My 15-step process for planning a Come Follow Me lesson

Step 1

I read the Come Follow Me manual. Full disclosure: this is wrong. If you came to this post looking for sage advice about how a good teacher would go about this, my lousy Step 1 is a good hint that you’re reading the wrong post. My co-teacher was shocked when he learned that I read the manual first. He always reads the sacred text first, directly from Doctrine and Covenants, so that the Spirit can speak to him through scripture before he is biased by reading somebody else’s interpretation in a manual. He makes an excellent argument and I decided that he is right but I still read the manual first. If you are wondering why, see Step 4.

 

Step 2

I read the other Come Follow Me manual. I teach Gospel Doctrine. There’s a manual for that but there’s also the Come Follow Me for Individuals and Families manual that covers the same scriptural text with a different lesson plan. Sometimes I find material that speaks to me in the other manual, so I read both.

 

Step 3

I read the relevant sections in Doctrine and Covenants.

 

Step 4

I hate it. Why did they think they had to make scriptures out of all this stuff? Did they really believe they had to canonize every mission call and every administrative rule and every reprimand of every person who got fingerprints on the church windows or whatever? And unlike the other scriptures in our canon, there is no storyline. A bunch of revelations (and mission calls and admin stuff and reprimands and blah blah blah) are presented in random order with no context using a highfalutin voice and fire and brimstone preaching style that went out of fashion over a century ago. On behalf of my generation, nineteenth century prose can be annoying.

 

Step 5

I give up.

 

Step 6

I try again. I go back and re-read the text, this time highlighting every phrase I see that could potentially have relevance to a modern church-goer who wants to think about how to be a better person.

 

Step 7

I copy all the scriptures I highlighted onto a fresh blank document. Now, I have a shorter, better version of the Doctrine and Covenants text. 100% inspiration! No admin! No fire and brimstone!

 

Step 8

I find the story narrative by placing the Doctrine and Covenants text into the context of history. The section header gives a good starting place: the location, date, and names of persons involved, but I need more.

Favorite sources:

• Revelations in Context
• Saints: Volume 1 and Volume 2
• Gospel Topics Essays
• Dialogue: a Journal of Mormon Thought
• Daughters in My Kingdom
• The Gospel Library app function to re-sort the Doctrine and Covenants sections into chronological order (Why didn’t they just number them chronologically in the first place?)

 

Step 9

I look for themes in the scriptures, the manuals and the history. Using cut and paste, I organize my notes and scriptures by theme under headers. Sometimes the headers look similar to those in the manual. Sometimes I go in a different direction.

 

Step 10

I fill in the blanks with other sources. I complement Doctrine and Covenants with other scriptures: the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price. In fact, many scriptures from Doctrine and Covenants allude to other books and can’t be fully understood without that context. I augment scriptures with quotes from church leaders, other church members and people of other faith traditions. I often use videos or music.

 

Step 11

I add discussion questions. The manual provides many, but I also add my own. I make sure there are frequent group discussion opportunities throughout the lesson.

 

Step 12

I share my lesson plan here at the Exponent. After all that work, I want my lesson plan to be useful to more people! I give myself a deadline to share the lesson plan well ahead of the scheduled teaching date.  That way,  more people will find it when they need it and I have an incentive to finish it early so I am not stressing myself out by procrastinating and trying to pull something together on my teaching day.

You can find my lesson plans, and lesson plans from other Exponent bloggers and guests, here: Come Follow Me Lesson Plans

Do you teach Come Follow Me? Return the favor and share your lesson plan with the Exponent community by uploading it here: Submit a Guest Post

 

Step 13

On the morning of my turn to teach, I meet with my co-teacher and compare notes. When the bishop called us to teach together, he expressed that he was envisioning that we would not simply take turns teaching separately, but that some sort of synergy would happen with both of us providing more than one perspective on the sacred text. We have found that the easiest way for us to do that is to treat ourselves like a panel or a podcast.  We study and prepare separately, and then convene. Sometimes we find that we both arrived at similar lesson plans.  Sometimes our notes have little overlap.  We decide who will lead which parts of the discussion based on who was more excited and inspired about what. Or Rock, Paper, Scissors.  Whatever works.

 

Step 14

We teach the class. When the other  teacher is leading the discussion, the co-teacher chimes in with his/her own thoughts, like an over-prepared student who likes to show off. Some of these interruptions are pre-planned: “I’ll lead the discussion of Section 12, but can you bring up that quote/cross reference/example you found?”

 

Step 15

With all that group discussion time planned in, the class doesn’t always look like our carefully prepared outlines. Sometimes the group seems bored, so we move on to something else quickly. Sometimes they get really excited about something and their comments fill up the time. Regardless of how much of the lesson plan we have covered, when time has elapsed, we stop. Right away. Done. No more. Have you heard the saying, “The Spirit goes to bed at midnight?” I don’t believe in that, but I do believe that the Spirit flees the classroom as soon as the hour is over. Get out of there and pick up your kids from Primary! Their teacher is tired.