I know this week is General Conference, but maybe you guys were able to fit in for Week 5 of September, or you are combining it with week 2 this month. Either way I thought it was a good lesson and I wanted to share some thoughts.
I really like the "Identify Doctrine" part of the churches outline, found here. I don't want to stray too much from this because I think it's the perfect way to introduce what we're talking about. To me, any opportunity to show what Christ did during his life should be taken advantage of. I think it's important to reiterate to the children that we are following Christ's example when we partake of the sacrament. We are doing something that Christ has asked us to do. All of September we talked about the commandments and how we should follow them.
To identify the age young men receive the preisthood at, I will probably just ask an older child. After they answer correctly, I will ask them if all young men can get it or if it is something only some can get. This is where we will dive into the worthiness aspect of this week. In the official guideline they suggest using the "My Gospel Standards" to go over what makes someone worthy and not worthy. I would print out a copy ahead of time to make copies of.
For an activity I'm going to break the kids into a few groups. You can see how many you have and just go off of that. I'm going to ask each group to prepare a skit illustrating a gospel standard from the list. I'm going to give each group a few options, maybe three, to choose from to do their skit. This way there will be no duplicates of skits and the kids will love feeling like they have a choice. Their skit will just have to illustrate what that aspect of Gospel Standards is. For example, to illustrate a one about modesty a child clothes shopping and choose a modest outfit over an immodest one. I think it'll be fun to bring some props in too. You could bring in some good things to read and maybe some worldly things (sabbath day), modest clothes and wild clothes (it doesn't have to be revealing, just maybe a little crazy or extreme. Or a smaller childs shirt that would be immodest on an older child), an apple or some other fruit and maybe some candy and junk food (partake of good things for your body. You could get more into drugs, alcohol, cigerettes. I would explain candy is okay in moderation), etc. I will explain to them that these standards are not only for the boys, this is something that all of us should do. I don't want the girls to think this lesson isn't applicable for them. Even though they will not be able to hold the priesthood, they can still benefit from it. They can marry a worthy man and have it in their homes their whole life. The priesthood is such a special gift for all of us, we should encourage young men to be worthy to receive it.
After the children perform their skits I would just close by bearing my testimony of the priesthood and gratitude for it.
You can get a coloring page for them to bring home here. This would be something good for them to do to keep the sabbath day holy!
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