Thrifecta (a svithe)

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Today I spoke in sacrament meeting, taught Sunday School, then taught elders quorum. Busy day!

In sacrament meeting, I was speaking in my role as newly called Sunday School president of the ward. For those of you not LDS, let me tell you that notwithstanding the word "president" in the title, generally this responsibility is looked at as a nonresponsibility. The purpose of the job is not terribly well defined and often redundant with other people's responsibilities. So I was speaking, in part, as an attempt to define my job.

Ironically, a year or so ago I went to a training for Sunday School leadership. I wasn't really needing to be there so I didn't take as good of notes as I could have, and those notes I've lost. In my attempt to get similar notes from someone (anyone!), I ended up throwing a hail-mary to an email address I found on line, viz. the guy who gave that training, the Church's General Sunday School President. By the time I sent that email (late last night) it was too late to be of any good. However, if I had checked my email before leaving for church this morning, I would have found his reply.

Unfortunately, the Church asks him not to share his training resources, but he did give me some other useful stuff, including this line from Elder Bednar: "Teaching is not talking and telling. Teaching is observing, listening, and then discerning so that we [as teachers] know what to say."

I don't know what the ultimate provenance of this quote is, but I feel my source is pretty reliable.

Also, it says pretty much what I was struggling to say in my talk: Teaching in the Church is not infodumping. It's not test-preparation. It is, instead, observing listening discerning.

Yes. Exactly.

Thank you, Brother Osguthrorpe. That was very helpful. You are a gentleman and a brother.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to prepare a lesson for tonight's home teaching.

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