The June lesson line-up for the Young Women and Young Men of the church is a tough pull.
First, in Sunday School, a whole month of Sundays (there are five in June) on the priesthood. My personal favorite bullet point is the first one: “How can I participate effectively in councils in the church?” Pray tell.
And if that weren’t enough, another whole month o’ Sundays in Young Women on . . . you guessed it . . . the priesthood. For your viewing pleasure:
Behold, the end result of the long-awaited new YW/YM curriculum. The revised and updated one.
My two daughters are 13 and 16.
Oh, wait – you forgot to mention that during the month of April, the lessons were about the Apostasy and Restoration, in May, the lessons were all about Prophets and Revelation and that in July the lessons are all about Ordinances and Covenants. Kind of hard to discuss any of these topics without having the priesthood come up there as well (just in case 5 weeks in June weren’t/aren’t enough). I’m just wondering how much could possibly be left to discuss. What is that, like 16 weeks of classes, two hours per week. They’ll be experts on how the priesthood works by the time this summer is over.
But, take heart. In August the lessons are all about Marriage and Family.
And maybe they’ll get to do it all over again in 2014, this time using new conference talks and scriptures from a different standard work.
If you travel around to different wards over the summer, you could have the same lesson any number of ways, for good or for ill.
Is there a feedback form for lesson plans? Because I think there will be some folks who’d like to use one.
Yeah, these lessons are definitely not going to be easy. I teach Sunday School. The first one (on councils) is probably the least bad one. The rest are pretty terrible. The one that focuses on Fam Proc is extremely bad.
Epic fail for my daughter (13) yesterday. She came out of the two hours very agitated. Seems like all the usual excuses got a thorough airing, though I’ve yet to determine whether it was the leaders or other YW who brought them up. She was disturbed to be the only one who had a problem with them, and didn’t speak up as the rest of the girls were sooo enthusiastic!
By which I mean teaching fail. Not my daughter :-).
I brought up in YW yesterday that in the early days of the church, it was commonly taught that women held the priesthood in conjunction with their husbands, and that husband-wife teams would give their kids “Parent’s blessings” instead of “Father’s blessings.” When one of the YW asked what happened, the teacher’s response was, “maybe the women got carried away.” Gut punch.
Ouch. Just ouch.
Yup, right there with ya. I teach the 14-15 year old Sunday School class. Dreading this month. In a weird way, though, the one lesson that spoke to me was re: councils. I guess it’s b/c I used to be RS prez, and I want the girls to know how it feels to be in there w/ mostly men. How you’ve got to speak up and not back down if you feel strongly about something, etc. Also, I want to talk about the new Sister Trainers on Mission Councils. So even though this is toting the party line and I wish church councils actually included women, I want to arm them for the near future, b/c I have very little hope anything will change.
Preparing to teach Sunday School this month has been a bit traumatic for me. I’ve struggled.
Last week conducted a discussion about the difference between priesthood office and priesthood power. Difficult. The two YW in the class asked the YM how the priesthood felt different than the spirit. I (stupidly because duh my 14-15 year olds don’t have the MP) tried to guide them when they didn’t know how to answer with “What feelings do you have when you give a blessing and lay your hands on someone’s head?” The two YM gave me the “Are you nuts?” look until I caught my mistake. I spent most of the evening feeling silly. The funniest thing is I realized I (a woman) was the only one in the room who had actually performed an ordinance where you lay your hands on someone’s head (as an ordinance worker). For some reason, it made me feel a lot better.
This week I did Part I of my “Strengthening Councils” lesson because Ward Council was one of the most painful things I’ve ever attended. Except for maybe BYC where the adults steamroller the kids. No, Ward Council still worse.
The lesson went swimmingly. This week we addressed how to give constructive criticism during the planning of activities or upon completion of an activity. (Does anyone else’s ward just go crickets when something was terrible but no one wants to be negative?) I role played with them because I have two very introverted class members. I gave them the scenario when they were being asked to plan an activity that they despised. My favorite was when my quietest YW gave a spirited and articulate defense of why she wished to plan an activity other than a dance. At the end, just as a joke (and because some youth leaders in our ward actually say things like this), I said “But the prophet loves dances!” To which she replied, “I can appreciate that opinion, but it is just an opinion.” Our class applauded and discussed that some things leaders say are revelation and we follow that. Other things are opinion and we are not obligated to.
Next week- how to use councils to help people with their struggles.
Oh please, Young Men and Young Women of my Sunday School, I hope you can enjoy a world where women and men work together, truly as partners, to build the kingdom of God.
My daughter left awhile ago now largely because of this kind of thing. I am glad she did and only wish I could disentangle myself enough to follow her.