Need Help Teaching Chapter 15: Advancing the Work

You could use the title but change the emphasis completely. You could talk about what the work of Christ was while on the earth and how we can advance it in that way (service).

James 1: 27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

Matthew 5:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

That is the work of the Lord, IMO…

If we want the work to advance steadily and healthily over time, we must find the balance of small incremental improvements and efforts while balancing with personal capabilities and family priorities.

Putting too many demands on too few doers leads to burn out and progress slips.

I like Elder Uchtdorf’s talk “Stand where you are and lift”. It does not suggest one person moving a piano. It suggests wherever you are is fine. Just stand there, and lift. It is a beautiful teaching.

I love bc_pg’s answer. Focus on what the Lord’s work actually was during his ministry.

Talk about how he associated with and served those who were the outcasts of his society. Ask who the outcasts of our own society are. Ask if there are specific ways the group and the ward can reach out to and help those outcasts – not to “convert” them and generate baptisms, but simply to love and serve them unconditionally.

This. I love this statement. At least it is what I do to try to serve. I think everyone has different talents though and they should use them. Not to bring about as much baptisms as possible but to be a shining example. I’ve watched too many converts or inactives get tossed aside because they were different or not in the “clique”. I have seen many many “cliques” and the shunning of others not a part of them inside various wards. We should try to change or work on this. If not us then who? Help new members feel more welcome and part of the fold, people outside the clique as well. Not just for the first month. A little effort here and there helps so much to advance the work of Christ.

Well, I taught this lesson today. I found the parts of the lesson meant to change and inspire people were more church-centric than I was capable ofteaching. So, I focused on a balanced lesson which emphasized the need for rest, for reflection, for self-governing our priorities, and ensuring that we don’t get so busy at church we throw other priorities out of whack.

I picked and chose the individual-centered prescriptions from a talk by Russell M Ballard about balance.

Lesson was fairly well received except our HPGL sort of reeled me back in citing the temple covenants that make it clear that serving the church should be near the top of the list given our covenants. I smiled and agreed and then moved on so as not to sink the ship….this has inspired another thread I’ll post for perceptions later…

This is interesting because I will be teaching this lesson next week in Elders Quorum.

Good point — I tried to address this by speaking to my own passions (good ones). I’m finding I get more excited about teaching objectionable lessons when I can weave in ideas that are currently exciting me. For example, in the past two or three years I’ve been working hard at trying to recover from the housing crash and its impact on my ability to retire. So, I read a lot about forms of passive income…income that is generated automatically without undue physical labor — unlike active income which stops flowing the second you stop working. I’ve had a couple successful transactions and so the concept of passive income is something I find interesting and meaningful.

I commented that having passive income can help buffer you from times when you don’t have a job, and can create leisure time that can be dedicated to church pursuits without throwing your life out of balance. And this means generating savings, so we should try to generate savings which can be wisely invested in things that generate passive income after due diligence.

This didn’t seem to go over very well…based on my intuition as I read the class…I think because there were a number of people who are somewhat poor in the class and are sensitive about the principles of wealth creation. As well as a couple people who created businesses and then sold them, probably at a decent profit and were comfortably retired. I learned to steer clear of these topics in the future unless the lesson bears directly on income or financial management…and to stay in the realm of “live within your means and invest wisely”.

**additional note*** another tack on this lesson if you are not excited about making it all about giving 70 hours a week for church goals…I could have gone on about how the prophet we are studying this year was optimistic about the work of the Lord even when it went slowly. There is a quote in the lesson about it.

This is a segway to the principles of Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman. He talks about the mental mindset of the optimist:

a) Bad events are temporary

b) Bad events are not always my fault

c) Bad events are contained to only one aspect of my life.

d) Good events are indicative of the permanent good in life

e) Good events are largely due to my own efforts (and we could also indicate God’s efforts)

f) Good events are global and pervasive and energize all parts of my life.

So, in teaching a lesson on advancing the work of the Lord, you can also find yourself teaching about general optimism — something I’m trying to do since I’ve been a negative thinker a lot of my life and want to change it.

I have questions about the next lesson and how to teach it…will post a thread.