I teach all of the youth in my ward. I suspect this is because nobody else will do it. Also, most of the youth (whether or not I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve given birth to them) pretty much live at my house. So I am very able to tell them to behave and get a quick response. I want to list a few things which have worked for me in making the scriptures interesting to my kids and then ask for more ideas. Julie Smith, for example, had the great idea of using a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153time machine\u00e2\u20ac? for helping kids enjoy Isaiah.
\nHere are a few of my tricks:
\nGames:
\nYesterday, I made up a game based on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who Wants to Be A Millionaire\u00e2\u20ac? in order to teach Jeremiah. I had twelve questions. Each question had four possible answers (multiple choice), and each had at least one completely ridiculous answer which was guaranteed to get the kids to smile. For example:
\nWhat did the Lord call Jeremiah?
\n1) My buddy Jerry
\n2) a righteous dude
\n3) an iron pillar
\n4) a smooth stone
\nBecause yesterday was Fast Sunday, I had little \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mormonads\u00e2\u20ac? (complete with scriptures) as prizes for those who got their answers right. (I usually have some kind of treat.) When we talked about Jeremiah eating the words of the Lord, I had the students read their scriptures as though they were really delicious. At least one of them got into it thoroughly and kept saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wow. Yum. Oh, this is so good!\u00e2\u20ac? Another actually did eat his Mormonad (completely predictable).
\nI do a match game as well, and have, for example, had my students match the name of the woman in the Bible with the scripture or act most closely associated with her. (Ruth\u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whither thou goest…\u00e2\u20ac?)
\nI insist that the kids make some kind of commentary when they answer a game question (WHY would the Lord use the image of an iron pillar?), and they actually come up with some good stuff.
\nIn addition, I use Church video material as much as possible, not just the OT course, but the two available FHE videos. Once, I brought our own video camera and a script I had written about Jonah, including the fish\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective. The kids loved recording it and then seeing it the following Sunday.
\nAs much as possible, I make things personal, trying to put my students or myself in the situation of the scriptural characters. I use a lot of stories to illustrate the points being made, but have a goal of putting at least one scripture into the hearts of my kids every Sunday. (And I follow the manual to an extent.)
\nThis is just some of what I do. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sharing it to indicate what a great teacher I am, but as a conversation starter. What things work for any of you involved in maintaining the interest our youth?
\nIf Craig reads this, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d really like to know how y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all do it in the Presbyterian Church. I admit to having played \u00e2\u20ac\u0153O Bless the Lord My Soul\u00e2\u20ac? from _Godspell_ when I taught the psalms, but I could\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gotten into trouble for that. I personally love Christian rock and run the treadmill to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our God is an Awesome God\u00e2\u20ac? etc. When I took my kids to a Black Baptist church, they had a really hard time returning to ours. They loved the music of Calvary Baptist, and the loved the personable style of the pastor.
\nWe need more joy in our worship, more smiles. I want the youth to look forward to Church. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to hear, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is boring\u00e2\u20ac? too many more times before I die. I want my children and anyone I ever teach to feel the JOY of believing.
\nYears ago, I taught an essay called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Libido for the Ugly\u00e2\u20ac? which described incongruity by saying: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The effect is that of a fat woman with a black eye. It is that of a Presbyterian grinning.\u00e2\u20ac?
\nI am assuming that Presbyterians do grin a lot. I know Baptists do. I think Mormons are often seen as austere and smiling only in nodding approval after a reverent \u00e2\u20ac\u0153amen,\u00e2\u20ac? though I have seen some great smiles throughout Mormondom.
\nWell, I want to see more. I certainly want to see every one of my students smiling as they leave my class.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I teach all of the youth in my ward. I suspect this is because nobody else will do it. Also, most of the youth (whether or not I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve given birth to them) pretty much live at my house. So I am very able to tell them to behave and get a quick response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"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-3558","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\/3558","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\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}