Elder Gary E. Stevenson (Oct. 18): "Shepherding Souls"

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The Activity:

  1. Read the questions Elder Stevenson poses in para. 6 "How do we . . . way He intends?"
  2. Ask the class members to think back on the Savior's life and ministry.  Ask them to identify stories that show us the Lord's way of ministering.  There is no need for them to identify the specific scripture passages-- the story alone is fine.  If it would work better, you may also prompt the class member by sharing some scripture references/stories such as those that follow to jog their memories and to serve as fodder for discussions:
    1. John 5:1-15
    2. Matt. 20:30-34
    3. John 6:1-15
  3. Allow them time to think and perhaps even skim the scriptures to help them remember stories and details.
  4. Ask the class members to share their stories with a partner.
  5. Come back together as a class and discuss what was shared.  As students share, write appropriate principles on the board.
  6. As the discussion is wrapping up, pass out index cards and something to write with to each class member.
  7. Read para. 17 "Who is a . . . us to do" and discuss what this means for us.
  8. Point out that while we all have assigned families/people to whom we minister, there may be others (should be others?) that we regularly minister to by virtue of geography, friendship, work, calling, etc. even though we have no formal assignment to minister to them.
  9. Ask class members to take a moment and consider ALL of the people they minister to or could minister to and how they could be more Christ-like in that ministry.
  10. Ask the class members to make some notes on their index cards about what they feel prompted to do to minister to these peole as the Lord ministers.
  11. Commit them to take action on two of their items during the next week.
The Activity:

This activity is another one that focuses on considering and discussing the talk as a way to invite in the Spirit and then to follow the promptings of the Spirit to consider how to apply these teaching to ourselves.  This activity will hopefully lead directly to specific actions by the class members.  Depending on the situation, it might even be useful to follow up in the days after the lesson via text or email.  It might even be appropriate to follow up the next week somehow, although in this case, be careful not to embarrass anyone either by putting them in the spotlight when they have not done anything or by highlighting some act of service they wanted to remain anonymous.  

I hope this activity will serve you well in planning your lesson.  Please let me know how it goes or if there is some other way that I can improve this blog to be more useful to you.  Thank you so much.

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