Priesthood Lessons (47 in the JS manual)

[gamoody]

Thanks for clarifying.

[marianomarini]

Interesting forum. I always wonder why General Conference take place in the first sunday but Stake Conference. No means of General Authorities schedule because I attended several without them. Just a think.
Going back to the topical, the reason of 47 lesson may lay under Easter 2009 conflict.
In that year it will be the second sunday of the month.
Could be?

[russellhltn]

I always wonder why General Conference take place in the first sunday

It used to be the April Conference was the weekend closest to April 6th, the day the Church was organized. But now it seems to just be the first weekend in April. I guess the October conference is just to be 6 months from April.

Although there was a Conference not long ago that was moved a week so as to not conflict with the Olympics.

[jstephen-p40]

This has been discussed at some length on another thread. There a concept is discussed where stakes would set an initial schedule, and wards could then override any particular week's lesson. I think that would be ideal.

Also, I would disagree just a wee bit with your statement about 1st/4th/5th Sundays -- in particular, the 4th Sunday curriculum can be set by the stake president. See lds.org for details.

It is true that the Stake President could assign the 4th Sunday Lessons. But how many do? My point is that there is no consistency in the way the lessons are scheduled between wards and stakes in the church. Why try and force something that will not work? I do not want to put something into a schedule (I'm the Stake Clerk) that will be obsolete the minute I press 'Enter'.

[russellhltn]

It is true that the Stake President could assign the 4th Sunday Lessons. But how many do?

Ours does.

You can also enter "To be determined by PH/RS Presidency". OK, it would be nice to have the exact lesson, but at least the members know when to read the manual and what chapter to read. And it does coordinate who is in charge for a given Sunday.

[terrysackett]

Why are the priesthood and Relief Society lessons posted only at the stake level?

For at least the past two years, our stake didn't post them at all, and requests sent through the Web site to the stake administrator were ignored. Thankfully, this year we have a new stake executive secretary that has posted them.

One remaining problem however, is that the ten wards in my stake do not have ward conference on the same day, so the posted schedule is already off.

In addition, if the ward had control over posting the lessons, we could post exactly which conference talks the bishop has chosen for the fourth Sunday lesson, and we could post the subject of the bishopric's fifth Sunday combined lesson if the bishop wanted us to.

My main question is again, why are these required to be set on the stake level, and who would be the one to change that policy?

[aebrown]

Why are the priesthood and Relief Society lessons posted only at the stake level?
...
My main question is again, why are these required to be set on the stake level, and who would be the one to change that policy?

This has been discussed at some length on a couple of different threads. You even commented on one of those threads (see http://tech.lds.org/forum/showpost.php? ... stcount=20). I think there was a lot of good discussion on the topic.

It seems there is general agreement among the community of a better implementation. But some patience is required. LUWS 2.0 is being worked on, and it will be released when it is done. It sounds like a fairly major overhaul. I have seen no particular feature list, so I don't know if this particular feature will be implemented. But we have been told that suggestions posted on this forum are appreciated and will be considered.

By the way, posting lessons at the stake level isn't a matter of policy, but simply the implementation of LUWS 1.0. It was a reasonable first approach, but its limitations and inflexibility are obvious.

[lajackson]

When Teachings of Presidents of the Church first came out, to be used on the 2nd and 3rd Sundays of the month, the curriculum instructions at the time specified that the stake was to set the schedule for the lessons so that all units in the stake would be on the same schedule. The instructions also said that if a ward did not teach a lesson (i.e., ward conference), they should skip that lesson and stay on the schedule.

Under stake presidency direction, our executive secretary prepared the schedule for our stake and posted it to the LUWS.

The most recent curriculum instructions no longer specify that the stake makes the schedule, but it is a Melchizedek Priesthood function, along with the Relief Society, and our stake presidency has continued to schedule the lessons, having not received further direction from SL.

Gospel Doctrine classes, on the other hand, are the purview of the local unit. I believe this is why the LUWS was designed the way it was. The MP/RS schedule was, as least for the 2nd and 3rd Sundays, and the 4th, if the stake wishes, under stake direction.

Our stake has opted to let the bishops determine the 4th Sunday lesson. The 1st Sunday is determined by the individual quorum, group, or RS presidency, and the 5th is under bishopric direction.

[margiestroble]

Our Stake President told us NOT to skip ANY of the lessons in the manual. So, we adjust our 1st Sunday lessons and have the lesson that got missed because of General, Stake or Ward Conference, on a 1st Sunday so that we are learning what is in the manual that was prepared for our benefit.

It would be most helpful if all of the lesson schedules were able to be managed on the ward level and not on the stake level.

We want our members to use the webpages but if they don't find accurate information there, such as what lesson to study for what week, then they get discouraged and wonder why they should even look at it if it has wrong information posted.

Margie

[mkmurray]

So here we can see the need of Ward and/or Stake control of the lesson schedule...

For instance, our Stake has told us to keep to the outlined lessons each week, even if that means skipping a lesson until later in the year.