- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
After careful consideration, it seems to me, that the main purpose of much in the church has to do with loyality (obedience). This seems especially true of priesthood meeting. When the lecturer admits to having read the “lesson” during sacrament meeting, proceeds to ask volunteers to read endlessly long passages that have no real connection to each other and then asks the most obvious question (which no one answers), it’s difficult to see any purpose for attendance other than to demonstrate loyality by having a warm body in the chair. I’d like to ask the person who creates these manuals why they fired the Relief Society. Years ago the RS produced their own manuals. They were full of inspirational stories–my wife was always sharing them with me. Then some bureaucrat decided the church needed to study the prophets. If they only included real stories that I could relate to . . . something to show that these men were anything but the perfect people the church would like the sheep to think they are.
I’d like to know who spent ten minutes dreaming up the questions the manual suggests the lecturer ask? You know the ones I’m talking about? It goes like this, read a BOM scripture about Nephi and his brothers being commanded to go back and get the brass plates. Then the manual asks this profoundly deep question: “What were Nephi and his brothers commanded to do?” The real answer is “Well, duh . . . go get the brass plates.” Do the manual writers really we “is that stupid?”
Classes in Church are as entertaining, uplifting and enlightening as the teacher and the students make them. The good news? Everybody can be a teacher. The bad news? Everyone ends up being a teacher at some point. Some of us have natural or learned talents at being good classroom teachers. Some of us are naturally good or have learned to be good participants in a class. Some of our brothers and sisters don’t have either talent/skill yet. So how do we react to that? That is the question. The lesson manuals are very basic. The material is very basic and sanitized. It is safe easy material for even the newest, least experienced, and least naturally talented teachers. We’re a volunteer Church, so we have to take all that into account. That’s how I try to see it.
Our community isn’t here just to list the failures and the things that go wrong. We have to loop this back around to strategies on dealing with it, as we find it, from where we are every day.
So what do you suggest? Tell us how you can fix your situation Steve? There isn’t a one size fits all answer. You will come up with a solution that works for you, in some form.
Here are the ways I deal with it:
1. I volunteered to teach. Yeah, I think lessons are boring at times and don’t cover the material I want. So I teach some of the lessons. I know for sure that THOSE lessons cover material that is interesting to me
2. I actively participate in the classes. When I feel prompted to share something, and I have spent a lot of personal time studying the Church, I jump in and participate. A class is a two-way proposition. I can bend the lesson a little in the direction I want by adding my comments and participation.
3. I bring information into the discussion that relates to the topic from outside the lesson manual. Yes. I have heard it mentioned that we are “supposed” to stick only to the lesson manual. Nobody has every stopped me or brought this up in my direct experience … so I am not sure that really matters to me.
4. If I start to feel frustrated with a teacher, I change my focus. The lesson might not be all that exciting, and it might be presented poorly. I might instead focus on the person, and try to see who they are, have compassion for them, feel support for them trying at all. I know it takes time and effort. I can think of all kinds of things while I sit there, and zone out.
5. Bring extra spiritual materials to read. Too boring or upsetting? Go to your own little church in your mind. Feed yourself with good things, from any source that touches your soul. I always have extra stuff with me. A good deal of the time it is not even be LDS or even Christian in origin. It is uplifting to me though.
I am responsible for my experience. It easier said than done. I am not perfect at it. But I really try not to let other people control my experience. I make it, or I don’t.
Valoel, What a great post you made. One of the few things that I have actually gotten a testimony of in the church is the answer to “What is the Purpose of Life?” Bear with me here and you will see how this relates to this topic.
When I was miserable being a missionary in Austria at 21, I began asking myself some questions. I asked myself why did God make me so dumb in this one area and my companion so smart in that area. I wanted to know the ‘why’s of everything even as a small child. Then I was reading in the Pearl of Great Price about intelligences and how God did not create our intellligences but clothed them in spiritual bodies. How intelligences have always existed and are eternal. I read how there were 2 intelligences and one was more intelligent than another and that God was more intelligent than them all. This was a big ‘aha’ moment for me to realize that God did not make me just as I am. It brought to mind the thing you learn in chemistry about matter; how it cannot be created or distroyed, just changed into something else-like water into ice. This was very important to me as I could no longer blame God for how he made me. I suddenly became responsible for how I turned out. If God had made us just the way we are then we could blame him for how we turned out. As lds, we also seem to adopt this evangelical idea that God made us just as we are. I now understand that I was always a thinking intelligence out there in the Universe and that we decided we wanted to become like God and He was willing to make that possible for us. Knowing that, helped me understand the signifigance of the JS story. JS seeing that God had a body and was a perfected being was a huge surprise for him because in his day it was thought that God was a spirit without body, parts, or passions. When the Bible says God created man in His own Image, I began to understand that He clothed our intelligences in Spirit bodies to look like Him so we could become like Him. This made sense to me, because I knew that a child can become like his parents. Anyway, then I realized if the purpose of life was to become like our Heavenly Father then everything we are asked to do by God would be to help us achieve that goal which would ultimately give us a ‘fulness of joy.’ Now, I looked at everything differently. What is the purpose of reading the scriptures? It would be to read God’s list of how to become like Him. What would be the purpose of Christ establishing His church? To give us opportunities to become like Him. So, callings are our opportunities to develop Christlike attributes. Therefore, I sometimes I have to endure a poor lesson or talk so that person will have the opportunity to grow. Only when I understand the purpose of life, did many things start making sense to me. The 3 fold purpose of the church is to perfect the saints, redeem the dead, etc. Even though I often mess up and am not very motivated at times, I understand the atonement covers that so I can still reach my ulitmate goal someday. Treating my body as a temple, learning to love the unlovable, even my enemies, is all part of the plan. Without this gospel understanding, I would think going to church and listening to some boring old high counselman every second Sunday would be a waste of my time.
Bridget
Wow! What an awesome post, Bridget! HiJolly
Thank you Jolly. It is good to get feedback. Bridget Yes, we are that stupid. *laugh* I agree about the Suits ruining things with the new manuals. I have heard women from every age group complain. I my mission I used to say how wonderful it was the the women had there own class with its own manual that helped us live the gospel from a woman’s perspective. I think the choice was made to do away with this for money reasons and with NO thought to the welfare of the women. It was cheeper to create one book in bulk for all adults than to have people create a curriculum that had more spiritual meat in it. It’s turning us into Stepford Mormons. I even had a friend who was denounced as teaching false doctrine for not sticking to the lesson in RS one Sunday. The Gospel has been “dumbed down” instead of expecting the member to rise up. I’ll be honest I haven’t attend RS since there were 4 lessons in a row about male priesthood authority over everything, but NOTHING about women and our roles. I don’t like being taught I’m worthless and pointless.
👿 I guess I think of it more like the ward being a family and we just stand by our family when they have bad days……when they teach bad lessons. 
I don’t know. Most of my callings in the church tend to be teaching callings and I am sure I have blown a lesson or two in my time. I think over all I am a fairly good teacher. But I also know what it is like to have a busy week and remember late Saturday night that “Oh yeah! I’ve got the lesson tomorrow” and then I mad scramble to put something meaningful together. So sometimes I teach and hope for the mercy of the crowd. But I will say that there is no real excuse for chronic unpreparedness. That gets old real fast.
I do have my pet peeves about teaching styles though and I hate it when people abandon the lesson manual for “some of their thoughts”. Or that they don’t do their homework on the topic or people who spend so much time with the details that they forget to make a point or to help people apply a principle. There are times for review but most of the time I go to gospel doctrine to be stretched spiritually and certainly edified. I also hate when people don’t prepare spiritually. You can tell a lesson with and without the Spirit pretty easily.
FWIW, I do think the church is aware that maybe some people just shouldn’t teach. And there are teacher development classes….not that they are that effective.
Antiquarian wrote:Yes, we are that stupid. *laugh*
I agree about the Suits ruining things with the new manuals. I have heard women from every age group complain. I my mission I used to say how wonderful it was the the women had there own class with its own manual that helped us live the gospel from a woman’s perspective. I think the choice was made to do away with this for money reasons and with NO thought to the welfare of the women. It was cheeper to create one book in bulk for all adults than to have people create a curriculum that had more spiritual meat in it. It’s turning us into Stepford Mormons. I even had a friend who was denounced as teaching false doctrine for not sticking to the lesson in RS one Sunday. The Gospel has been “dumbed down” instead of expecting the member to rise up. I’ll be honest I haven’t attend RS since there were 4 lessons in a row about male priesthood authority over everything, but NOTHING about women and our roles. I don’t like being taught I’m worthless and pointless.
👿 Hm. I thought they did it because some were complaining that RS was doctrinally “lite”. I mean warm fuzzy stories doesn’t necessarily make scriptorians out of the membership. Not that I don’t completely support warm fuzzy stories…….
steve wrote:I’d like to ask the person who creates these manuals why they fired the Relief Society. Years ago the RS produced their own manuals. They were full of inspirational stories–my wife was always sharing them with me. Then some bureaucrat decided the church needed to study the prophets.
David O McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism book gives a great historical background on how the church correlation program was deployed to create a system that put all lesson material and manuals through a review system of the Quorum of the 12. Prior to that, auxilliaries had a lot more autonomy (and budget) to do their own lessons and manuals.
I think as the church grew, it was just an appearant need and some good things came out of it. Of course, there were some concessions made also.
I would like to add a clarification. My friend who had the “false Doct.” charge is a professor at a local university and has been for years. She was also on the RS presidency at the time this happened. She does her lessons well in advance and can keep a class on topic with ease. She had chosen to focus on one principle within the lesson assigned for that Sunday and to let the sisters express themselves and their thoughts. “Come let us reason together” not read together. I loved teaching the Teacher Training course. I’m glad that the church started it. I also think it would be great to have a consultant in the ward who works with the teachers currently serving. When they they have others just read from the manual for 45 min I want to put my head through a wall. I could have just read the lesson on my own in less time and gotten the same out of it.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.