{"id":24392,"date":"2013-02-03T13:57:09","date_gmt":"2013-02-03T18:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=24392"},"modified":"2013-02-03T14:45:10","modified_gmt":"2013-02-03T19:45:10","slug":"how-can-i-use-church-music-to-learn-about-the-plan-of-salvation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2013\/02\/how-can-i-use-church-music-to-learn-about-the-plan-of-salvation\/","title":{"rendered":"How Can I Use Church Music to Learn about the Plan of Salvation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is one of the teaching outlines<\/a> from the new youth Sunday School curriculum for February. \u00a0I thought I’d share how I plan to teach this lesson. \u00a0<\/p>\n

I prepared these two things before class:<\/p>\n

(1) Using this pictures<\/a> from the Ensign, I made a quick Power Point presentation for the hymn “O My Father.” \u00a0One slide for each picture, with the corresponding lyrics next to it. \u00a0(I’m not giving you the presentation because I don’t know how the copyright should work on this. \u00a0But seriously, it only took like 10 minutes.)<\/p>\n

(2) I cut-and-pasted the lyrics to “O My Father” from the church music website onto a text document. \u00a0Beneath that, I put this:<\/p>\n

O premortal life<\/p>\n

O mortal life<\/p>\n

O postmortal life<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And printed one copy for each kid and brought it with colored pencils.<\/p>\n

Here’s my lesson outline:<\/p>\n

Pass out handouts. \u00a0Have kids read along while they listen to \u00a0\u201cO My Father.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ask: \u00a0Are there any words or concepts here that you do not understand?<\/p>\n

President Kimball:<\/p>\n

\u201cSince infancy we have been singing the beloved song \u201cO My Father,\u201d its meaning only partly understood by many people. Sister Eliza R. Snow gave us these words and I think they are magnificent. In every funeral of the Kimball family so long as I can remember, \u201cO My Father\u201d was the principal song. \u00a0[Then he read the entire hymn and then said:] \u00a0That speaks to the whole gospel program, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d \u00a0(Citation<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Our topic today is \u201chow can I use church music to learn about the Plan of Salvation?\u201d<\/p>\n

Pass out colored pencils. \u00a0Have them do key [pick a color for each circle] and then mark the hymn accordingly.<\/p>\n

Discuss what they marked and what we learn about each part of the Plan of Salvation (premortal, mortal, postmortal) from the hymn.<\/p>\n

Explain John Hafen, art missionaries (=SLC Temple), pamphlet. \u00a0 \u00a0(Info here<\/a>\u00a0and links intra.)<\/p>\n

Show Powerpoint. \u00a0Discussion topics for each slide:<\/p>\n

1st slide: \u00a0How would you describe this guy? \u00a0How does he relate to the lyrics here? \u00a0(Point: \u00a0parts of this life are really hard, we should long for our heavenly home.)<\/p>\n

2nd slide: \u00a0What does this picture suggest to you about the premortal life? \u00a0(I love the idea of God as a kindly, portly dad who would hold my hand on a walk. \u00a0I love the idea of being nurtured by God.)<\/p>\n

3rd slide: \u00a0Would you have illustrated this stanza with a baby, or something else? \u00a0What are the lyrics teaching here? \u00a0(My thought: \u00a0we each have a purpose for being here, but we generally won\u2019t know what that purpose is unless we work to figure it out. \u00a0I really like the word \u201cfriends\u201d here. \u00a0[Pre-mortal] \u201cbirth\u201d is also interesting.)<\/p>\n

4th slide: \u00a0What do you think of the art work here? \u00a0Interesting how forests can be kind of scary\/creepy or can be the Sacred Grove.) \u00a0If you ever feel like the odd one out, or lonely, that is something that you can turn into a powerful spur to turning you closer to God. \u00a0I like \u201csecret something,\u201d as if she doesn\u2019t quite yet understand what the Holy Ghost is, but still can learn from it.)<\/p>\n

5th slide: \u00a0What is this slide telling us about the role of the Restoration in the Plan of Salvation? \u00a0(My thought: \u00a0I like, again, the idea of getting and acting on what is admittedly partial knowledge.)<\/p>\n

6th slide: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Joseph F. Smith: \u00a0\u00a0“God revealed that principle that we have a mother as well as a father in heaven to Joseph Smith; Joseph Smith revealed it to \u00a0. . . \u00a0Eliza Snow [who] was inspired, being a poet, to put it into verse.” \u00a0Thoughts about or reactions to this picture?<\/p>\n

7th slide: \u00a0I like thinking about this happy reunion, especially contrasted with the \u201cfrail\u201d body.<\/p>\n

8th slide: \u00a0\u00a0What do you think the artist wanted to convey by showing exactly the same posture late in life and in post mortal life? \u00a0(My thoughts: \u00a0we don\u2019t change when we die and also that being bowed by age is transferred to being bowed by humility.) \u00a0What do you think of his depiction of \u201cheaven\u201d?<\/p>\n

If you were to illustrate this hymn, what might you do differently? \u00a0Do you like the illustrations? \u00a0Did they teach you anything about the hymn that you didn\u2019t already know?<\/p>\n

If time, maybe ask what hymns have special meaning. Or: \u00a0have them scroll through [yes, mine all have phones or tablets. \u00a0sigh.] and see which other hymns teach us about the Plan of Salvation. \u00a0\u00a0If lots of time, could sing some of them.<\/p>\n

Conclusion: \u00a0The First Presidency taught: \u201cSome of the greatest sermons are preached by the singing of hymns. Hymns move us to repentance and good works, build testimony and faith, comfort the weary, console the mourning, and inspire us to endure to the end\u201d (Hymns, ix).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is one of the teaching outlines from the new youth Sunday School curriculum for February. \u00a0I thought I’d share how I plan to teach this lesson. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24392","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\/24392","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24392"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24473,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24392\/revisions\/24473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}