Hey. If you think Leading Saints is just
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If you go to leadingsaints.org/zion,
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So you're checking us out as maybe a
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know many of you have been listening for
a long time, but let me just talk
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here with this podcast? Well, let me explain.
Leading Saints is a nonprofit organization, a five
zero one c three is what they call
it, and we have a mission
to help Latter day Saints be better prepared
to lead. Now, of course, often means in
the context of a calling. It may mean
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We've heard about our content influencing all sorts
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We invite you to listen to this episode
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in and begin to learn and begin to
consider some of these principles we talk about
on the Leading Saints podcast.
Here we go.
As many of you heard, we have a
lot going on over the Leading Saints community.
This is like an online place where us
the the Leading Saints community can gather
and talk about concepts. You don't just have
to wait on me to talk to somebody
and record an episode, but let's get the
conversation going about various topics
related to church leadership. And so I'm gonna
share with you a live stream we did.
This was very informal, just gathering anybody who's
interested
about or has a calling connected with Sunday
school. Let's get together online, share ideas, best
practices, what you're doing, what's working, what's not.
And, that was part of this livestream for
Sunday school presidencies. Now these are open to
really anybody. You don't have to be in
a Sunday school presidency to participate.
And, a really fantastic conversation came out of
it. Now, we went about an hour plus
talking and sharing ideas. I'm gonna share a
half hour with you here, some of the
high points, and then, come watch the full
recording
in the community. It's there,
for your consumption and learning. And then we'll
continue to do more of these live streams,
not just about Sunday school, but other leadership
callings. So we talk about, there's a great
discussion that happens just about the purpose of
Sunday school, also about teaching council meetings and
parent teacher council meetings. There's so much to
consider. How are we doing this? How are
we fitting it in the busy schedule of
church? Are you doing it during second hour,
during the week, and what's working? And have
a great conversation that way. So tune in,
listen in, and then come back over to
the Leading Saints community if you want the
full unedited
conversation and discussion.
The Sunday school pregnancy live stream. And, we're
gonna have people filing in here. So as
you're coming in here, put your name and
maybe
if you've had a, if what you're, maybe
you just say what your calling is and
whether it's Sunday school or not, it doesn't
really matter, but that is going to be
the focus of our conversation.
And, hopefully we have something to learn forever,
everybody.
And, we're, we tried a few different things
with live streams. We've done some
various topics and the recordings are out there.
I think they're easy to find, but we've
done one one of these for, bishops or
bishoprics. I think we've done an elders quorum.
We've done relief society
release relief society one. We had, like, 80
plus
relief society presence from around the world. That
was really cool just to get some discussion
going. Definitely, this is a participatory
experience.
I'm just curious. And, again, this is,
an open forum, which we'll talk. I want
you to feel like you can speak open
and freely.
I think the more authentic we can be
just like in Sunday school, right, the better,
an experience it is. So, you know, we'll
we can learn from each other and that's
what leading saints exist. We never pretend like
we have all the answers,
but we hope to, learn from one another.
So so I'm just curious if anybody would
be open to unmuting and just sharing, like,
why you're here. Is it because you're here
to learn? Is it because you have a
specific question? Do you feel just overwhelmed in
this Sunday school calling? Is there specific concern
you're dealing with? So who wants to go
first? Alright. Joshua, let's hear it, man. I
figured nobody else is, it's typical Sunday school.
Right? Wait. No. Hey. I'll wait. I don't
mind silence.
I'm really just here because I have enjoyed
the podcast
that you put on,
and I thought, hey. Live stream. Awesome. I've
got time. I wanna jump in and see.
And I'm the bishop in my ward, and
I've been Sunday school president
and kinda felt like I don't know what
that calling like, what am I supposed to
do? It kinda overlaps young men's, young women's,
relief site, elders quorum. So I just wanted
to I'm here to learn, I guess.
Awesome. Yeah. That's interesting. I think in I
never I always hesitate to quote the handbook
or to or to paraphrase the handbook because
I don't know if something's changed. But, yeah,
definitely like the Sunday school president, I think
it frames it as you are in charge
of all teaching and learning at church and
at home. Right? And so you can be
a resource there. So that's sort of suddenly
feels really heavy. Right? And Sunday school is
a little bit, you know, from administrative
thing. It's sort of like, okay, we call
our teachers and do our thing, but
everybody can expound on that or have further
thoughts or can add to that question or
concern or or how do you approach it
as a Sunday school person,
as far as what you do? Martha, go
ahead. Hi guys.
Hi.
I've been before I got called to be
gospel doctrine teachers is in January.
I actually watched your podcast with Dan Duckworth
on creating a transformational Sunday school. Yeah. And
I was grateful for the calling because then
I was able to implement a lot of
the things I learned on that podcast. So
yeah, that's why I'm here too. But I'm
grateful for the time that I could be
here this morning.
It's 08:00 for us here. So, yeah, I
thought I'd jump in.
08:00 in the morning. Is that right? Yeah.
Yeah. Nice. Tomorrow. Nice.
Very cool. Anybody else wanna speak to that
as far as why you're here? Yeah. Chris,
go ahead.
Yeah. So, yeah, I think you know that,
my wife and I are missionaries in the
12 step addiction recovery program, and we need
a couple of meeting on Thursday nights. And,
my goal is to have church like a
12 step meeting. I mean, that's
that that would be for me, like, the
perfect world. So tell me more. What what
do you mean by that? Well, if people
came to church
willing to share their gospel experiences.
So in a Sunday school class and I've
I've been I called a gospel doctrine class
for a couple years, two, three years. And
then, it was called to be Sunday school
president the first of the year.
And
the first thing
we did in January
is we had a teacher council meeting
for all the teachers. Anyone called as the
teacher
in our ward,
including
elders quorum and Relief Society
presidency, primary presidency,
and,
the Bishop Brook. So we had a teacher
council meeting outside
of the two hours,
two hour block,
and we had about 31
or 32 people in that meeting and chairs
in a circle.
And we just had a great
hour long discussion
about teaching and what we would like it
to look like as a ward.
And the consensus is we want people to
come and share their experiences with whatever they're
reading, whether it's the scriptures for Sunday school,
whether it's a conference doc, railroads quorum or
relief society.
And the consensus is once again,
that the so called teachers
in our ward are
better called facilitators
as opposed to teachers.
So we come prepared
having studied,
but we are there to facilitate
discussion above all else.
And, it's been really, it's been good and
it's been powerful and,
we have some great, great teachers on the
award. We're really blessed that way. Yeah. I'm
curious just putting out the teacher council meetings.
Is that something
I'm curious of how that's going. Is that
going well? Does anybody feel like they have
that dialed in or you have a good
cadence with the teacher council meetings?
Yeah. Terry, go ahead. We've struggled
with getting people to set aside the time
for a teacher council meeting.
We've tried to hold them on Sunday nights
or the third hour
after the block, things like that. But generally
it's a struggle to get people to sit
together.
Chris, I'm jealous that you could get 30
people in a room to talk about teaching.
Yeah. And that's,
Chris, I'm curious. What what's the, setup of
your teacher council meeting? How do you how
do you go about that? Well, look, the
first one we had in January is because,
you know, we were newly called Sunday school
presidency and I had the
really good support from the district brick and
it's from our first counselor who's, you know,
over the Sunday school and the teaching of
the ward.
Since then, last month, we had another series
of teacher council meetings during the second hour.
So one week we did elder corpsman and
real society teacher.
The next week we've been Sunday school teachers,
the next week we actually had a teacher
council meeting for the primary teachers.
And in each of those we invited the
presidencies
of each organization
to attend
And once again,
most of that was spent in discussion.
How's it going? What support do you need?
What's working? What's not working?
You know, just really how's it going? Do
you feel that people in your classes are
coming prepared that they read the conference talks?
Have they read the, like, come follow me
on section of the doctrine covenants for this
week?
And how do we, how do we encourage
people to do that? That's really the big
question is how do we
enhance home study?
Right. DJ, were you going to say something?
Yes. So similar to what other people have
said, we hold it during second hour, but
there are two principles that are really important.
Number one, in the handbook, it says that
the board council actually
should be setting the topics for those. And
so we get the board council involved in
determining what the topics are gonna be for
those. And the second so that also, by
default, gets buy in from the presidencies of
the organizations where these teachers reside. And then
the second thing we do is we just
make it sort of an expectation. It's like
on this Sunday,
this is the when you're gonna have teacher
council. And so we'll get substitutes to come
in for all the primary teachers. They know
what's happening, and they just know they're supposed
to go there. And the same thing with
the instructors for the other courses. If we
have to hold on on a Sunday when
they're supposed to teach, we'll get a substitute.
If not, we just make it clear that
they're expected to be there. And when you
when you have the council the way that
it's supposed to be, when it's a true
council, when people are can put in their
2¢
and,
we actually learn from each other, We find
that people want to do it. They can't
wait a quarter for another one. They keep
asking to do it, you know, more regularly
than once a quarter. Yeah. I appreciate that.
You know, the true council, like Jared says
in the comments here, in the chat, my
I experienced with teacher council meetings that most
of our ward members do not want to
attend if it is second hour. And it
also seems more like a lecture style with
the Sunday school presidency teaching a lesson rather
than counseling together. Right? That's sometimes we can
make the teacher council experience a terrible learning
environment.
We're trying to stimulate a positive learning environment.
Right? So I appreciate that, like, keeping it
really council where you're talking and sharing ideas
and perspectives, and and maybe there's a little
bit debate in there, you know, stimulating revelation.
DJ, I am curious to kind of a
follow-up, a really helpful insight of, you know,
the word council should be setting the topics
there. I'm just curious, like, what are some
of those typical topics that maybe become for
the word council? And, and is that something
maybe the, are you the Sunday school president
in your board? Is that I'm the state
Sunday school president now. But when I'm talking
about my experience in the bishopric,
when we kind of focused on Sunday school.
Yeah. So what were some of the topics
that would come up and do you you
would just someone just bring that up in
word council meeting and to determine what topics
the teacher council meetings could be? Or Yeah.
So we'd we'd have the executive secretary, you
know, send out a little note that says,
hey. Here the here what we're gonna talk
about at word council, and one of the
items would be potential
topics
for the round not roundtable,
the teacher council. Right? And so they would
then go to their folks and ask. So
some of the things that come up are
how to get students to not just be
playing on their cell phones, how to do
engagement. Right? Because it also especially with teenagers,
you know, it's it's kinda hard to tell
what they're doing. With the primary,
sometimes it was are very good questions. Like,
if they're studying this at home with their
parents,
like, it feels redundant for us to cover
this when they come in because they seem
to already know all the answers and the
stories. Right? And so those are legitimate concerns
that people have. And as they bring those
legitimate concerns to their presidencies and those get
passed along, and we we hit their topics,
then people start really want to go to
these things. Right? We also use Slido. I
don't know if you've ever heard of that,
but anything that lets people submit anonymous questions
that you can then address. Now people definitely
wanna hear their questions answered. And sometimes the
questions that they put on there, they they
wouldn't have the courage to ask in person,
but they're genuine and sincere
questions or concerns that they have. And when
we see that these things get addressed, they
want to come to these meetings when they
are what they're designed to be. Yeah. That's
a great point that I mean, just like
Sunday school, I mean, any, I guess, gathering
is that if people come knowing they're expecting
a high value experience or covering topics that
are actually relevant and applicable to either calling.
I mean, like, you know, Jared said, sometimes
they don't even wanna come because it's like,
well, you know, I'd maybe rather go to
elders quorum or or Sunday school or whatever,
or I wanna see this friend or that
friend. But it's like, I actually, this is
a great value. I'm gonna make sure I
I don't miss this. That's great. Jeff, did
you have a question or comment? What I
was interested
I just figured out how to get my
picture on, so I wasn't able to say
what I'm interested in in handing out today.
It kinda fits in here. I'm new into
the, as a counselor into a state, into
a presidency
in my ward and
we're doing the teacher,
teacher councils,
but recently I've been asked to do the
parent councils. I'm just curious if anybody else
is doing the parent councils
And, we had our first quarterly
parent council,
but the feedback from it was I'm in
the transition of going from teaching mode to
facilitating, right, and learning that. So
the feedback that came back is, holy mackerel,
it seems like a long time between quarters
for a parent councilor. And so the bishopric
and the the ward council has kinda come
back and said, hey, maybe we could run
these more often. Now, I worry a little
bit that it takes away from the other
classes that people want to go to. Right?
Mhmm. But they're going to have them now
monthly for at least a period to where
people get to know each other and feel
comfortable. That's what I just wondered if anybody
else was working with the parent councils
that suggested for us to have and how
they found success in that or what the
issues might be that I can kind of
shorten the learning curve. Awesome. I'll just hear
some Parent councils. And, Chris, I don't know
if if yours is related to that or
if you wanna add we can come back
to this or whatever. I'll I'll make sure
we come back to this. It's if it's
not about No. I didn't. It wasn't related
to what Jeff just shared, but I was
just gonna bring up I don't know how
many of
our teachers,
and this one include the other's warm, little
exciting, and primary,
have read the introduction of the come follow
me manual this year. Because on page one
and page three
are awesome
explanations
of what teaching looks like in the church
now.
And, that's kind of what we based our
teacher council meetings on
is what it said in come follow me
manual. So just a suggestion. I don't I
don't know how many people have even looked
at it, but it's it's great stuff.
Yeah. I love that. And that's a easy
way to kinda keep the discussion grounded or
focused of of starting every teacher council meeting.
Like, hey. Let's review those pages at the
beginning of the come follow me manual and
remind ourselves, you know, just exactly what we're
trying to do. Right? Any other thoughts on
parent council meetings and I assume does the
handbook mentioned those or is that
an outgrowth of something, a different tradition? It's
there.
Cool. Anybody else, attempting the parent council meetings
that essentially, as I understand them, these are,
you know, those who are parents to teenagers
or younger that it's an opportunity to say,
hey. Why don't we get together and talk
about teaching in the home? Kind of a
teacher council meeting, but for for those that
are teaching in the home. Matt, go ahead.
Yeah. We've tried to do we've tried to
encourage our stake to do it. And I've
kind of been on the soapbox of trying
to do it. And then one of our
we've had a couple of stakes do it
because I think it felt like we're at
a point where as we've gone to this
third hour process to we when we've removed
this third hour, if you listen to Elder
Cook's talk when he initially talked about this,
it wasn't that the third hour goes away.
It's that it's not done in home, that
it's done in home. And what it's turned
into is it turns into you get it
and you can see
a drop in gospel
knowledge and participation.
Before I was in when it before in
my I was in my state calling, I
was at at Deacon's Quorum advisor
and you could see a massive change
and a lack of it was such a
huge
learning curve going from
second, going from the previous model where it
was a third hour that where the children,
the primary kids had a full hour of
teaching and now they're go to maybe twenty
minutes
of lesson and then when they go from
a they go in and they're also not
even 12, they're not 12, they're like 11
and they come into are expected to go
into Sunday school in young men's or in
young women's where you're there for an hour
and in some instances you're supposed to participate.
And so there's been a lot of learning
curve on that. And so we've tried to
work with our primary and with our and
our youth to try and make that transition
because it's a really hard transition
between those in that space.
That's great. Really helpful. Anybody else? Any other
thoughts on parent council meetings, or do you
have maybe a different topic? DJ just put
a posted a great link to the church
news about teacher council meetings for parents written
by the Sunday
or the yeah. The Sunday school general presidency.
So that's great. Matt, go ahead. Yeah. I
feel I feel it's hard sometimes it's hard
to get past the idea the model of,
I was in a previous ward. I was
the Sunday school president and that ward was
very pro. As a Sunday school president, you're
in charge of teaching in the entire throughout
the organization
and you're like, I would even go to
I was going into every meeting and all
of the in getting at, but it's hard
to get past this idea of there tends
to be a little bit of a, I
don't know, a downgrade of thought of Sunday
school where it's not into my mind, I
feel like Sunday school is one of the
most, one of the most important parts of
the block, but it tends to
not get promoted as well and to be
hyped up as well as it should be.
And it's hard to get sometimes get stakes
and boards pass that mindset of
of, you know, you're as a Sunday school
president, you're
the your glorified bell ringer, you know, you're
making sure that you're making sure the trains
run on time, not gonna stop,
and trying to really understand how you can
level up your teaching.
Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting
dynamic that we face is that, you know,
that time we have at churches
is limited
and everyone kinda wants a piece of it.
Right? Obviously, the sacrament,
they're not gonna cancel that or, you know,
rotate that through as needed, but that's, paramount.
But, you know, that second hour is sort
of like and you see with fifth Sundays
of, like, you know, suddenly,
maybe the family history committee. Oh, we wanna
do a family history class during the second
hour. Right? And then, you know, these teacher
council meetings. And, again, I think it emphasized
just the importance of that in home
study where, you know, like, was it,
I forget exactly who said it, but it's
like, you know, maybe
these parent council meetings aren't they're needed, but
then once a quarter just seems like too
few. Right? And
what if you had did it more often
knowing that at home,
that learning experience has been accentuated
then even better. Right? But then it's just
tricky with that second hour that somebody kind
of are battling for the focus and yes,
Sunday school should be a focus and then
it's every other week and then it gets
tricky. So, Brent, go ahead. Yeah. It's an
interesting one. In our ward, we've got a
100 people attending and 700 people who don't
feel welcome to attend for one reason reason
or another. So big numbers of less active.
And I did get a question from
the primary president about parents. Is there a
way to get the kids to be more
prepared
to for when they're in class? She said,
quote air quotes, it would make my job
easier if they arrived prepared.
And I about came uncorked a little bit.
Cause I was just so grateful that those
primary kids were there. And I have a
feeling in some of those cases, it's the
only gospel instruction they get. So I kind
of savored that they were there and we're
getting to get some gospel instruction
rather than maybe the ideal
of they're holding family home evenings seven nights
a week
and, sending their kids church prepared so it
makes Sunday school president or the, primary president's
job easier. So it's an interesting thing. From
the Sunday school president role, I've been working
with people to make sure to teach your
lesson around just a little nugget that they
can take home and have a discussion with
their family
around the dinner table or maybe with their
family members that are not attending church.
So a really memorable little nugget.
And
instead of what did you learn at Sunday
school and whether it's a youth or an
adult and they say, I don't know. We
just talked about a bunch of stuff today.
Get a little nugget so our, our
teaching at church can also carry back home,
but I haven't figured out a way to
get it to go from home and come
back and make a primary president's job easier.
So Mhmm. That's my 2¢.
Interesting.
Jeff, would would you like that? Yeah. I
I don't wanna keep going back to the
parenting councils if No. You're good. That's fine.
But and I appreciate that link that was
sent. I haven't read it. I can't multitask
like that, but I will read it and
definitely probably gain from that. But when I
was first given this assignment, I called up
to our state person and I said, hey.
Is there any wards in the state that
are doing this? Because it is a secondary
thing. We put a lot of focus on
the teacher councils
at the ward, but the parent council, I
hadn't heard much about. And he said, oh,
yeah. Matter of fact, this Friday, they're having
one over at our ward in another part
of our state. So I went and I
visited that and they did meet on a
monthly basis.
And it was, you know, kind of young
parents with all the same issues of raising
kids and things like that, and yet they
made it into almost a date night
type thing. And so it was I thought
that was really good. I didn't know. I
went back to the the handbook, and I
didn't really see where it, might say something
in this article, but I didn't really see
where it encouraged it on a non Sunday.
But for these people, it was looked at
as something exciting. They even had the kids
in the, all the kids came and were
playing in the in the gym and everything
while they had this lesson or this not
lesson, but this sharing time
on what sort of issues were going on.
But I really thought that that was really
cool, that they were having it on monthly.
It was the same group. People could get
added to as they moved into the ward
or as they decided they wanted to do
or heard good things about it. So there
was no restrictions on it, but it was
a group of people that really got together
as friends and as kind of co parents
with the same sorts of issues.
So, I don't know if any I was
coming to see if any of you had
had experience,
you know, with the parent council and I
do see the benefits of it. But like
you said earlier, one more thing on the
Sunday
to take people away from other things that
are just, you know, important as well. I
wasn't sure that, you know, that was the
route. And then the feedback from the bishop
to have it more often, I was kind
of surprised at that because it's suggested quarterly.
But you can imagine that teachers getting together
quarterly is fine because, yeah, it gives you
a chance to overview the the issues of
the thing. But parents,
you know, and knowing one another and having
some sort of energy of the whole group,
it is pretty hard to go, you know,
every three months and kinda oh, yeah. Now
who are you? That sort of thing. It's
you never seem to get to know people.
Yeah. And and definitely parents are you know,
in best case scenario, they're they're teaching the
gospel in the home every day, maybe or
at least every week where, you know, a
gospel doctrine or, elders quorum teachers, you know,
maybe in a quarter, maybe they only teach
twice if that. Right. And I love this
concept of just, you know, creating something outside
the Sunday block. That's there as a resource.
And cause I I'm sure there's many parents
who think, you know what? I'm feel pretty
good about pretty confident about what I'm doing
in my home, or I don't necessarily need
that. And that's okay. Right. But those who
feel like I could really use that and
it's more of a social function and maybe
more, a little more casual. There's there might
be a reason to go that route. So
I appreciate that. That thought DJ, go ahead.
I just wanted to say that our we've
had some success with those simply because people
have opened up and like, kind of gotten
rid of this misconception
that
everybody else is just sitting there holding hands
singing Kumbaya
and having this wonderful time. And then people
share the like, yeah. It's like, it's a
constant fight to get my kids to stop
messing with stuff, you know, toys that they
brought or just to pay attention. And one
of the things that I shared that really
hit me hard when I when I figured
it out is about a year ago.
Hey. Thanks for listening to this episode. We're
actually gonna cut it short a little bit.
If you wanna listen to the entirety of
this conversation,
head on over to the leading saints community.
You can, find the link in the show
notes and you can watch the extended cut
there, and I think you'll benefit from it.
So come join us over at the leading
saints community.
It came as a result of the position
of leadership, which was imposed upon us
by the God of heaven, who brought forth
a restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When the declaration
was made concerning the only
true and living Church upon the face of
the earth,
We were immediately put in a position of
loneliness,
the loneliness
of leadership
from which we cannot shrink nor run away,
and to which we must face up with
boldness and courage
and ability.