studying the gospel

this post was inspired by this post.
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I have been a somewhat steady attender of Institute. Institute is a program of religious learning run by CES, also known as the Church Education System in the LDS or Mormon or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints faith. It is a program targeted to individuals ages 18-31, single or married. There is a similar program called Seminary for High School Students.

Recently the church "revamped" the Institute program. Instead of courses on general books of scripture, there are now specific courses related to gospel learning such as: "Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel, Foundations of the Restoration, The Eternal Family and The Teachings and Doctrine of the Book of Mormon." The learning process and essentially, the learning expectation has been set more clearly and requires the doctrinal student to become more seriously engaged and active in the learning process. Preparing for class by reading the material, writing a reflection paper and writing an indepth study paper on a topic of the student's choosing. Another crucial part is that the student invite someone to attend institute with them. I find this last point most interesting. For one to truly be engaged, one must be willing to talk about it with others and find value enough in his own life to invite another.

As I have thought about the "raising the bar" in terms of gospel learning, I recognize that the learning bar must increase because the teaching bar has already been raised! We first expected our missionaries to teach by the Spirit, we now expect every teacher, young womens, primary, gospel doctrine, everyone to teach by the Spirit. However, in order to teach, we must first learn to study.

We don't talk enough about how to do this, what it looks like or what it really means. I want to talk more about it. I want to write about it and I want to share what it looks like for me!