Church Lesson schedule guidelines

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kwjamison
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Church Lesson schedule guidelines

#1

Post by kwjamison »

My understanding is that the Church would like similar gospel doctrine schedules across North America. So that someone traveling gets the next lesson no matter where they are. My understanding is that when you come to a stake conference, you should skip to the next lesson. At the end of the year you would make up to two lessons skipped.

There would be no reason to skip to the next lesson at General Conference, since all wards are watching General Conferences on the same weeks. Although I have heard this policy quoted, I can't find it anywhere. Am I correct?
eblood66
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Re: Church Lesson schedule guidelines

#2

Post by eblood66 »

kwjamison wrote:My understanding is that the Church would like similar gospel doctrine schedules across North America. So that someone traveling gets the next lesson no matter where they are. My understanding is that when you come to a stake conference, you should skip to the next lesson. At the end of the year you would make up to two lessons skipped.

There would be no reason to skip to the next lesson at General Conference, since all wards are watching General Conferences on the same weeks. Although I have heard this policy quoted, I can't find it anywhere. Am I correct?
Although I've heard a few others say similar things, I've never seen such a policy myself. If such a policy existed I would expect it to be mentioned in either the Instructions for Curriculum 2014 or in Handbook 2 in the Sunday School, Melchizedek Priesthood and/or Relief Society sections. I can't find anything in either source.
jdlessley
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Re: Church Lesson schedule guidelines

#3

Post by jdlessley »

Actually eblood66 your references provide the pattern to be followed for Sunday lessons. The Instructions for Curriculum 2014 provides the references in Handbook 2. For example the pattern for Melchizedek Priesthood lessons is found in 7.8.1. The pattern stated in 7.8.1 for lessons taught from the manual are generally to be taught in order. This instruction does not correspond to the pattern described by kwjamison.
JD Lessley
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eblood66
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Re: Church Lesson schedule guidelines

#4

Post by eblood66 »

jdlessley wrote:Actually eblood66 your references provide the pattern to be followed for Sunday lessons. The Instructions for Curriculum 2014 provides the references in Handbook 2. For example the pattern for Melchizedek Priesthood lessons is found in 7.8.1. The pattern stated in 7.8.1 for lessons taught from the manual are generally to be taught in order. This instruction does not correspond to the pattern described by kwjamison.
That's pretty much what I meant. Those references do not support the policy kwjamison describes and if there were such a policy I would expect find it in one of those places.
scgallafent
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Re: Church Lesson schedule guidelines

#5

Post by scgallafent »

Also, not all wards watch General Conference on the same weeks. Some areas in the Pacific will watch conference a week later because of the time zone differences. The Saturday morning session of October General Conference starts at 3:00 AM Sunday morning in Sydney, Australia. I don't know if some areas have shifted their habits now that video is available almost immediately, but many areas used to watch the conference a week later because of the time difference.
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aebrown
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Re: Church Lesson schedule guidelines

#6

Post by aebrown »

To make it even trickier to standardize lesson schedules, the TPC: Joseph Fielding Smith manual has 26 lessons, when the standard pattern of 2nd and 3rd Sundays would obviously only need 24 lessons.

My stake presidency decided to combine two pairs of lessons to resolve that difficulty, but their solution will hardly be standard across the Church. At least it will be standard across our stake, which is the more important issue.
lajackson
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Re: Church Lesson schedule guidelines

#7

Post by lajackson »

aebrown wrote:At least it will be standard across our stake, which is the more important issue.
It is my understanding that this was the objective since the beginning of the use of Teachings of Presidents of the Church. The stake sets the schedule so that everyone in the stake is on the same schedule, with the ultimate objective that a husband and wife will have been taught the same topic at Church and be able to discuss it with each other when they are home.
jasonhyer
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Re: Church Lesson schedule guidelines

#8

Post by jasonhyer »

lajackson wrote:The stake sets the schedule so that everyone in the stake is on the same schedule, with the ultimate objective that a husband and wife will have been taught the same topic at Church and be able to discuss it with each other when they are home.
Gosh, what a novel idea. Wouldn't it be even easier if the Stake had rights to then to set up the schedule at the stake level and then the wards would then only have to set up the weeks that the Stake didn't enter. :p And then there wouldn't be confusion in the stake on what week which lesson should be taught...

But alas, if you look at the history on the topic it wasn't deemed very important for the stake to have that ability. *sigh*
drepouille
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Re: Church Lesson schedule guidelines

#9

Post by drepouille »

On the old LUWS I set the lesson schedule at the stake level, and the wards and branches promptly ignored it.
Dana Repouille, Plattsmouth, Nebraska
jasonhyer
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Re: Church Lesson schedule guidelines

#10

Post by jasonhyer »

But at least they would be able to see the lesson and then choose to ignore it.
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