Sunday School

I once had an interesting assignment in a Sunday School class. The teacher passed out note cards, and told us to imagine ourselves in this scenario. We are on an airplane which is going to crash in a few minutes. Having that knowledge, what would be our last message? It could be to whomever we wanted, and we were given some time to write down on the note card what we would say. I was given someone’s remarks addressed to me, and they have helped me, even to this day, to be strong in the face of adversity:

"I know that whatever happens to me is the Lord’s plan. That He has something in store for me and for you. Life will continue and I know that you can be happy. I know this because I know the Church is true. And I know that our Heavenly Father loves us individually. He knows our wants and our needs. He knows what we are capable of and He knows what is best for us. He misses us and wants us to return back to Him. So please continue to live the Gospel and allow the Lord to have His hand in your life to guide and bless you. I love you so much. Thank you for your influence in my life. I am a different, better person because of you. My life has been blessed because of you. I love you very much."

I share that with you because it has made an impact in my life. Something so simple that the teacher (and this individual) did, but it is still something I re-read at least once a week, and which gives me strength and peace. That having been said, I have also seen many poor examples of teaching in church. Here is a list of suggestions I’ve written which I think, if applied generally, could help us all get more out of lessons.

Adam’s List of Effective Teaching Skills v. 1.0

• Dress appropriately so as not to distract from the message you are trying to teach. Guys – button your cuffs. I’ve seen several people not button their shirt cuffs (but yet, not roll them up). It doesn’t look good, and is just a distraction (and annoyance) for me.
• Ask questions, and ask lots of them. Only rarely ask close-ended questions with which you’re trying to elicit a particular response (unless maybe you’re in Primary, but that’s a whole different ball game). Instead, ask open-ended questions. Then take what is said and run with it. Use what your students say and incorporate it into your lesson.
• Don’t be afraid to ask a question you might not know the answer to.
• And when you ask a question, don’t answer it yourself. Wait. Wait for a minute or two if you have to, even if the silence gets really uncomfortable. If it gets uncomfortable enough, someone’s hand will go up. This will usually even work if your class has a tendency of not answering questions. Waiting will give them more of an incentive to answer – no one likes uncomfortable silences. It also shows how much you value input (and if you don’t, you should – see D&C 50:22).
• Don’t read the whole lesson / all the scriptures. Pick key excerpts / scriptures to focus on.
• Have a direction / theme on which you want to focus (especially in Sunday School, where you’re just going through the scriptures in order).
• Use quotes from modern prophets / apostles.
• Never ever EVER go over time, no matter how important “this one last point” is. You just lost more than half your audience.
• Remember that you are in Christ’s place. You’re going to be saying “In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen,” at the end of your lesson. Make sure you’re teaching what He wants you to teach.

Forgiveness

I’ve come to some realizations in the last couple days, through a series of unfortunate events. But I’ll tell you about the events before I tell you about the realizations.

One of my co-workers is on vacation in Europe for the next two weeks (she left on Saturday). Last Thursday, she got upset with me, and then I was upset with her too because...well, it doesn't really matter, but we'll leave it at that. Work was frustrating.

On Saturday (and again on Monday), there was an exchange (that I won’t go into) that involved my roommate and someone else, but which had a significant impact on me. My roommate was very upset with this other person and everything that happened in that exchange. It was rough on both sides.

Then there’s work. Because my co-worker is gone, and I'm covering a few of her projects, Monday was a beast, and Tuesday was just as bad. Monday I realized that there was a huge error on one of my projects that had just finished, and although it wasn’t directly my fault (it was a programming error), I could have prevented it if I had been more thorough when the study went into field, by doing a check on the data (which is supposed to be routinely done while a project is in field). So I felt horrible about that, didn’t take lunch, and was at work until 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday I was woken up by a phone call at 7 a.m. (and had 2 missed calls before that) about a project for which I was covering. There was a major issue, but since I don’t have the internet at home yet, and no one was at the office, and I live 20 minutes from work, I couldn’t get the problem fixed right away. Thus, the client got ticked off, and once again I skipped lunch and worked 10 hours. But because I was essentially working since 7 that morning, I at least managed to get off at 5.

But the point is, it’s been a pretty crappy past several days. Last night my roommate was still upset about the exchange that happened this weekend, and in the course of meeting for a BYU ecclesiastical endorsement, asked for some advice. We were hanging out with a friend last night, and my roommate was telling us about the experience he had with the stake president, and how much better he feels now.

(Now we’re getting into the realizations part of this blog – thanks for bearing with me.)

He said that the stake president told him no matter what perceived victories we stand to lose, forgiveness is worth it. To let your “enemies” have their perceived victories if they want them. Hopefully they’ll be able to forgive you too, and if not right away, perhaps in time they will see things in a different light.

My roommate said he didn’t want anyone to hold hate in their hearts for him. That he felt bad things had worked out the way they did, but that he refused to hold hate in his heart, and hoped they would feel the same. He said the process is still difficult, though. The stake president told him that maybe he needed to repent first, and then he would be able to forgive.

That’s what I’ve realized. That I’d been sheltering similar feelings in my heart for a long time, and for which I needed to repent. My roommate taught me that no matter what we feel someone has done to us or to someone we love, we cannot let it become an excuse for harboring evil feelings toward that person. They will destroy us, and we need to forgive unconditionally, without expecting anything in return.

I think I’m there now, and it feels much better.