Faith Like Butter

Faith is one of the first principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We know it's an essential element of our testimony. Trying to teach what it is, is like trying to describe salt....try it. We have to compare it to things we know to illustrate its characteristics.

• For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. (Romans 1:17)

• Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. (James 2:18)

To illustrate that faith is an ACTION word, I decided to make butter, or better yet, let the class make butter. My lessons are more effective when the class is engaged with more than one of their five senses.

Faith begins with BELIEF. Do you believe that this cream can turn into butter? If you believe, than experiment and practice that belief.

Experimenting is ACTION: You must shake the jar. Believing the cream will turn to butter isn't going to make it happen.

Faith develops with DOING: Faith is the reward of being patient and consistent with belief and action. Butter is the result of shaking a jar full of cream.

We had a great discussion about faith, and read supporting scriptures and quotes from leaders while class members shook their jars. At the end of class we ate homemade rolls, lathered with the butter we made.

Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy

We can all make a long list of things we can't, or shouldn't do on Sunday, but for my lesson I wanted to focus on the things we can do.

Lately, I have been intrigued by the power of words and I've incorporated my fascination with them into my lessons. I made a list of verbs, (action words) on the board, like build, allow, praise, surrender, enrich, visit, share, etc. I then had the class add the nouns, as many as they could. They came up with and endless list of things we can do on Sunday:

• Build: relationships, a testimony
• Allow: laughter, quiet time
• Praise: each other, family members, the Lord
• Surrender: worldly interests, bad habits
• Enrich: your knowledge of Christ, peaceful atmosphere at home
• Visit: family, friends, those who are sick or lonely
• Share: talents, your time with children and spouse, testimony

I shared a couple of quotes and scriptures that supported these activities and that was all it took for a successful discussion and colorful lesson- which is my goal each time I teach.

My Tool Box

In a typical tool box, you might find a hammer or a tape measurer. Each has a specific purpose that is unique and different from the other. The tools I use when building and presenting creative lessons are not so different.

• Gathering (might be a rake)
• Search for valuables (might be a shovel to dig, or a metal detector)
• Putting the pieces together (with glue, a screwdriver, hammer and nails, or duct tape)

Every lesson has a topic or an objective. I start there, with a plan of what I'd like to build. I then gather materials from all kinds of sources (books, talks, quotes, scriptures, stories, music). This step takes me the longest. If I have enough notice before I teach, I could spend weeks gathering. I feel like a treasure seeker, looking for valuable items, such as words, pictures, or objects that could be tied to a gospel principle or lesson topic. This process is supported by the prayer I offer before my search begins. Sometimes I don't know exactly what I'm looking for until I it "jumps out" at me when I find it.

Example:

I recently taught a lesson on sacrifice. In my search for materials, I came across an object lesson in a book that involved a peanut. The object lesson itself was short, but very relevant to my objective. Rather than just use the object lesson, I found a way to incorporate the peanut into each aspect of my lesson: beginning, middle, and end.

Once I've gathered all my materials, or more than enough to work with, and have found that word, picture, object, or song that I can develop my lesson around and tie to my objective, I begin to put my pieces together like a puzzle and decide in what part of my lesson each piece will fit.

Example:

In a lesson I taught on gratitude, I had a skit, an object, a story, and a demonstration that I wanted to include in such a way that it flowed easily. The story was about the pilgrims putting 5 kernals of corn on their plate each year at Thanksgiving to remind them of their first dinner when that's all they had to eat. I built my entire lesson around those 5 kernals of corn. They became the 5 kernals of wisdom from the talk I was teaching from. I incorporated the skit, the story, and the demonstration into the lesson using the kernals as the object.

These are just a couple of examples to start with. My goal for this blog is to post my ideas here, as they come, hoping that you will use them with your own lessons. I would also love to hear how you used them, who you used them with, and how effective they were. If you have other great ideas to share, please comment.

- Happy Coloring!