{"id":2069,"date":"2005-03-13T19:35:06","date_gmt":"2005-03-14T00:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=2069"},"modified":"2005-03-13T19:37:05","modified_gmt":"2005-03-14T00:37:05","slug":"the-purpose-of-priesthood-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2005\/03\/the-purpose-of-priesthood-lessons\/","title":{"rendered":"The Purpose of Priesthood Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"

A year ago Julie asked why we doze in Sunday School<\/a>. Today, one topic that was touched on in priesthood was why we teach priesthood lessons. I’ve been thinking a little about the topic, and I must confess I’m not entirely sure there is a single reason why we have priesthood lessons. <\/p>\n

(Note: I’ll discuss this from my own point of view, which is Priesthood meeting. However, I believe most or all of this discussion applies to Relief Society lessons as well). <\/p>\n

A few possibilities come to mind:<\/p>\n

1. First, perhaps priesthood lessons are to help us learn, in the instructional sense of presenting new information and discussing it. Perhaps we are supposed to treat the lesson manual as a text for instruction. <\/p>\n

In my experience, this is very seldom the case. There is very little in the lesson manual that I haven’t already heard dozens of times. As such, the lesson is often not about learning in the traditional sense. <\/p>\n

This is not to say that regular learning never happens. For example, we hear lessons from different people, and a new instructor may have some new information. Similarly, sometimes the manual actually covers new ground. In addition, the different backgrounds of the different quorum members mean that most of the time, it’s likely that at least someone <\/em>will be learning something. <\/p>\n

But at the end of the day, that combination of different backgrounds is probably the biggest impediment to regular learning in priesthood. The lessons are kept very simple; brand-new members are mixed in with people who have attended for thirty years; it’s like teaching a roomful of students, some of whom are in first grade and some in college, and they all get the same lesson. The one-room school isn’t a particularly good pedagogical model. <\/p>\n

2. Second, perhaps the purpose is indoctrination — not in the informational sense, but in the reminder and repetition sense. We all know that faith is important, for example, and we all know that we should forgive others. However, we can all also use a reminder of this every now and then.<\/p>\n

In the sense that Priesthood lessons are about repetition rather than original learning, perhaps they’re most like batting practice. The professional ballplayer knows the basics of swinging the bat. He’s done it a thousand times. But he still takes batting practice every day, to keep his skills up through repetition and exercise. He may occasionally learn a new insight, such as a way to adjust his swing, but it’s mostly about the repetition.<\/p>\n

3. Third, perhaps it’s neither about learning nor indoctrination; perhaps it’s just about socialization. Perhaps the most important thing isn’t discussing any topic at all, but simply spending time with other quorum members so that we can draw from each others strengths and support each other in the gospel. If this is the case, then the real purpose of the meeting is to build unity. And if that’s the case, then the lesson is little more than a simple way to keep everyone from going off the deep end in the discussions that result from the quorum being together. If so, the actual effect of the lesson (teaching, indoctrination) is incidental at best.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure which of these, if any, is the purpose of Priesthood lessons. Perhaps there is overlap between more than one; perhaps I’ve missed some possibilities. <\/p>\n

And of course the related question is “Do Priesthood lessons fulfill their purpose?” For example, if the purpose of the lesson is really instructional, then perhaps we should introduce other teaching tools, such as end-of-year tests or division by grade levels. Perhaps we can better address that question if we have a good idea of the purpose of the lessons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A year ago Julie asked why we doze in Sunday School. Today, one topic that was touched on in priesthood was why we teach priesthood lessons. I’ve been thinking a little about the topic, and I must confess I’m not entirely sure there is a single reason why we have priesthood lessons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2069\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}