Working out which lesson we are meant to be at

Discussions about the Lesson Schedules Tool
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marioadsouza
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Working out which lesson we are meant to be at

#1

Post by marioadsouza »

I am a Stake Sunday School President. I would please like to know how to work out which lesson the wards should be at. I always thought that there was a fixed universal schedule that the church world wide stuck to, and if there was ever an event the lesson would simply be skipped. However, one of our teachers advised that this may not be the case, and apparently some schedule has to be set which will chance from ward to ward depending on events such as conferences that come up. Could you please clarify in detail how this works as I have no idea. I really appreciate your help with this. Thank you. - Mario
marioadsouza
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Re: Working out which lesson we are meant to be at

#2

Post by marioadsouza »

Upon reading the Lesson Schedules How-to Guide, I can see that wards set their own schedule and postpone lessons when they have conference etc. The only other question I now have is: I want to train ward sunday school presidents on setting up the schedule for the wards. What level of access do I have to the scheduler from my account? Can i setup schedules for the wards? if not who should? Please advise.
russellhltn
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Re: Working out which lesson we are meant to be at

#3

Post by russellhltn »

I'd suggest reading the Help files. Specifically, Rights and Roles.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
kisaac
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Re: Working out which lesson we are meant to be at

#4

Post by kisaac »

Because it is a Ward level tool, I would guess you will find that as the STAKE Sunday school president, you have limited or no online rights or abilities for the lesson schedules tool, and thus no ability to set up schedules for wards who won't do it themselves, or enforce synchronization with your stake schedule, should you desire to have one.

some stake leaders can actually administer the schedules of their own Ward "for training purposes" but it would surprise me if a stake SS pres actually could do so. The help files suggest your Ward could call you as a Ward website admin which would give you that ability.

lesson Schedules is not available at the stake level, but stake leaders and clerks have administrative rights for their own ward so that they can learn how the application works and provide training and support to ward administrators.
russellhltn
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Re: Working out which lesson we are meant to be at

#5

Post by russellhltn »

kisaac wrote:The help files suggest your Ward could call you as a Ward website admin which would give you that ability.
Which in my opinion is a poor solution since it grants admin rights to a number of other tools.

And note that it would give you access to that one ward's schedule - but not to other wards. And you'd appear to everyone as the "ward website administrator" and probably start coming to you with various questions.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
mevans
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Re: Working out which lesson we are meant to be at

#6

Post by mevans »

As someone mentioned previously, some stakes try to dictate a schedule, such as you suggest, but that would have been at a stake level, not church-wide. The only church-wide mandate is the particular course of study. From my understanding, the Sunday School lesson schedules are really up to the ward. The youth curriculum does dictate a monthly theme, which is observed church-wide.
marioadsouza wrote:I always thought that there was a fixed universal schedule that the church world wide stuck to, and if there was ever an event the lesson would simply be skipped.
Your comment makes me think of the 2nd and 3rd Sunday curriculum for Priesthood and Relief Society. When the "prophet" series was introduced, I have some recollection that we were told the schedule was set church-wide and we were supposed to skip lessons, as you indicate. Even if that was true in the past, reading the handbook, it is not true now. The handbook says that "Lessons are generally taught in the order they are presented in the manual and on the same Sunday they are taught in Relief Society meeting." (7.8.1)

With regard to your desire to help the ward Sunday School presidencies better use the Lesson Schedules tool: If you are not a stake leader who has access, you might enlist the help of the stake clerk (or assistant clerk), since they should have access to their ward's lesson schedule tool so they can become familiar with it. One area where clerks can help the ward/stake organizations is with technology.
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johnshaw
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Re: Working out which lesson we are meant to be at

#7

Post by johnshaw »

The current Sunday School Curriculum is often challenging anyway because there are more lessons than can be taught nearly every year. So when I'm in a position to influence either as a SS president or sitting on Ward Council I always encouraged that the adults, at least, have a solid schedule to draw from so every week we knew what the lessons were for RS, P, SS whatever (when the youth curriculum was aligned with Adults it was even more helpful to know that all classes taught the same thing in the ward each week - to encourage discussion at home) - It is NOT important that each ward/stake throughout the world teach the same thing on the same day.

If you miss a lesson for some reason (Bishop wants to address something, boundary reorg) just move on, skip the lesson and keep going.
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense
lajackson
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Re: Working out which lesson we are meant to be at

#8

Post by lajackson »

mevans wrote:Your comment makes me think of the 2nd and 3rd Sunday curriculum for Priesthood and Relief Society. When the "prophet" series was introduced, I have some recollection that we were told the schedule was set church-wide and we were supposed to skip lessons, as you indicate. Even if that was true in the past, reading the handbook, it is not true now.
Close. In the original curriculum instructions, the stake was to set the schedule of lessons for the 2nd and 3rd Sunday. This specific assignment is no longer in the curriculum instructions. However, because one of the purposes of the curriculum change was that couples would be able to discuss their lessons together at home, it is still wise for the ward, at the very least, to see that the same lesson from Teachings of Presidents of the Church is taught in ward priesthood and Relief Society meetings each 2nd and 3rd Sunday. Some stakes still provide guidance in this area.

There is still one curriculum area where the stake is assigned to direct if desired. From the beginning of the current curriculum program and continuing today, the current curriculum instructions still say that stake presidents may choose which conference addresses should be used on the 4th Sunday (Teachings for Our Times), or they may assign bishops to select the addresses.
kisaac
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Re: Working out which lesson we are meant to be at

#9

Post by kisaac »

marioadsouza wrote:which lesson the wards should be at
this is really the ultimate question for me as well, but for two purely selfish reasons.
  • I want to know what lessons will be taught this coming Sunday so I may prepare/study personally
  • I want to have our priesthood lessons match my wife's RS lesson for second - fourth Sunday's so that we may have the option to Study together in advance, or discuss the topic after the lesson at dinner, or at FHE, or personal study.
If my stake Sunday School president helps my Ward leaders accomplish these two goals for me in ANY WAY, I'm grateful. It really is all about me and my family, and it's the "home correlation" of lessons -at the family level, that is valuable to me.

And honestly, I' m not organized enough to keep track of lessons when I'm out of town for multiple Sunday's...did I leave that bookmark home in my scriptures again? Having an online schedule is wonderful.
I think an update to Lesson Schedules will help adoption....
"A soft answer turneth away wrath" works great on LDSTech forum boards!
kisaac
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Re: Working out which lesson we are meant to be at

#10

Post by kisaac »

I just made this post File: introducing leaders to lesson schedules to share a file I made last year to introduce our stake and ward leaders to Lesson Schedules. Hope it helps someone. It would fork this thread if I put it here.
Sorry if you need another language....
"A soft answer turneth away wrath" works great on LDSTech forum boards!
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