'The Best Three Hours of the Week: Getting the Most from Your Sunday Meetings'
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John G. Bytheway taught a class for youth titled "The Best Three Hours of the Week: Getting the Most from Your Sunday Meetings" Aug. 19 during BYU Education Week.
Brother Bytheway, an author and part-time instructor of Religious Education at BYU, counseled the youth that the best way to enhance the spirituality of their Sabbath experience is to start by making an objective analysis and evaluation of their own attitudes.
"Fact is, if you change yourself you've automatically changed everything else," he said. "In fact that's the only thing you really can change, is change yourself.
"If you're saying, 'OK, I will get something out of Church when it starts when I want it to start, when teachers who are trying to be funny are actually funny, there are no boring speakers and all 2-year-olds sit quietly and ponder the splendors of Zion' — if you are going to wait for that [then] you're going to wait for a long time."
He taught the bulk of his class utilizing the acronym CHURCH.
C: Choose
- The choice to get more out of Sunday meetings actually begins Saturday
night. Don't stay out too late.
- Pray for speakers, and give yourself a smaller sermon in your mind
about whatever topic the speaker is addressing.
H: Holy Sabbath
- Brother Bytheway related the story of Eli Herring, the former BYU
football player who eschewed a career in the NFL and the millions of
dollars that would've come with it because he didn't want to play football
on Sundays.
- Ezekiel 20:20: "And hallow my Sabbaths …"
U: Unity
- Doctrine and Covenants 38:27: "I say unto you, be one. And if ye are
not one, ye are not mine."
R: Respect
- "When you disrespect your called-and-sustained teachers, leaders or
advisers, you disrespect the One who called them," he said. "In other
words, you disrespect the Lord."
C: Covenant
- The most important thing we do on Sundays is partaking of the
sacrament.
- Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve suggests Aaronic
priesthood holders should wear white shirts to sacrament meeting.
- "In 'The Lamb of God' when [Peter and John] walk in [to the empty
tomb], that's what I think about during the sacrament," Brother Bytheway
said. "My favorite part to remember is that His body was gone. And because
His body was resurrected, we will all see our great-grandparents
again…"
H: Holy Ghost
- "It's your job as a listener and my job as a listener as well as the
teacher's job [to be in tune with the Spirit] so that we get something out
of our meetings," he said.
He concluded his class saying, "It just makes me sad to see bored teenagers at Church because the gospel is so interesting and so exciting to me. I really hope this is helpful to you and will help you get more out of your Church meetings because that is exactly where you ought to be.
"You can make it exciting, make it interesting to you if you remember some of these steps. And even if it's not [interesting], we go to worship the Lord."
