Elder David A. Bednar (Oct. 18): "Bringing Together in One All Things in Christ"

The Activity:

1. Prior to class write the following on the board:  "Think about a moment in your life that something happened, which felt like a mistake or simple happenstance but, in the end, brought you closer to your Father in Heaven."
2. As class members come into the room, give each one some paper and something to write with and ask them to consider and write about the prompt on the board.
3. Give the class 5 or 6 minutes to think and write.  Depending on how your class reacts, more time may be appropriate.
4. You may also want to quietly point out that these could be church things such as a calling but they might also include less church-y things such as an unexpected move or a job change.  You may also want to play quiet music in the background.
5. After the class members have had ample time to write, ask them to share their experiences and how they drew closer to God in small groups (no more than 4).
6. After a couple of minutes to share, ask class members to tuck their writing away and explain that you will come back to it at the end of the lesson.
7. Teach the lesson you have prepared.
8. Near the end of your lesson, ask class members to take out and re-read what they wrote at the beginning of class.  Ask them to jot down any other events that combined with their initial event to help them grow closer to the Heavenly Father.
9. After a moment or two, point out that these collections of experiences (and not everyone may have one on such short notice) are-- in our own lives-- what Elder Bednar was talking about in the Church as a whole.

Using the Activity:

I will admit that I love the idea of writing.  In terms of complete openness, I teach writing and have taught writing, in one way or another, almost my entire professional life.  Writing, though, can be a powerful tool to help us think through issues and to tease out connections between events.  That is what this activity capitalizes on-- writing as thinking in progress.  By asking people to write about an event and how it connected them to God, we are asking people to take a stand-- to bear testimony, if you will.  

Also, by asking the class members to write this down, you are asking each and every class member to share-- something that, depending on the size of your class, may not happen very often.  Even if a class member chooses not to share in the small group portion (or doesn't have the opportunity for another reason), the act of writing this down is an example of exercising her faith.  Whenever we exercise our faith, we make it easier for the Spirit to step in and testify to us about what we are sharing.  

I also think this activity is nice because it focuses on helping individual class members recognize God's hand in their lives.  He is an individual God who loves and knows us one by one; Satan, however, works really hard to make us forget or doubt that.  So, any opportunity to reaffirm that notion is valuable.

As always, I hope that this is a useful activity and one that will help you.  Please let me know how it goes.