This post may get a little political in my attempt to share President M. Russell Ballard’s 2016 fireside with the church educational system teachers. I think the Church’s struggle with history are a result of early conflicts with the establishment press and government. It has a comparable narrative with our current political climate and the difficulty of understanding facts an how those facts are interpreted. I appreciated President Ballard’s acknowledgment early in his message on our attempts at church history in the past.

Each year the Seminary and Institute teachers of the Church Education System for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hosts a night with a general authority. I remember attending these when I was trying to get hired as a seminary teacher. BYU-I faculty are invited to participate in a remote stream of these firesides. My wife and I attended with a few friends that also teach at BYU-I at the beginning of the year.

In a recent Neal A Maxwell institute podcast, Terryl Givens said, Well, you know, we’re suffering waves of defection, and there are lots of reasons for that and lots of remedies that have been suggested, but I think it’s unavoidable to acknowledge that one of the main reasons we’re losing people is that we’re boring them to death. I think the job of a Sunday School teacher is to excite the people, it’s not just to reiterate the old formulas.