How to Teach in the Savior's Way

Start With the Real Goal of Teaching

The purpose of gospel teaching is not to cover material or fill the time. It is to help those you teach build faith in Jesus Christ and grow in their conversion to Him. When that goal is clear, the smaller questions settle themselves: how much to prepare, how much to talk, what to ask, and when to be quiet.

The Savior is the pattern. He taught in homes and on hillsides, one person and thousands, and He always taught toward a change of heart, not just understanding. Teaching in His way means measuring a lesson not by how much you covered but by what happened in the hearts of those in the room.

Love Those You Teach

Everything the Savior did flowed from love, and Christlike teaching starts there too. Know the people you teach by name and by need. Pray for them individually. Look past who they are on a hard Sunday to who they can become. A class member who knows the teacher genuinely cares is far more open to the Spirit.

Love is not a warm-up before the real teaching. It is the teaching. A well-prepared lesson delivered without love rarely reaches anyone, while a simple lesson offered by someone who clearly cares can change a life.

Teach by the Spirit, Teach the Doctrine, Invite Diligent Learning

Teach by the Spirit. Only the Holy Ghost can carry truth into a heart, so your real task is to invite Him and then get out of the way. The resource puts it this way: as you teach the gospel of Jesus Christ, you can have the Holy Ghost with you to guide you and to testify of the truth to the minds and hearts of those you teach, citing Doctrine and Covenants 8:2. Ask learners what the Spirit taught them in their own study, and help them recognize His influence.

Teach the doctrine. The manual's own line is short and worth keeping: you can teach with power, as the Savior did, by teaching the Father's doctrine. Keep every lesson anchored in the scriptures, the words of living prophets, and the approved curriculum, and focus on essential saving truths rather than tangents or personal theories.

Invite diligent learning. In the gospel, learning is not just listening or reading; it is changing, repenting, and progressing. The resource frames it around Matthew 7:7 to 8: when we follow the Savior's example, we invite those we teach to ask, seek, and knock, and then find. Invite class members to study daily, to ask honest questions, and to live what they learn.

The Part Most Summaries Skip: Focus on Jesus Christ

Almost every article about this resource jumps straight to the four principles. But in the current edition those four are Part 2. Part 1 comes first, and it is titled Focus on Jesus Christ. Skipping it changes what the four principles are actually for.

Part 1 holds two ideas. First, no matter what you are teaching, remember that you are really teaching about Jesus Christ and how to become like Him. That applies to a lesson on emergency preparedness or family history as much as to a lesson on the Atonement. Second, nothing you do as a teacher will bless learners more than helping them know Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and feel Their love, with a reference to John 17:3.

Read in order the structure makes sense. Part 1 says what teaching is for. Part 2 gives four principles for doing it. A teacher who has the four principles without Part 1 can run a warm, well-prepared, doctrinally sound class that never quite points anywhere.

Part 3: The Practical Section Almost Nobody Writes About

If you came looking for the guide itself rather than a summary of it, Part 3 is probably what you wanted. It is titled Practical Helps and Suggestions.

It contains a section of suggestions for a variety of teaching settings and learners, which is the one to read if you teach Primary, or youth, or a class with a wide age range, or in a small branch. It contains a sample lesson-planning outline, meaning an actual worked example rather than advice about planning. And it contains a personal evaluation called Improving as a Christlike Teacher, for regularly checking your own strengths and weaknesses so you can improve at helping learners build faith in Jesus Christ.

Two of its sections are not written for classroom teachers at all. Teacher Council Meetings is addressed to parents and called teachers, and there is a section for leaders on orienting and supporting teachers. If you have been asked to strengthen the teachers in your ward rather than to teach a class yourself, those two are your starting point, and they are easy to miss.

The First Presidency's message at the front of the resource sets the tone for all of it: this resource can be your guide to learn about how the Savior taught, and as you strive to teach in His way, He will help you become the teacher He knows you can be.