Scott Taylor: Putting the ‘you’ in youth and other ‘Come, Follow Me’ efforts

Sunday School and Primary class discussions are based on personal study of the Book of Mormon and the “Come, Follow Me” curriculum along with insights and learnings shared by class members. Those are the key components — the meat and potatoes, so to speak, of a Sunday second-hour spiritual meal.

But appropriate additional resources — including those suggested in the curriculum and others available through Church channels — can provide some side dishes and seasoning to that meal.

In our Provo, Utah, ward this year, we’ve supplemented or followed discussions with a variety of resources and activities — from making paper crowns to listening to songs from the rising generation.

For a discussion on Jacob 5, we viewed the “Jacob Teaches the Allegory of the Olive Tree” Book of Mormon Videos episode, pausing repeatedly for additional explanations from the Church’s institute manual for Book of Mormon classes. We added in teachings on Jacob 5 from President Russell M. Nelson that he taught as an Apostle at a 2013 gathering of mission leaders in the North America Southwest Area, when my wife and I led the Arizona Phoenix Mission.

To highlight King Benjamin (Mosiah 1-5), we replicated an activity from a granddaughter’s Primary class via “Ideas for Teaching Children” in “Come, Follow Me.” After our class discussion, we helped the adults fashion bejeweled paper crowns, which they inscribed with key words from King Benjamin’s teachings and life of service.

For a discussion on avoiding deceptive and false teachings, such as those from anti-Christs like Korihor (Alma 30) and Zoram, we shared teachings and video clips from Elder David A. Bednar’s “That Ye May Believe” devotionals at the Salt Lake Institute and at BYU–Idaho. We underscored his statement of “I believe it is unreasonable to claim that faith in Jesus Christ is unreasonable” and his shared 10 doctrine truths on the latter-day Restoration of the Lord’s gospel and Church.

Some 25 of our returned missionaries accepted the invitation to show up unannounced during our class discussion on Alma and the four sons of Mosiah reuniting after the latter’s 14 years of preaching to the Lamanites (Alma 17-26). The returned missionaries and their young families walked in and surprised my wife, Cheryl, while she spoke about tender feelings felt at the reunions of loved ones after lengthy separations.

Perhaps most powerfully, we’ve used music to reach, teach, encourage and reinforce. To conclude a discussion on prayer, we invited the ward’s Primary children in to sing “A Child’s Prayer.” And I’ve twice enlisted our oldest son — an engaging, guitar-playing Primary chorister in his Washington ward — to share children’s songs. During his first visit to our class, for a discussion on the Atonement of Jesus Christ, he played and sang a song titled “The Miracle”; for a second, subsequent visit, he played and sang another called “Liken the Scriptures.”

Most recently, we invited the ward youth in for a discussion on Helaman and his 2,000 young warriors (Alma 53-58), and we first watched the Church’s recently released 19-minute “Helaman’s Stripling Soldiers Fight for Freedom” Book of Mormon Videos episode. After our discussion, the youth sang the Primary song “We’ll Bring the World His Truth (Army of Helaman).”

We discussed the youth of today and their “battles” as well as what the song conveys, similar to the Book of Mormon account — the faith of their parents, their own faith, their commitments and their covenants.

We returned to the song, this time the adults singing to the youth. We changed the lyrics’ uses of “we” and “our” to “you” and “your” in a musical message of the adults’ faith and hope in and commitment to the rising generation.

It went like this, with changes in bold.

“You’ll Bring the World His Truth”

Chorus:

(Repeat chorus)

(Repeat chorus)

It made for meat and potatoes, side dishes and seasoning — sprinkled with some tears.

— Scott Taylor is a Church News managing editor.