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Is it just me, or are you (members of the forum) getting tired of the nauseating Gospel Principles manual? I feel that a lot of it stifles creativity. I think outside of the box a lot can take the topic and cover the same material and ask profound questions, and still get “the lesson appropriately taught” but am just tired of the basic details. I don’t always like the suggested scriptures in the back and use some of my own that I stumble upon in my own study. I always look for a new approach to teaching or to provoke conversation to get people’s eyes aglow, or the wheels turning in their heads. Sometimes I will even play devil’s advocate and say what would a non-member think of this teaching-a Muslim, a Jew, an agnostic. Sometimes I will even teach about how another religious persuasion views the same topic, build on the commonality and then shape the divide. Personally, I don’t see why we don’t teach courses on scripture study and applying the scriptures to our lives like the high school kids get in seminary. The Church spends a lot of money on teaching kids in seminary, yet as adults in the church we get nauseating, and often “dumb downed” lessons.
I know we are trying to avoid the mysteries, and the speculation, yet as members of the church we have varying degrees of intelligence, spirituality, and background experience that begs for more light and knowledge; or a new way of looking at things instead of the typical “ho hum” here goes another lesson. Almost every lesson it seems speaks to the choir. Maybe teaching gospel principles is intended for the ninety-and-nine, and to keep the old people happy while the young people mingle in the hallway.
I may be wrong, but I believe that your style of using the manual as a jumping off point is fine. I do agree that many of our manuals could use an overhaul or at least a stronger note of encouragement to step beyond what is on the page (again without going into those deep mysteries). As I see it one of the challenges is time. We are lay teachers. Many of us “get called” and we do what we can with what time and insights are available to us. I can’t think of how many times I have heard a teacher express that they really started studying once they received this calling. So in perspective, they will begin with what is in front of them. Once that time has been put in they move on in their day. CES teachers on the other hand often make a career or multiple years teaching they get time to find new stuff, try to present something meatier or learn more for themselves.
For those of us who have been scriptorians or historians we can add to those conversations. I try, if I find a parallel scripture to raise my hand and add it. Sometimes it opens up discussion, sometimes the teacher really wants to finish what they prepared. New topics throw things.
So yes new manuals could help, but only if we rotated them often because the same cycle for teaching will always exist, in my opinion.
P.S. I hold nothing against teachers. Lay ministry helps us grow. But all things that help us grow are rough and unfinished.
I agree — use the manual as a starting point. Even Teaching: No Greater Call, the official guide to teaching the gospel says to “teach the main idea of the lesson”. Therefore, if teaching Jesus Christ, then teach about his life and atonment in general if specifics bother you. The main idea of the lesson allows you to flirt with all kinds of ideas related to that main idea. Using the manual as the starting point is how it’s done most weeks in my ward (and most weeks the lessons are good to excellent) – but when that approach is not taken, it’s hellish. I really feel for anyone living in a ward or branch where the lessons follow the book strictly.
Old-Timer wrote:I really feel for anyone living in a ward or branch where the lessons follow the book strictly.
Yeah, can’t even imagine how bad that would be… I haven’t had to deal with that yet.
I had the complete opposite reaction when I first saw the manual: wow cool! There’s almost nothing here in this puny manual. I know that isn’t how a lot of people reacted, but it really was my first thought.
The lack of material and simplistic format seemed like a wide-open invitation to customize any of the lessons to the level of my class. If it was a class of brand new converts, perhaps keeping it simple was the best idea. If it was a class of lifelong members, then maybe just use it as a springboard to get into a hearty quorum discussion. Throw out a theological quandary or two and you have people racing through their scriptures and falling all over each other to add their 2 cents and opinion. My favorite classes end up that way. The time flies by.
Bored. Beyond. Belief. So much of it has to do with teachers, too, sorry to say. And the other students’ input to the discussions. We do blame correlation for a lot of the evils, and they certainly do put together some redundant and didactic lessons. Some weeks it’s milk over meat. And some weeks it’s skim milk. Some weeks it’s powdered milk. And I swear there are weeks it’s just water that we are pretending is milk.
But the discussions themselves should be interesting. You can correlate lessons, but you can’t correlate what’s in people’s heads. I’ve begun to see that some of the people are boring, too – don’t have anything fresh to say, don’t say anything that’s authentic and personal, just regurgitating the same 10 answers. We have quite a few recent converts who teach, which is nice on the one hand, but on the other hand, I feel like that makes the students the teachers, and what we are teaching is what we learned as kids.
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