A little talking, a lot of listening
Have you heard the saying, "They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care?"
Seminary for 2009-2010 starts tomorrow morning and I'm teaching the high school juniors. We are studying the Book of Mormon this year.
I'm going to dedicate the first half of the time tomorrow doing very little talking and a lot of listening so they know I care about them and what's important to them.
What they look forward to in school, what fears they have, how their summer went, what are their likes and dislikes, what they care about. Relating and empathizing with them. It's about them, not me.
Caring about what matters
Human nature is that we care about things that matter to us. So the next objective tomorrow is taking them from what matters to them, what they care about, what's important in their lives, to where they clearly understand and believe that the Book of Mormon helps them with those things that matter to them.
This will be the second half of the class -- listening to what they care about and bridging that to the Book of Mormon.
For example, they probably care about having friends that understand and help them. If that comes up then I will show them how the Book of Mormon has patterns for finding friends and being a friend. Alma caring for Amulek in his tribulation comes to mind.
Preempting objections
The learning process is usually linear. If a student has an objection that their mind is stuck on, additional learning is stunted because they can't accept what they are hearing until their objection is resolved.
Our youth exist in an environment of skepticism about the Book of Mormon. The world generally passes it off as false.
Spending a few minutes quickly going through a bullet list of irrefutable reasons that the Book of Mormon is true will clear this barrier if it exists. Youth respond positively to these kinds of proofs because it solidifies and inspires confidence to what they already hope, and in many cases, believe, to be true.
Having accomplished these things tomorrow should lay the foundation for a spiritual and in depth study of the Book of Mormon for the next 10 months.
- Alma 15:18
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