"Come, Follow Me"

I teach a youth Sunday school class. It is an awesome responsibility, in the traditional definition of "awesome" as something that inspires awe. I am awed that the Lord would entrust me to help young people develop and increase their testimonies and their understanding of the Gospel. I am certainly not a role model in any sense of the word.

Nevertheless, I am grateful for the opportunity to be a teacher, because it forces me to study and to prepare myself. It is eternally true that the teacher gets far more out of a class than the students. I am thankful that I have this challenge to grow.

At October 2012 General Conference, the announcement was made of the new youth curriculum for Sunday school and the Young Men/Young Women's program. At first, I didn't get it. For the previous two years I had been building up a library of lesson plans based on the Sunday school manuals for the 12-13 year-old class. My hope was that we would start repeating the same lessons from the same manuals, and I could finally coast for a while and not have to work so hard to prepare a lesson every week.

Then along comes "Come, Follow Me". The curriculum is completely different. I would have yet another year of new lessons to prepare. And at the same time my assignment was switched to teach the 17-18 year-old class, so not only are the lesson topics new, but now I have to think about the topics from a more mature perspective. But ok, one more year of writing new lesson plans, and then I could coast.

Then it began to dawn on me, as I studied the new curriculum, that it is not about lesson plans. It is about personal spiritual preparation that leads to teaching with the Spirit. It is about throwing the lesson plans away, and teaching people instead of lessons. It is about teaching the Savior's way instead of my way.

It was this drive for personal spiritual preparation that inspired me to start this blog. As I quit writing lesson plans and starting studying the Gospel topics for classroom discussion, I began to have a much richer, enlivening experience. As the Holy Ghost began to work on me, I realized that I needed to share what I was learning. There is no way I could share it all in the classroom. The blog gives me the space to say what I want to say and to share the insights that are given to me.

Take my writings for what they are worth. I am not trying to write lesson outlines for anyone else to follow. I do not claim any authority to comment on the scriptures or the words of the prophets and apostles. I do not claim to be receiving revelation for anyone other than for myself. I just want to share what I think and feel as I am journeying through this new and everlasting experience of learning.

I say in the most humble way, come, follow me, as I come and follow the Master. If you get anything from reading this blog, it will be because the Holy Ghost is teaching you.