A little more than a year ago, the Lord’s Prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, issued a special invitation to the youth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
President Nelson promised this invitation would help youth solve problems in their lives, make decisions and find answers to their questions. It will also help them feel a sense of belonging, deepen their conversion to Jesus Christ and His gospel, and find guidance and direction from the Holy Ghost in their lives.
His invitation? To regularly attend and participate in seminary.
“Seminary will help you … take responsibility for strengthening your own testimony, and your faith can become rock solid,” he promised.
Seminary enrollments have been increasing, and nearly 57% of Latter-day Saint youth participate in seminary — the highest ever percentage in the Church.
In an effort to further strengthen the relevance and impact of seminary, the First Presidency approved changes to the curriculum in 2024 which adds life resource lessons to the weekly instruction happening in seminary.
Brother Chad H Webb, the administrator for Seminaries and Institutes of Religion, said he hopes these new life preparation lessons — being implemented globally this January — will help students continue to experience the “remarkable blessings” promised by President Nelson.
“We believe these lessons will complement the effort to help youth realize these and other promised spiritual and temporal blessings,” Brother Webb said.
About seminary life preparation lessons
Brother Webb, who also serves as first counselor in the Sunday School general presidency, introduced the lessons during a training broadcast last January.
It is recommended, he said, that these new thematic lessons to seminary curriculum be implemented one to two times each week. The lessons are focused on topics such as mission, temple and educational preparation; scripture study skills; emotional resilience; life skills; and teachings of latter-day prophets.
Brother Webb also explained the impetus behind the changes.
A few years ago, he said, seminary administrators were in discussions with the Missionary Department about how seminary could help prepare future missionaries, with the Temple Department about helping first-time temple attendees, and with Welfare and Self-Reliance Department about helping increase emotional resilience.
“Like tributaries flowing into a river, many ideas were coming together, which all seem to be pointing us in a similar direction,” Brother Webb said.
Seminary is also in a unique position within its history. Since aligning curriculum with the “Come, Follow Me” schedule, seminary is also teaching the same book of scripture as families and other Church classes.
“This made us wonder if we might be able to free up some of our valuable time to directly address specific topics within the context of our study of the scriptures,” Brother Webb said.
By combining seminary’s “long and cherished history” of sequential scripture teaching with thematic or topical scripture study, “we hope to unlock a spiritual reservoir unlike any we have seen before,” Brother Webb said.
In an interview with the Church News in December 2024, Elder Clark G. Gilbert, a General Authority Seventy and the Church’s commissioner of education, assured that the new curriculum does not replace the scriptural foundation of seminary. He also shared his excitement for the curriculum.
“Just imagine every youth in this entire Church getting trained on how to involve the Lord in their education, getting training on emotional resilience and how to work through anxiety and depression, and how to help a friend who’s going through that, and how to prepare for the temple,” Elder Gilbert said.
Unique challenges facing youth
In a video introducing the new curriculum to seminary students, which will be released globally on Jan. 6, youth from locations around the world share some of the things worrying them.
One young woman shared her family’s mental health problems. A young man spoke of his concern about what would happen after his mission — what he would choose regarding a job, college or major. Another young woman spoke of struggling in school, especially math, while another related how stressful it is to try to keep her place on a school sport’s team.
Standing outside a seminary building, flanked by high-rise buildings, one young man said, “A bit of a worry for me is that I’m not really going to be good enough, or that I’m not going to live up to what I think the Lord’s expectations are.”
In a recent Church News podcast, Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles noted that a unique challenge facing today’s youth is distraction.
“There is so much at their fingertips, literally and figuratively, that can draw their attention,” Elder Christofferson said. With such “a cacophony of voices around them” youth today must learn to intentionally find time to be with God and hear His voice.
Among the noise, youth today are also told mistruths about marriage, gender, testimony, and other issues, added Elder Gilbert.
In a training broadcast to seminary and institute teachers last January, Elder Christofferson also spoke of the rise of clinical depression among teenagers globally, noting that Latter-day Saint youth are not immune.
“Church longitudinal studies of member youth showed that globally in 2018, 29% struggled with clinical levels of anxiety,” he reported.
Seminary instruction has the opportunity to “provide a counterweight to factors in society that contribute to the increasing levels of anxiety and depression,” Elder Christofferson said.
The new lessons aim to address the critical issues faced by youth today, Becky Scott, associate administrator of Seminaries and Institutes, told the Church News.
Scott noted that President Nelson has taught that “those who build their foundations upon Jesus Christ, and have learned how to draw upon His power, need not succumb to the unique anxieties of this era” (“The Temple and Your Spiritual Foundation,” October 2021 general conference).
Said Scott, “The ‘unique anxieties’ and increasingly complex struggles faced by today’s youth highlight the need for Christ-centered, scripture-based applications.”
The new lessons will help youth “navigate modern challenges with confidence and peace,” she said.
Response to the new life preparation lessons
The new lessons, initially piloted in select areas, experienced a limited release in January 2024 in the United States and Canada.
“Feedback from both teachers and students has been exceptionally positive,” Scott said. “The success of the limited release has sparked significant enthusiasm for the broader rollout in January 2025.”
In the Church News podcast interview, Elder Gilbert reported: “The youth just love it. One, they need these resources. They know these are going to help them. And two, they’re so confident when they realize their faith, their Church has something to teach them, to help them, in these areas that is unique and different from the world.”
In the video being released to seminary students, several students also shared their experiences with the lessons so far.
One young woman, dressed in her school uniform and with palm trees swaying in the background, shared how the new lessons have helped her share with her friends and loved ones about the things she’s going through. “It’s really helpful because they’ve known how to help me overcome those challenges that I face,” she said.
Another young woman, speaking in front of the carpeted walls inside a seminary building in North America, spoke of a lesson that stood out to her about developing health habits. During the lesson, another student raised his hand and said, “I feel like I’m doing everything right, but I look in the mirror and I’m just not pleased with myself and I’m not pleased with how I look. How can I get rid of this bad habit of looking in the mirror and not feeling satisfied?”
The young woman said she could relate to him because she also often feels insecure about her body. Another student raised her hand and “with so much love” admitted she struggled with that too but after learning about Heavenly Father’s love in seminary and church, “it just clicked to me that ‘You know what? If Heavenly Father or God can love me, then I can love myself too.’”
In his remarks during the broadcast last January, Elder Christofferson said he was excited — even intrigued — by the new thematic lessons for seminary. “To me, this seems like adding some extra fruit and a fresh ‘pinch’ of seasoning to the pie. It is going to be delicious,” he said. “With you, I am anxious to learn from this approach, and I rejoice in being able to provide something extra to those who make the effort and sacrifices to be in seminary.”
How to get involved
Parents and youth leaders can help register youth for seminary classes and monitor their youths’ experiences in seminary by visiting mySeminary.ChurchofJesusChrist.org or by downloading the mySeminary app, available for iOS and Android.
