

Nice job, Niku. I really detest lessons where the teacher splits people up into groups and has them do a little research and discussion. Normally that's a last-second EQ tactic when the instructor doesn't show up. But I do like your point about Peter's spiritual progression.

Me too. Once the teacher splits the members into groups -- Im gonzo. Just not into forced participation.

Having said that, I think there's room for every brand of teaching style. It's usually the congregation that makes the lesson interesting anyway. The 40 brains in the hard chairs can outdo the one brain at the front of the class every time.

My wife is the GD teacher. More orthodox in her approach. Based on feedback she gets, many like her style. I'm sure many hate it too. No different than business. She's an officer at a large company, and she's made many friends over the years, but Im certain theres a bunch that think she's an idiot. That's the way of business heirarchy. The higher up the ladder you climb, the perception is the dumber you become. Everybody thinks they can run the business better than the top guy. Same principle in the classroom. Doesn't matter who's teaching and what their approach is....some will love it and some will hate it.

I've learned to do my best and not worry about it. I've tried to develop thick skin.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

Our lesson yesterday in GD started off really well, then two people started arguing about the proper pronunciation of Quetzalcoatl and it went downhill from there. One of the participants was firm in the belief that it was a hard K sound. I decided to play on my ipad instead of wading in.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

-Organization according to the THREEFOLD mission of the church.

Perfecting the Saints
-increase sacrament attendance by 10% (we currently average 300)
-20% increase in active temple recommend holders (166 to 200)

Preaching the Gospel
-20 convert baptisms
-90% of all new members to remain active during the year.
-5 less active members activated during the year

Nobody has ever accused me of being good at math, but if the goal is to go from 300 to 330 in sacrament you need more than 23 new people.

[Indy Coug]

Our lesson yesterday in GD started off really well, then two people started arguing about the proper pronunciation of Quetzalcoatl and it went downhill from there. One of the participants was firm in the belief that it was a hard K sound. I decided to play on my ipad instead of wading in.

That's almost as good as the brou-ha-ha during a priesthood class on my mission over whether or not the use of "especial" instead of "special" in the D&C was significant or not.