Sometimes when I teach adult Sunday School, we have a great conversation with a lot of participation. Sometimes, and I'm grateful to say this is more rare, very few people participate. I can talk for the entire length of the lesson, and I believe, people will walk away edified. Yet, if the collective group brings to the room their spirit, their thoughts, what inspired as they met and studied at home, we can all walk away that much more edified.
Visually, I think of it as a rainbow. I can bring blue. And to most, the blue will be vibrant and beautiful, and fun to look at, so some will enjoy looking at that color of the rainbow. However, maybe someone's entire house is blue. So when they come, and stare at more blue, they don't really get much out of it. Now imagine someone brings with them the red. And someone else brings the orange. And someone else brings yellow, etc. Now everyone benefits, no matter what color is dominant in their home.
Why do I share this analogy? By the time we reach Doctrine and Covenants 41, the church has many new members, and the Lord has given the guidance that they need to move to Ohio. There is now a great gathering of new members in Ohio that are trying to live the way Christ would have them live. However, at the heart of all this, is a group of religious God-loving people who came from a number of other religions, trying to find God, and trying to figure out their interpretations of the Bible and how best to follow His example.
In Doctrine and Covenants 41:1-6, the Lord provides guidance around this. He says,
"Hearken, O ye elders of my church whom I have called, behold I give unto you a commandment, that ye shall assemble yourselves together to agree upon my word; And by the prayer of your faith ye shall receive my law, that ye may know how to govern my church and have all things right before me. And I will be your ruler when I come; and behold, I come quickly." (Doctrine and Covenants 41:2-4).
One of the principles here is assembly.
Why do we assemble, and how does that help us?
We are reminded in Matthew 18:20, "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
We learned from last week's study that gathering today looks different than gathering back then. We can gather in our different countries, and in our homes. For families separated by distance and for other reasons, we can gather via Internet chat rooms or by telephone. The point is though, that we can bring our collective thoughts and inspirations and edify one another.
In General Conference, Jan E. Newman said, "I invite leaders and teachers in every organization of the Church to counsel together with parents and youth in order to dramatically improve teaching at every level—in stakes, in wards, and in homes. This will be achieved by teaching the doctrine and inviting Spirit-filled discussion about the truths the Holy Ghost has taught us in the quiet moments of our personal study." "Teaching in the Savior's Way," Jan E. Newman, April 2021 General Conference
There is a lot to "unpack" in that statement but one of the things I love is that we can dramatical improve teaching at every level. We do this as we teach and share what we learned in our own personal study. How powerful are those words!
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