Eternal Masterpieces
By C.S. Bezas

As this seminary year draws to a close for many seminary teachers around the world, I've pondered the similarities between seminary teaching and painting. Notice how well these painting terms could also apply to a seminary setting:

When you are preparing to paint a room in a home, there are a few steps that are well-advised to ensure success. First, you need to prepare the surface that you will be treating. Second, you need to have the right equipment. Then you paint. Then you clean your equipment in preparation for the next project.

An excellent seminary teacher does much of the same, only in spiritual ways some of which are listed here. For after all, we're not about painting homes; we're about helping our students to determine to create and "paint" personal lives of eternal masterpieces.

1. Prepare the Surface for "Painting."

As you wind down from teaching the Doctrine & Covenants in seminary this year, soon enough you will be winding back up to teach the Old Testament to a new batch of kids. Here are a few things to consider as you prepare future spiritual surfaces for "painting."

• Review your stake's policies on tardiness, makeup work, and so on.  Each CES area has its own policy regarding tardiness, makeup work, and so on. Make sure you have reviewed the policy and other seminary operations (this is where attending your in-service meetings is must). I'm surprised sometimes how much I re-learn by reviewing the CES Policy Manual each year, in addition to my stake's policies.

• Work in tandem with your team teacher.  If you are team-teaching, make sure that both of you share the same understanding regarding tardiness, makeup work, classroom expectations, and so on. If you are not in sync with your teaching "buddy," it makes for a confusing experience for the youth and a frustrating one for you and/or your companion teacher. In a team-teaching scenario, brief weekly meetings with your teaching "buddy" could be quite helpful to make your spiritual paint strokes of unified fashion.

• Encourage seminary enrollment. Over the summer break, why not take time to visit with any youth who will be of new seminary-attending age next year? Make sure to speak with your leaders, first, to obtain permission to sit in on a Young Women class or a Young Men activity. Begin to appropriately friendship these kids by learning their names and their likes or dislikes, where they go to school, and so on. As you do so, be sure to invite them to enroll and attend seminary the coming year. Assess their individual situations. Share with them some of seminary's fun and exciting highlights. Extend an appropriate hand of fellowship and excitement about the seminary program. Information makes for greater inspiration as you work with these youth next year.

Just as in preparing a wall before you paint it, this is one of the most important ways you can prepare youth for next year's spiritual "painting" lessons. Just as a designer carefully selects color layouts and plans for intended rooms, as seminary teachers it would behoove us to understand the lives of our students as we design our lessons for them.

These are just a few things to consider as you prepare spiritual surfaces for "painting." No doubt you've thought of others. Take just a few minutes to jot down any additional ideas that have come to mind. Then over the next few weeks, begin bringing them into play. Not every room that needs paint requires the same amount of preparation. This is where prayer and fasting factors in.

2. Get the Right "Equipment."

Just as the right paint brush can make all the difference in applying your paint, so too for the proper spiritual "equipment."

• Obtain your lesson materials. Attend all in-service meetings during the course of the summer. Make sure you've "prepared" the equipment of your heart and mind for these meetings by prior study, prayer, and perhaps even fasting. By attending these meetings, not only will you receive your lesson materials at the earliest possible moment, but you will be richly rewarded with scintillating instruction from your CES coordinators and supervisors. That instruction is priceless.

• Obtain a printout from your Bishopric as to the seminary-age youth in your ward for next year, hopefully before the first in-service meeting of the summer.  This handout is integral to preparations for the coming year. Not only will you know the general amount of students to expect, thereby helping you have sufficient materials on hand, but you may also begin praying for the students by name. Ancient Israelites used "frontlets" to keep scriptures ever present in their mind, wearing them on their bodies (forehead or arm). If we, as seminary teachers, kept our students' names ever present in our mind (by keeping that printout close at hand), just think how much more readily we will include these youth in our prayers. Think of the difference this will make as we prepare to teach them at the start of the year! This printout is such an important piece of "equipment" for those who paint in the seminary classroom.

• Invite the students to obtain their own personal set of scriptures.  Although seminary students are the ones responsible for making sure they have scriptures, we as their future teachers can encourage them in this. For some new to the Church, this might be news to them! Most people want to do what is right. So take the time over the summer to speak with the parents of these new seminary kids. Let the parents know that it is highly desirable that their children have a set of scriptures for seminary. If the parents experience hardship in this, you can always refer them to chat with the bishop for ideas.

• Ensure that you have a set of scriptures that will see you personally through the school year. This goes without saying, of course. Some seminary teachers have one set of scriptures; some have multiple sets. The number does not matter. What does matter is that you are familiar with them, including all of the additional equipment-tools contained within them, such as the Gazetteer, Bible Dictionary, and other features. The more comfortable you are with these excellent study tools, the more likely you are to use them in class. And the more likely your students will learn to rely on them and use them to their spiritual gain.

These are a just a few of the important "equipment" pieces to aid your spiritual "painting" endeavors. No doubt you have thought of others. List them now and take some time over the next few weeks to obtain them and become familiar with them.

3. Paint.

It is true that while painting, we experience paint splatters and spills. But as we persist, the room being painted takes on an exciting glow of fresh color and renewal.

During the seminary school year, we also experience spiritual paint splatters and spills. We otherwise call these highs and lows. But as we persist, we can begin to see a renewal in our students through this spiritual painting process.

We begin the year with empty surfaces of hearts, minds, and souls of our students. As the year proceeds, and as we lay on the new "paint," the spiritual surfaces of our students' lives take on a vibrancy that can be quite exciting. It makes the paint splatters worthwhile.

It is during this time it would behoove us to keep a journal of our painterly activities. What brought about the brightest of spiritual colors for our students? We would want to record that in our teacher's journal for the next time we might need a similar activity. For example, some students learn better from interactive exercises. Others learn from student-driven activities. Others are best inspired from worksheet/research moments. Notice what paint strokes bring about the brightest hue for your particular group of students.

On the other hand, what dulled the spiritual "paint"? It would be important to record the experience so as perhaps to avoid it in the future. As we keep a record, this will help us avoid any future "blemishes" that we may have encountered previously.

Yes, indeed, a journal can be a spiritual painter's/seminary teacher's best friend. Because when the room is finished (or in our case, the school year), we will want to know which of our painterly techniques served us best. That way the next year we will be able to do it all over again with hopefully even less paint splotches and marrings as we go along!

4. Clean Your Equipment.

It makes no sense to paint beautifully a room and then leave all the paint equipment sitting out, with paint hardening and brushes stiffening. Just as we must prepare a surface, so too do we need to "clean up" when we're done. Here are a few suggestions for the end of a seminary school year. Take time to:

• Write thank you notes to adults. Gratitude pleases the Lord. It is important at the end of each school year to take the time to thank those who have helped you throughout the year. For example, even if you'd previously written a thank you for a parent's helpful acts early on, you still might consider writing him again to let him know how much he or she contributed to an overall successful school year.

• Write thank you notes to the students.  Now might be a good time to write an individual letter to each student, highlighting the talents and abilities they brought forward to help the class. Pray before writing these letters. You may be surprised at how the Lord inspires you while writing them to touch each student's heart.

• Organize materials. Quickly, with what energy you have left, throw out all miscellaneous scraps of paper, files, handouts, and other items that you no longer need. Set a time goal to help you finish this part of cleanup quickly. Clean out cupboards, drawers, and other places. The cleanliness will help the Spirit flow as you begin preparations for the new year. Then for the remaining materials, organize them carefully so that when the new school year begins, you'll be ready to "paint" again!

These are just a few ideas. What others have come to mind? Make sure you jot them down and follow through so that your "clean-up" has been thorough.

Summary

Of all the painterly terms we could use in reference to seminary teaching, the most important one very well could be:

Truly, after all we can do, it is the Spirit that will inspire us with the spiritual caulking we need to heal and seal the cracks in our students' hearts. With the Spirit "caulking" the way, the reality of the Lord's atonement and love for each student can become part of their very makeup.

An excellent seminary teacher does so much of the same work as a painter. Only in many ways, the masterpieces left behind are eternal ones.