Covenants: Teaching and Study Ideas- The Red Headed Hostess
Here it is, the COVENANTS teaching and study package I promised was coming. 🙂
Like I said in the article about ORDINANCES, I don’t think we can emphasize these 2 topics enough. Since ordinances and covenants surround us each week, we may become too casual and disconnected from them. I mean, can you imagine if we were only able to partake of the sacrament once a year? What if we could only renew our baptismal covenant once a year!?! What do you think that meeting would be like? What would you wear that sunday? How would you sing that sacrament hymn? How reverent would you be? How certain would you be to make it there that Sunday?
And then, what if they told us that we could now have it EVERY WEEK! We could renew that covenant and partake of the ordinance every single week? What a blessing that would be! Right? And, oh, it is! But it is easy to become too casual with anything, even ordinances and covenants.
In the article about ordinances, I explained what an ordinance is. It is the outward expression. It is the partaking of the bread and water. The covenant is YOU and it is ME. It is my actions, my desires, my future. It is your actions, your desires, your future. It is who we are, and who we hope to become. First, I understand the commitment I am about to make, and I desire the blessings, or the outcome promised from making and keeping that commitment. So I choose to make a covenant. That covenant is then made permanent by the priesthood. They perform an ordinance and it is witnessed and recorded. I have covenanted with God.
Once we have covenanted with God, we then strive to live worthy of that covenant. With each passing day we should progress along the path of more fully living that covenant. When we don’t, we are honest with ourselves and God, and we admit it and fix it. We repent. Then year after year, we become more polished, more Christ-like and more able to represent His name. That is what Saints are. They are men and women of God who repent quickly and continue their progress forward. That is what the Celestial Kingdom will be full of. Individuals who covenanted with God and cherished those covenants. They weren’t perfect, they were just serious about their covenants.
If you would like more help studying or teaching this topic, here is what we have:
These study pages are all designed to help you dive into scripture, True to the Faith and various articles on LDS.ORG.
The purpose of these study pages is to help you study the doctrine in a very clear fashion.
You can find this study and teaching package on COVENANTS here.
You can read about our study and teaching package on ORDINANCES here.
Shannon, You are absolutely incredible! Seriously! I’m so grateful for talented and gospel centered people like you! In teaching both children and adults I find that they both struggle with the difference between a covenant and an ordinance, almost grouping them together as one entity. This guide not only shows the difference but allows people to discover for themselves. I absolutely LOVE it! I find myself wanting to download everything you’ve ever posted. 😉 I’m actually going to homeschool (Not in a million years did I ever think those words would come out of my mouth! lol! ) and I’m going to be using a lot of your material for our gospel hour. Thanks so much and keep it up, please!!!
I just skimmed thru the COVENANT TEACHING PACKAGE. Wow!! Every teaching help and study sheet is phenomenal! I especially love the “Always Remember Him” Activity. I am so grateful that you take the time to create such thoughtful material. Your insights and teaching strategies are simply brilliant. I have many of your products and they have been life-altering for my family and I. Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU!!