Solidify, strengthen Church's young adults
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As more than 350,000 seminary and institute students in the United States prepare to begin a new academic year, Church Educational System administrators say the growing program continues to "solidify and strengthen" young people worldwide.
Since the 1969-70 academic year, when seminary and institute were first made available outside the United States and Canada, the program has grown to include an estimated three-quarters of a million students enrolled in seminary or institute in more than 140 countries worldwide, said Garry K. Moore, Religious Education and Elementary and Secondary Education associate administrator.
However the real success of the program, he said, can't be measured in the number of participants but in the lives of the individuals it influences.
This July, for example, 371 seminary and institute students participated in a graduation celebration at the Christianborg Stake Center in Accra, Ghana.
During the event — held on the Accra Ghana Temple Grounds — 250 people listened as Diskson Boamah, an institute graduate, recounted his conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ. He learned of the Church from a friend, who encouraged him to attend 6 a.m. seminary classes. Soon he was attending Church meetings; today he is the only member of his family in the Church.
Brother Boamah is a returned missionary who plans to marry in the Accra Ghana Temple later this month. "All the messages and training I've received in seminary and institute have made me what I am today," he said.
Brother Moore said part of the recent success of the program can be attributed to a new emphasis, begun last year to help Latter-day Saint students not only learn the scriptures but also to better apply Church doctrines and principles found in the sacred texts.
Church Educational System administrators hope the emphasis will better prepare young people for effective missionary service, to receive the ordinances of the temple and to emulate and teach gospel principles in their own lives, said Brother Moore. Teachers have been helping students not only memorize key scriptural passages, but also explain them and share personal experiences with the gospel principles they promote, he said.
In essence, he said, students are encouraged to study the scriptures on a daily basis and then teach and testify to others what they have learned.
"It is happening," Brother Moore added, explaining that because the academic year starts during different months in different countries worldwide, it is only now that all the Church's seminary and institute students have received the new emphasis.
The refocus, he added, is intended to help students learn the scriptures better than ever before. And that charge is becoming more important as more and more young people participate in seminary and institute, he added.
Seminary and institute continue to grow in areas of the world as the Church does, he said. Teachers in places like Africa and Eastern Europe are all seeing a growing enrollment. Major building projects are underway in Brazil, Guatemala, Japan, Philippines, Mongolia, Bolivia, Ukraine and Mexico to accommodate growth. Wherever possible these facilities are additions to meetinghouses or existing Church buildings so they can also be used for ecclesiastical needs on Sunday.
As a result of this growth, there are now more institute students outside the United States than inside, said Brother Moore.
That growth has also brought some of the greatest challenges for Church Educational System administrators, who are responsible to train nearly 40,000 Church service volunteer teachers and missionaries. Some of these teachers may be recent converts and only one step ahead of their students in gospel knowledge.
Once training for Church Educational System teachers and administrators was conducted on the BYU Campus in Provo, Utah. Today, as the program expands internationally, however, the more than 2,000 full-time teachers and administrators receive training via the Church's satellite system.
On Aug. 4, Elder Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve and Commissioner of Church Education, addressed the worldwide congregation as part of that training. His talk on raising expectations of today's youth has been translated into 20 languages. (Please see the Aug. 7 issue of the Church News for a summary of his address.)
Despite these challenges, Brother Moore said the Church is doing everything to see the continued growth of the program, not just internationally, but also inside the United States where more students could participate in seminary and institute.
"Every year we make a continued effort in concert with priesthood leaders and parents to get every young person involved in seminary and institute," he said. "We have some success. We wish we had greater success."
The goal, he emphasized, has never been to teach just the students who show up, but to teach "those members the Brethren have commissioned us to teach." Every blessing in the Church is tied to knowing and living gospel commandments and laws. That makes teaching young people essential, he said.
The results, he added, are clear. Young people graduating from seminary and institute today "carry, use, identify and testify about the scriptures."
Take, for example, Edmond Tamba, a Liberian refugee, living with his uncle and attending seminary in Accra, Ghana. At the recent graduation there he gave a flawless demonstration of selected Old Testament scriptures.
"By background I was never used to participating in front of groups of people," he said. "This seminary has helped me increase my knowledge, abilities and confidence."
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