President Henry B. Eyring (Oct. 17): "The Lord Leads His Church"

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Be aware that several people are reading this message (and similar ones) as a message that might lead to abuse and harm to people.  If after prayer and pondering, you feel that this is the case among members in your class, it might be useful to draw a clear distinction between following righteous leaders with faith and being deceived by unrighteous people asking us to engage in secretive and/or immoral acts.  A church leader acting faithfully within his or her stewardship will never ask us to act contrary to the gospel and its commandments



Activity:

1.     Preview Pres. Eyring’s 2 objectives as mentioned in paragraph 9 (To build our faith that 1)Father directs us in our callings and 2)He directs our leaders in their weakness).

2.     Explain that you want to consider each of these principles separately and then as complementary gospel principles.

3.     Divide class into two groups.

4.     Have 1 group discuss principle #1 with the following questions to help them:

a.      When have you felt the Lord working through you despite your weaknesses to help you magnify a calling?

b.     How has your service and the experiences in that service helped you to grow and change?

c.      How might knowing this change your service?

5.     Have the second group discuss the second principle with the following questions to help them:

a.      When have you seen one of your leaders made greater because of the Lord’s help?

b.     How might you recognize those moments better? (Hint:  John 7:16-17).

c.      How can you show this faith in your leaders?

d.     How have you been blessed from having this faith?

6.     Allow groups to talk

7.     Now ask the class members to reform into new groups of four (with 2 members from each group).

8.     The new groups then discuss how these two principles work together with the help of the following questions:

a.      What blessings would come from people having faith in both principles—their own right to the Lord’s help in His work and their leaders having access to that same help?

b.     How are these two principles related, i.e. how do they work together?

c.      How would you draw this relationship?  Yes, draw.

9.     After some time, come back together and discuss what was talked about in the smaller groups.



Using this activity:

This strategy is a variation on what we call a jigsaw group.  The idea is that by helping everyone to master on part of a topic, when students get together everyone has something to say.  So, in the first group, class members “master” one of the two principles; in the second group, they share what they have mastered and work with people who have mastered a different principle to gain a richer understanding of both. 

Obviously, there are a number of ways to structure this activity from the size of groups to the amount of time you give them.  The important thing is that this activity decreases the obstacles that many people face in participating in discussions by making the discussions take place in smaller, more intimate groups and by preparing them to know things that others in their group do not. 

God bless you in your teaching.

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