Okay — this lesson bombed for me. Even I was bored teaching this junk. The ladies seemed fine with it, but I was bored to death.
My lesson objectives were
- Students will learn about the organization of the church
- Students will review the duties of church offices/priesthood with an eye toward the duties of the members
With this group, I try to give a little background history information at the beginning of each lesson. Since it’s a week between lessons, I summarize last week’s lesson to remind them what they learned, and then continue the story. In this regard, the new D&C manual is horrible. If you plan on giving your lessons any contiuity, plan on reading on your own. I happen to already know a fair amount about church history, and I have lots of resources, so this is easy for me, but it might not be for others.
After explaining some church history, including some details about the publishing process for the Book of Mormon, I transitioned with “Now, it’s time to organize the church.” We talked about the date of the revelations in this section. Noted that D&C 20 is called “The Constitution” and that it was read often in its entirety during meetings. D&C 20 is basically like the Church Handbook of Instructions for the early church. I may
In my notes I had this whole section divided into verses to help students see how things are organized: who is God, what is the Son, baptism, apostles, etc. I ended up really focusing in on the duties of members of the church as shown in D&C 20:68–84. I had a non-member investigator, so we hit baptism hard (71-74). After verse 75, I showed this movie by Quentin L Cook:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/video/2014-04-0100-reverence-the-sacrament?lang=eng (Reverence the Sacrament, lds media library)
We spent most of the lesson talking about the duties of the members and the sacrament with these questions and whatever follow up questions came up. I had a random Catholic nonmember show up, so I was careful to encourage her to attend church, too, even if it wasn’t ours. She was digging it but didn’t come back the next week.
- What does expedient mean? Why expedient?
- What does it mean to take upon the name of the Son? How does this relate to when you took your husband’s name when you got married (most of my class are older married or widowed women)?
- What significance does the blood of Christ have for us?
Showed two more movies
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/video/2012-08-2895-partake-of-the-sacrament?lang=eng (Partake of the Sacrament, Dallin Oaks)
and
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/video/2010-07-025-renewing-all-covenants-through-the-sacrament?lang=eng (Renewing all Covenants Through the Sacrament, L Tom Perry)
Used these questions to follow up
- How does taking the sacrament help you feel the Holy Ghost?
- How does taking the sacrament help you grow spiritually?
Finally, the day arrived for the church to be organized. We read the chapter header and used this handout, that I got from the Seminary Teachers Facebook Group. It’s a little worksheet in the form of a sacrament meeting program. Cool.
I also showed this video on the organization of the church, which shows how crowded it likely was
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/video/2010-07-0022-organization-of-the-church?lang=eng (Organization of the Church, LDS media library)
We worked our way through the handout and were finished.
I’m not sure why this was so boring to me. It just seemed so dull compared to my usual lesson, I guess. No one complained, and all the newbies came back the next week, so maybe it was just me.
