New Adult Curriculam, Come Follow Me

[Arenera]

The Church has announced changes for Melchizedek Priesthood and Relief Society Sunday meetings in 2018 that affect not only what materials adults will study but also how they use the time they meet together to accomplish the Lord's work.

An August 25 letter from the First Presidency announced that the new 2018 materials—Come, Follow Me—For Melchizedek Priesthood and Relief Society Meetings—will emphasize learning from general conference messages and counseling together.

Similar to the “Come, Follow Me” youth curriculum implemented in 2013, the materials encourage Relief Society and Melchizedek Priesthood leaders to follow the teaching and learning approach of Teaching in the Savior’s Way (see teaching.lds.org). In addition, the new materials also emphasize:

Learning from general conference messages.
Studying special topics selected every six months by general leaders of the Church.
Counseling together as priesthood quorums and groups and Relief Societies.
The new materials for adults, which replace the Teachings of Presidents of the Church series used from 1998 to 2017, do not affect Sunday School classes.

2018 Sunday schedule

According to the announcement, Sunday Melchizedek Priesthood and Relief Society meetings will follow this monthly schedule:

Week. Topic. Led by
First Sunday. Counseling together about local needs. Presidency or group leadership

Second and Recent general conference message Presidency or group leadership or a called teacher
Third Sundays

Fourth Sunday. Special topic chosen by general Church
leaders (announced in May and November Presidency or group leadership or a called teacher.
issues of the Liahona and Ensign magazines)

Fifth Sunday. Topic chosen by the bishopric. Bishopric or someone they assign


General conference messages and special topics

“One of the reasons for the new approach is to give increased emphasis to the words of the living prophets,” said Elder LeGrand R. Curtis, General Authority Seventy and Assistant Executive Director in the Priesthood and Family Department. “We’re going to not just devote more time to the messages given by the senior leadership of the Church at general conference, but we are also going to provide some teaching tools to help the instruction and discussion of those messages be all the more rich and meaningful for the members of the Church.”

Local leaders will counsel together about which conference messages will best meet the needs of their members, and Relief Society and Melchizedek Priesthood quorums and groups don’t have to study the same message the same week.

“Focusing our gospel study on the words of living prophets and apostles will give even greater meaning to our study of the ‘ancient’ scriptures,” said Sister Jean B. Bingham, Relief Society General President. “In our classes and quorums, we’ll help one another find ways to apply their counsel in our daily lives and then have the opportunity to share how we’ve been blessed from following that counsel. I love how this will help us learn from the Spirit as well as from one another.”

The new curriculum also provides a mechanism for topics of particular interest to apostles and prophets—such as the recent emphasis on the Sabbath day—to be discussed in fourth-Sunday meetings, Elder Curtis said.

An eight-page insert in the general conference issues of the Liahona and Ensign magazines will include teaching tools for helping members search, analyze, and apply general conference messages, as well as the topics for fourth-Sunday lessons.

Members can easily find general conference messages:

Online at generalconference.lds.org.
In the Gospel Library app.
By subscribing to the Liahona or Ensign (see store.lds.org).

Members participate in their Relief Society Sunday meeting. The Church has announced changes to the schedule and content of Melchizedek Priesthood and Relief Society meetings beginning in 2018.

Counseling together

First-Sunday meetings, held under the direction of ward Melchizedek Priesthood and Relief Society leaders, are used to identify local needs and counsel together about how to meet those needs, according to a questions and answers document released with the First Presidency letter.

“We want to extend the power that exists in counseling together—not just to the ward councils and presidencies but also into the Relief Societies and quorums of the Church,” explained Elder Curtis.

“When we counsel together, we discover ways to lift and strengthen each other that also build unity,” said Sister Bingham. “What a blessing it is for each of us to participate in God’s work, to become instruments for good in such a natural way!”

Possible topics for first-Sunday councils include how to improve communication with family members, serve in the community, and mentor youth in the ward or branch. In subsequent meetings, the quorum, group, or Relief Society follows up on impressions and actions.

“I am excited and thrilled with this new program. I feel that it is for our time today,” said Norma Joyner, a ward Relief Society president in Savannah, Georgia, who participated in a pilot of the new materials along with members from 12 stakes in Utah, Mexico, California, and Georgia. “I know that we will be more involved in choosing the subject matter and talks that will most benefit our sisters in the ward. It's an exciting time to be a member of the Church with all the new programs to help us grow in the gospel and be good stewards to each other, our families, and our communities.”

Marc Oslund, an elders quorum president from American Fork, Utah, who also participated in the pilot, said using the new curriculum helped increase the unity of the quorum and the relevancy of the lessons. “We now sit in a circle, and each week feels like a council. We are getting more engagement and more application to daily lives than I have experienced in elders quorum ever before. … Because we are always responding to needs and to current concerns of the quorum members, the Holy Ghost is present in more abundance.”

Learn more about the 2018 materials

To learn more about the 2018 materials for Melchizedek Priesthood and Relief Society, see the information on comefollowme.lds.org, which includes answers to frequently asked questions.

Then in November 2017, watch for the new materials, along with information about how to use them:

At comefollowme.lds.org.
In the Gospel Library app.
In an 8-page insert in the November 2017 and May 2018 issues of the Liahona and Ensign.
More information on counseling together will be in the January 2018 issues of the Liahona and Ensign.

[Crackers]

I am excited about this change. I think taking the time during RS/Priesthood to discuss local/ward issues and concerns is overdue. I also think having the focus be on current conference addresses and topics will engage people more, and hopefully lead to greater and more directed discussion.

[gclayjr]

Does this mean that I'm going to have to rely more on myself to do my 4 year loop of OT, NT, BOM, D&C and POGP reading?

Finished my D&C and POGP early this year and am trying to get a running start on the OT for next year, so I am halfway through Genesis now. Is this going to be simply an exercise in learning more about God's word, rather than the wonderful possibility of robotically following the Study guide for SS?

Wow what a letdown

Regards,

George Clay

[Crackers]

I believe it said SS will remain unchanged. We we lose Teaching of the Presidents. Get to keep the robotic SS lessons, though they are usually not robotic in my ward. A little dry sometimes.

[brianj]

I guess they weren't confident that they would have another dead prophet to publish a book about.

I am excited about this change. I was a Sunday School president when changes were implemented for youth second and third hour meetings, and as I have been a teacher since then I have wished we could do something like this.

I like the way the new D&C teaching manual focuses more on doctrines than a couple of sections at a time, and I would love it if we moved away from the four year schedule we are currently on to focusing on doctrines and pulling from all scriptural works during each lesson. But I am happy about this change and look forward to quorum and group lessons next year.

Thanks for sharing, Arenera. I was in a pathetic failure of a stake conference this weekend so I wouldn't have learned about the change until next Sunday.

[eddie]

I guess they weren't confident that they would have another dead prophet to publish a book about.

I am excited about this change. I was a Sunday School president when changes were implemented for youth second and third hour meetings, and as I have been a teacher since then I have wished we could do something like this.

I like the way the new D&C teaching manual focuses more on doctrines than a couple of sections at a time, and I would love it if we moved away from the four year schedule we are currently on to focusing on doctrines and pulling from all scriptural works during each lesson. But I am happy about this change and look forward to quorum and group lessons next year.

Thanks for sharing, Arenera. I was in a pathetic failure of a stake conference this weekend so I wouldn't have learned about the change until next Sunday.

Hmmm, I've never been to a pathetic failure of a stake conference before, why was it such a failure, in your opinion?

[oneClimbs]

I'm looking forward to it. The presidents manuals were fine for what they were but I'm glad that we are getting to spend that time on a variety of material rather than a whole year of teachings from a single individual. While the manuals do a good job on focusing on doctrines and principles, I think the change will be nice as well.

[JohnnyL]

We are changing because we ran out of prophets. The prophet manuals were really good. I marked up some really great things that I learned.

The new curriculum, is, well, not really new. It already happened at least once, maybe twice, over the past... how many years? It just makes sense to save time, money, etc. on manuals or a whole new series by using what we should be studying anyway.

Years ago in our ward we were doing first Sunday lessons by asking what topics the quorum members wanted help with/ learn more about, pure "gospel" or just related (how to get along with wife, finances, etc.), and the teacher used both church and outside resources. We got about 8 requests for every half year, and fit them in the best we could. It worked great. In fact, the best lessons we've ever had in priesthood. I don't think that's what is going to happen much now, but it worked great for us then, and I hope something like this is possible.

[brianj]

Hmmm, I've never been to a pathetic failure of a stake conference before, why was it such a failure, in your opinion?

If I were given the opportunity to give an evaluation to my stake president, here are the two points that I would make:

1) On a personal note before my evaluation of this conference, I would really like one policy reconsidered. Those special few whose wards attend the stake center are invited to listen to stake conference in person twice per year, while the inferiors whose wards are assigned to other buildings get to listen in if they are lucky, and if they are really lucky they might have sufficiently high quality video to recognize the faces of those speaking. I would love to see a policy where either the stake conference rotates between buildings or the assignments of who attends where rotates.

2) As should be obvious from my first comment, I have mostly had bad experiences with the audio and video quality during these stake conferences. This time around it was far worse than usual. There were several incidents where audio cut out while we had silent, choppy video. But there were far more incidents, and much longer lasting incidents, where both audio and video cut out. I got to enjoy some nice images of the Savior and some nice singing by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but I sure wish I could have listened to the talks.

What's the point of going to a stake conference where you feel like you spend more time wondering what is being said than listening to it?