Gospel Principles

[An Investigator]

So.. Ive been asked to teach Gospel Principles next week.. Ive never done any teaching before, does anyone have any tips? 

[Guest MormonGator]

What not to do: 

Don't read strictly from the book. Anyone can do that at home. 
Don't turn it into a lecture. People will just fall asleep or ignore you. 
Don't use the class as a place to talk about your own views. 
 

What to do: 

Ask questions and call on everyone to answer them. Turn the class into a discussion. 

Keep it light. No one is here just for seriousness and preaching. 

Be prepared. An hour is much longer than you think it is. 

[Guest]

You know how you were saying that the class is kind of stale?  Don't do that.

[An Investigator]

13 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

You know how you were saying that the class is kind of stale?  Don't do that.

Not stale, just not much discussion was going on, I came up with some debate type/ open ended questions and the past two weeks lessons have been really interesting. 

 

46 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

What not to do: 

Don't read strictly from the book. Anyone can do that at home. 
Don't turn it into a lecture. People will just fall asleep or ignore you. 
Don't use the class as a place to talk about your own views. 
 

What to do: 

Ask questions and call on everyone to answer them. Turn the class into a discussion. 

Keep it light. No one is here just for seriousness and preaching. 

Be prepared. An hour is much longer than you think it is. 

Thanks.. I'm really looking forward to it but going to prepare it early in the week so I'm not panicking at the last minute with not done it before.

[Guest MormonGator]

3 minutes ago, An Investigator said:

 

Thanks.. I'm really looking forward to it but going to prepare it early in the week so I'm not panicking at the last minute with not done it before.

That's what I would do in college. I'd get my work done and out of the way so I could play video games and watch TV while everyone waited to the last minute and panicked. I'd be thinking "I'm going to play Final Fantasy VII now. You guys pull all nighters. Ha ha ha. And don't make me turn down my music!" 

I was a joy to live with. 

[Sunday21]

I just attended Gospel Principles. It was a hoot! Only problem we had a handful of Anglos who were talking too fast (me included!) and bouncing ideas off each other. My friend from China got a headache trying to follow. She had the chineses and the English gospel principles side by side. We have one man fron Burma/Myanmar, the teacher explained that a very high % of this ethnic group had joined the church and two other recent immigrants from Asia. Anglos need to speak more slowly! Talking to self! We had one Anglo, golden investigator who told her story, very moving. I am now trying to work out how to get to church in Anaheim ca. Going there for a conference. Surely Mickey Mouse is a member?

[zil]

4 hours ago, MormonGator said:

Be prepared. An hour is much longer than you think it is.

The Sunday School lesson only gets 40 minutes.

4 hours ago, Carborendum said:

You know how you were saying that the class is kind of stale?  Don't do that.

Well-known truth among all experienced Mormons - complain about something and you'll be called to do it yourself.

6 hours ago, An Investigator said:

So.. Ive been asked to teach Gospel Principles next week.. Ive never done any teaching before, does anyone have any tips? 

MormonGator gave good advice (he got it all from me, BTW ).  In addition, I find the discussion to be both more doctrinally-sound (less opinion) and more interesting if as part of the discussion, you ask class members to find a scripture which teaches the topic at hand (or relates to it in some way), give them ~3 minutes to do that, then invite them to share the scripture and explain why they chose it.