Scriptures Through Science

 After a lengthy hiatus, we're back! This week's lesson is based on the section of the Come Follow Me manual about D&C 67-70 ( link ). We're going to work with D&C 70 , which talks about the early days of the Law of Consecration.  Back in 1831, the church assigned 6 people to starting a set of church businesses. I found a nice article that explained the history in detail ( link ), but in brief, Prophet Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Martin Harris,  Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer and William W. Phelps were all involved in the "Literary Firm", which was responsible for publishing the Book of Mormon, the church hymn book, and a church newspaper. D&C 70:7 reads 7 Nevertheless, inasmuch as they receive more than is needful for their necessities and their wants, it shall be given into my storehouse I thought that we could structure a lesson that talks about (a) the reasons why a storehouse was set up, to help provide for the needy, and (b) a bit of maths relatin...

This is a short post with details on the lesson plan for this Sunday's LDS primary lesson. The explanations behind this plan are in my previous post . What you'll need to provide for the children: EITHER some small plastic bottles and some scissors OR some glass bottles part-filled with water A slinky A wine glass part-filled with water Here are the parts of the lesson: Begin with an opening prayer. Set the context around Joseph Smith and the Doctrine and Covenants. This week's lesson is set when Joseph and the early saints moved in 1831 to Kirkland, Ohio. Ask the children to read aloud D&C 42: 4-6. Each child could read out one colour from the highlighted excerpt below. Discuss what this means, in particular the purple section about lifting voices like a trump. Say we'll now talk about how a trumpet works. (See  previous post  for additional details.) A trumpet is an instrument which takes your voice (or more technically, vibrations in the air caused by blowing out...

In my earlier post , I talked about how I'd started brainstorming for possible science connections which I could use to teach the next Come Follow Me Primary lesson , on D&C 41-44 . I've now decided to opt for the idea around trumpets. I noticed that the word "trump" came up twice during this section: D&C 42: 6 And ye shall go forth in the power of my Spirit, preaching my gospel, two by two, in my name, lifting up your voices as with the sound of a trump , declaring my word like unto angels of God. D&C 43: 18 For the day cometh that the Lord shall utter his voice out of heaven; the heavens shall shake and the earth shall tremble, and the trump of God shall sound both long and loud, and shall say to the sleeping nations: Ye saints arise and live; ye sinners stay and sleep until I shall call again. The way that brass instruments like trumpets create sound is really interesting. (Disclaimer - this is my best attempt at providing a simple explanation, but thi...

This is the second in a series on how I prepare LDS primary lessons using scientific principles. The first part, which talked about finding the initial science inspirations, can be found here . This part will continue by discussing how to take that initial set of ideas and mould them into a lesson plan. From theory to application Whilst I've found that primary age kids are receptive to new science ideas, it really helps if there's a practical element I can use to demonstrate them, and even better if it's something interactive that they can do themselves. The next task is to figure out which of my initial ideas lends themselves to easy demonstration. This involves another round of brainstorming and research, and searching online for kid-friendly resources (such as videos or experiments) related to the topic I have in mind. Earlier this year, I taught a lesson based on D&C 20:72-74 about baptism and receiving the holy ghost. To draw an analogy, we talked about baby sea t...

My next lesson will be from this chapter of the Come Follow Me manual, which talks about D&C 41-44. I've read through the references and the manual chapter, and have started working up some ideas on how to teach. (If you're not familiar with how I approach planning lessons, this post provides some details .) The core of D&C 41-44 is about revelations given to Joseph Smith during his early days in Kirkland, Ohio, in February 1831. Chapter 41 is fairly short, and covers a decree regarding where Joseph will be housed. Chapter 42 is the longest. It starts by calling upon the brethren to go and teach, and also touches upon a reminder of the Commandments (twice), and what will later become the Law of Consecration , where Joseph exhorts his followers to pool their property in the name of the church in order to share more equitably amongst everyone. It also touches upon the idea of receiving personal revelation.  Chapter 43 deals with the issue of false teachings, and makes cl...

This week's Primary lesson from the Come Follow Me (CFM) manual was from the section on Doctrine & Covenants 30-36 , entitled "You are called to preach my gospel". As with the CFM lesson plan, I opted to focus on D&C 33 , in which Joseph Smith revealed one of a series of revelations in New York in 1830.  I begin each lesson with a quick reminder of who Joseph Smith is and what the D&C represents, and today I provided some background on how small the church was back in 1830 (as Joseph had only recently started the church the year before), and showed these two images: Joseph preaching to his small congregation ( link to LDS site ). A log cabin similar to the one he taught in ( link to Wikipedia ). In our previous lesson, another teacher, Brother A, had a nice idea of demonstrating the principle of spreading the gospel. He showed a series of Lego Star Wars figures each taking it in turn to talk to each other, and eventually they spread word to a large group of pe...