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MormonTimes.com: Craftsman adds reverent ambiance to more than 70 Mormon temples

What a blessing this man is to the Church! And what a blessing the Church is to this man.

One of the things I love about the gospel and the Church is the many opportunities we are given to develop and use our talents. Most members learn to give talks and teach and use other abilities they never dreamed they have.

Unfortunately all too often the people develop their talents by practicing on us! Maybe it is an exception in my current ward but every single teacher in all my classes relief society gospel doctrine, is very poor! They do a horrible job i can't believe it. sometimes i wish we could just have a professional clergy with people who actually know what they are talking about and are trained to be good teachers!

to Delilah: I have taught Gospel Doctrine twice, among many other callings. I usually spend about 10 hours preparing my lessons, but the most effective ones are always because the Spirit is present. When I go to church I try to get into the proper spirit and I determine to learn something from each talk and each lesson. And I always do. Yes, teachers need to do their best and teach with the spirit, but those members of the class also have a responsibility to strive to listen with the spirit. kathyn

kathyn,

I appreciate how much effort it is to prepare well for a lesson. Unfortunately, you are probably one of the kind of teachers I am talking about. Just because you think your lesson went well, does not mean it did for the class. The fact remains that teachers in the Church are amateurs, untrained, unprofessional, FAR from being experts on the subject they are teaching, and the bottom line is IT SHOWS!

The same can be said about service missionaries. Only rarely do people actually have the skills, training, and experience to do a good (not to mention great) job in the things they are assigned. Consistent with the old adage, "You get what you pay for", when you are dealing with a bunch of volunteers who don't even get to choose what they volunteer for most of the time, the quality of what they do will suffer. In the Church the quality suffers tremendously. And like you, everybody always excuses it and makes it seem like it is the listener's fault and responsibility. It is not. No matter how spiritual and prepared the class is, an amateur, unprepared, unqualified instructor will still give a bad lesson.

The Church has an excellent inservice program to train teachers, but not much followup by Sunday School Presidencies. The best teachers follow the Savior's example in the New Testament: ask thought provoking questions and moderate the discussion.

No more lists of scriptures with whoever gets the highlighted number reading the scripture Please!

A good teacher changes students understanding by involving them.

I would ask Delilah, if she has ever taught either Gospel Doctrine, Relief Society lessons or any other lesson in the Church. Apparently she believes she has superior knowledge on how a lesson should be taught. I would suggest that perhaps she volunteer her services and train those who she feels are lacking. I teach Gospel Doctrine each Sunday, and many there are who already know the class I'm teaching, many of them having an excellent grasp of the scriptures and lessons being taught, and how did they get that way? They took it upon themselves to learn the scriptures and they study the lesson before showing up for class. Myself, through class preparation, I too learn from doing.

So, Delilah, did the Lord when he was here upon the Earth, ordain only the most educated of his followers to be teachers to the rest? Did he pay them to be Apostles? Did he send them to some sort of Academy to learn the Gospel before he sent them on their missions? Wise up!

Murals and such are often beautiful and draw your heart to the person of Jesus Christ. The world's beauty can be inspiring. However, in Exodus 20 we are told not to make an image of anything. In Deuteronomy 4:2 we are told not to add to or diminish from the word of God. As I read the Doctrines and Covenants I keep hearing, (you are not following My commandments and must be chastened.)

If God said, no images, and he said not to let anything unclean be in His house or My presence will not be there, we have only to ask, "Is the manifestation of God in the temples the way God wants it?"

Without pictures we concentrate on the expectation of God being there. With pictures we focus on the beauty of the picture and have to push beyond it to feel the spirit and the presence of God.

Pictures in general lead us to buying and selling merchandise, some religious, but most leads to pride, vanity, becoming a champion of sports or music, lifting us into society above many. Evil cannot be done away without removing the temptation through pictures and images.