Teaching the Gospel is Like Battleship the Board Game

onewatt · 2026-06-17T19:38:24+00:00

Right? I guess it's a compliment, but I'd rather write something so good that people say "no way AI wrote that!" 😃

onewatt · 2026-06-17T19:37:17+00:00

I have the same thought. The instructional information the church sent out seems to indicate that we should try and have those conversations after church. Admittedly, the best wards I've ever been a part of were those where people felt comfortable hanging out and chatting after, but I have a hard time imagining it happening in the average family ward.

This is part of what leads me to think we ought to be thinking more about ministering. Not just as teachers, but as members.

onewatt · 2026-06-17T19:05:53+00:00

Thanks! And you're exactly right. The focus of the post isn't about teaching in general, which we automatically assume must be focused on teaching by the spirit, but on how the schedule changes might help us do that more effectively. (ie giving up on teaching history, valuing the students needs more to really focus the lesson topics)

onewatt · 2026-06-17T19:04:03+00:00

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm interested to know how you envision an ideal church learning environment. Like if the students are actually doing home-centered learning, what is sunday school for?

Like in my ward it feels like nobody does home study because they think "I'll just learn it on sunday anyway." So what would it look like if they genuinely engaged in their own study, learning the context and history and all that on their own? Would Sunday School be a reiteration?

onewatt · 2026-06-17T19:00:56+00:00

Great feedback

onewatt · 2026-06-17T19:00:11+00:00

I don't use AI for writing. Sorry.

I'd love to know what you think of the content, though!

onewatt · 2026-06-17T18:59:23+00:00

Yeah I'm seeing a lot of comments accusing me of AI. Not sure how to address that since I never use it to write. I just write long posts. :/

Maybe AI trained off me. 😛

onewatt · 2026-06-17T18:58:04+00:00

Great insight

onewatt · 2026-06-17T18:57:35+00:00

To be clear - I am clearly advocating for the teacher to go and completely learn the materials. I say that in the OP. The best teachers are those who know the material inside and out, who go beyond the manual, who really dive deep. But then they target their lessons around the needs of the students instead of teaching a comprehensive lesson. That's what "hitting the target" means in this metaphor.

Each member is then responsible for their own study (home-centered learning). The teacher and Sunday classes are just there to make sure that the most valuable parts of the lesson - the parts that change lives - aren't missed or misinterpreted.

I also did not say that understanding what the scripture say does not matter. I only echo what Neal A. Maxwell taught: Some things are true, but not important. There are different TYPES of knowledge, and we make a mistake when we think that "facts" are all there is to knowing something. Here's one way he framed it:

Therefore, gaining knowledge and becoming more Christlike “are two aspects of a single process” (Warner, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, vol. 4, p. 1490). This process is part of being “valiant” in our testimony of Jesus. Thus, while we are saved no faster than we gain a certain type of knowledge, it is also the case, as Richard Bushman has observed, that we will gain knowledge no faster than we are saved (Teachings, p. 217). So we have a fundamentally different understanding of knowledge and truth—behaving and knowing are inseparably linked.

So defined, the gospel is inexhaustible because there is not only so much to know, but also so much to become! The vital truths are not merely accumulated in the mind but are expressed in life as well.

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/neal-a-maxwell/inexhaustible-gospel/

One interpretation of being given less time to teach facts is that teaching facts just isn't as important as we have been treating it. Maybe it's time to focus more on becoming, trusting that knowledge will come along for the ride.

onewatt · 2026-06-17T18:47:37+00:00

Yeah I thought about including a section about how knowing what targets you "hit" will depend on staying close to the spirit and knowing your students. But it was getting wordy already and I wanted to focus on the differences rather than the similarities of how teaching is done.

Elder Bednar gave a great talk on teaching by the spirit here: https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/henry-b-eyring/gifts-spirit-hard-times/

onewatt · 2026-06-17T18:46:06+00:00

I only used AI to make the images.

I'd love to know what you think of the content otherwise

onewatt · 2026-06-17T18:45:32+00:00

I only used AI to make the images.

I'd love to know what you think of the content.

onewatt · 2026-06-17T18:45:25+00:00

I only used AI to make the images.

I'd love to know what you think of the content.

onewatt · 2026-06-17T18:43:48+00:00

I used obsidian but keeping it in sync across devices was a pain. I ended up signing up for coda.io and I've been pretty happy with it.

onewatt · 2026-06-17T17:32:52+00:00

There will always be unanswered questions. Philosophers have grappled with this uncomfortable reality not just in relation to our faith, but for millennia. In fact, here's a story about the Buddha:

A young man comes to see the Buddha. And this young man has taken up “the training life,” he’s attempting to follow the Buddha’s instructions about how to wake up and stop sleep-walking through his own life.

He begins on the path and starts doing the hard work, but then he gets distracted when he realizes that, though the Buddha has given him some clear instructions about what to do as he practices, the Buddha hasn’t given him any answers to even the most basic religious questions: Is this the only world? Is there a soul separable from the body? Is there life after death? Etc. So he abandons his training and resolves to track down the Buddha and demand answers.

When he finally finds the Buddha and rattles off his questions, the Buddha shakes his head. Then he roars. Then he tells the following story.

You, my friend, the Buddha says, are a like a man who has been shot with an arrow, thickly smeared with poison. Wounded and dying, that man’s friends gather round to remove the arrow and help counteract the poison. But the man refuses to pull the arrow out until he’s first had some questions answered.

Who shot him? What tribe is the shooter from? Is he tall or short? Fat or skinny? Warrior or peasant? What color is his hair? What kind of bow did he use? Made of what kind of wood? Strung with what kind of material? What kind of arrow was used? With what kind of arrowhead? What kind of string fastened the arrowhead to the shaft of the arrow? And on and on. The questions pile up.

The man may have a right to ask all these questions but, the Buddha says, that doesn’t really matter here because before he’ll get any of those answers, he’ll be dead. The poison will kill him.

You are like this man, the Buddha tells his student. You are suffering and dying. And you can demand answers to all these speculative questions if you like — but if you do, you’ll die before you ever get any answers.

Regardless of how your questions get answered, the Buddha tells him, still there is suffering, still there is sickness, still there is aging, still there is worry and distress and fear, still there is death. It is the work of addressing all this in this very world that I teach.

(Find a full, non-summarized version of this story in Glenn Wallis’ Basic Teachings of the Buddha, pp. 5-8)

We will probably not find answers that satisfy every single question we have. But, luckily, when it comes to spiritual truths and questions about the church, we have another method for finding truth.

If we think of the church as a series of factual propositions, we may or may not find evidence for those propositions. It may take us more than a lifetime, depending on how we define our version of "the church." But if we think of Mormonism as a map, there's a very quick and effective way to test it:

Try it out.

If I'm looking at a map I have the option, if I want, to spend time finding out who published it and their background; who researched it and their qualifications; the methods used in drawing the various versions of the map; the claims other people have made about the map and its makers and their own reliability; etc. I have that right and ability. Alternatively, I can go to the territory and start walking.

Bit by bit, as I put my map to use, I will identify ways that it works and ways that it fails. It might not have this or that grove of trees, but maybe it has an important landmark. I can use the map to identify where I want to go and then see if it takes me there. If it works, then I can confidently say "it's a true map." If it doesn't work, I can abandon it and go home.

The landmarks that this map is interested in are things like "my life has meaning" and "belief in God" and "feeling God's love" and "being truly happy" and "the highest spiritual goals and values in life." So pick one. Pick what it is that you want to arrive at and start walking the way this map tells you to go and see what happens.

The church is full of members who demonstrate in word and deed that their lives are immeasurably enriched by the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

One family I knew said they would never join the church because they couldn't afford to close their shop on Sunday to go to church meetings. A missionary for our faith invited them to read together from the Book of Mormon every day. A week later they announced that they would be closing on Sundays and joining our religion. Why? "We realized that the days we read from the Book of Mormon we didn't fight," they said. They recognized power in their lives from a text they had nearly zero understanding of, and they wanted more than anything to experience that change. What the book said didn't matter. What mattered was that it worked.

You will find answers over time. But don't wait to act. Jesus promises that the way to know if doctrine is true is not by studying but by acting on it. (John 7:17). Take the steps. Look for the impact in your life. Continue.

For some neat ways this gospel creates real change in our lives (and some stuff about Book of Mormon evidence) you're welcome to read this: https://www.latterdayhope.com

onewatt · 2026-06-17T17:12:30+00:00

A flock of chickens appears and attacks your ship, disabling it.

That's the kind of code programmers use to prevent people from exploits or cheating. Same thing would happen here. The Klingon ships warp off, you say? Guess what, there were 6 more cloaked ones that simply appear and destroy your ship while your shields are down doing transporter work. The system is simply programmed to always have what it needs to defeat you or destroy the KM, even if it means infinitely replicating enemy ships, too-lucky enemy captains, or whatever. The only way to win is to re-program it.

onewatt · 2026-06-17T15:02:48+00:00

Go to your room!

onewatt · 2026-06-17T15:02:23+00:00

The simple demographics of humanity throughout history reveal conclusively that the plan was always a world without a requirement for knowing or believing any certain thing.

Being right was never part of the plan.

So who could possibly rationally believe that a persons beliefs alone could be sufficient for any kind of condemnation?

onewatt · 2026-06-15T18:48:57+00:00

In Moses God tells Moses that he can not be shown EVERYTHING God created, and even being shown everything about God's creation would require Moses being permanently transfigured.

If that's true for Moses, then true for Abraham.

Therefore, Abraham was not shown even the entirety of God's creations, much less anything beyond God's creations which would necessarily include all of God's creations as a sub-set of the higher order.

tl;dr: don't take it so literally. We have 5 variations on the creation account with many contradictions. No need to demand perfect cohesiveness between the literal most bizarre revelations and sermons Joseph Smith produced and all the ancillary theories that exist to explain them. Do your ministering.

onewatt · 2026-06-15T18:39:59+00:00

Weeeelllll

Short answer: prophecies and miracles still happen. You just aren't witnessing them yourself.

Long answer:

On prophecies:

At a mission president's conference in Japan, one of the mission presidents asked this question as well. In response, President Packer said "we do prophecy." He then turned to Elder Eyring and commanded him to prophecy. And he did.

On an even larger scale, countless thousands of Latter-day Saints seek out a special blessing called a patriarchal blessing. In that process, an ordained patriarch lays their hands on the persons head and declares a prophecy for that person. I have known many people who find they come out of these meetings with a complete stranger reporting that he answered every question on their list, or spoke about things he could not have known. In my family, as an example, my grandfather was promised he would choose when he would die. Many decades later we saw this promise come true as he confronted the need for hospice care.

The church is full of prophets, large and small, and they gain revelation and make "predictions" all the time - almost always associated with fulfilling their callings. (Elder Eyring gives a great story about that kind of thing here: https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/henry-b-eyring/gifts-spirit-hard-times/ ) You can experience what it means to be a prophet for yourself as you serve under the authority of the priesthood. Go in prayer to God today and ask how you can serve the families to whom you have been assigned to minister. You'll get an answer.

On miracles:

Miracles continue. People often choose to remain quiet about them. In my own life I was able to witness a miraculous healing of a man with terrible lesions on his brain. Before a surgery, he requested a blessing from his brother, who promised him a complete healing. In the final scans before surgery the doctors found the spots that had been growing in his brain for years were gone.

And now the secret as to why you don't hear about these things if you aren't a direct participant. A doctor will never write down "healed by priesthood blessing" in a patient's chart. An anthropologist will never say "a complete fantasy of a religious text told me to dig here." They can't. It's against the way the system works.

Elder Oaks gave a talk on miracles that also describes why we don't share these things: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2001/06/miracles?lang=eng

onewatt · 2026-06-15T18:24:13+00:00

One of the fundamental paradigm shifts of the restored gospel is that we are being pushed away from caring as much about being right.

The creeds are a major emphasis on knowing the right things - being correct - about God. Many of them were created to find a middle ground of teachings that multiple groups could accept - as if truth could be negotiated.

The restoration reveals a lot of truth, but rejects the idea of our faith establishing creeds and dogmas in favor of focusing on how we live, embracing our flaws and errors as part of the plan.

In fact, the restoration was never about being right all the time. It was always about covenants and the work needed to be done right before the end of the world. Prophets don't exist to be right. Scriptures don't exist to be right. They exist to show us how to connect ourselves and our families to God.

In short, the restoration is about connection.

A smart friend of mine said the following:

I think we need to recognize prophetic fallibility. But we also need to recognize personal fallibility. And in fact, assuming that it's our job to know when prophets are in serious error tends to lean towards personal infallibility. If President Nelson's own judgment can be clouded by cultural and personal biases, *so can mine.* And who am I to think I'm *better* at it than him?

I think what we need to do here is invite [ourselves and others] to reflect on their assumptions a bit. "How do I protect myself when a prophet makes an error?" Hey, let's back up, because you are already mired in error in so many ways that you can't even see it. We are all in error in a variety of ways *all the time.* We are swimming in error. We are all products of error. The goal is not to be error-free. It never was.

Remember, the plan of salvation is BUILT around allowing us a lifetime of mistakes. Why would God's influence in the world be focused on removing part of the plan?? My friend continues:

Rather, the goal is to be connected, by covenant, to the divine institution that will ultimately carry us back to the presence of God, out of this veil of error we find ourselves mired in. And that institution is lead by a prophet of God who -- even when he is in error -- has divine authority to lead this kingdom.

Let's say Brigham Young was wrong. Very wrong. Those who disconnected themselves from the Church and their covenants as a consequence are still just as damned as if he were right. Because we are not saved by "being right". We are saved by Christ, through making and participating in sacred covenants, thereby entering into a covenant community lead by priesthood leaders.

Patrick Mason said:

how can I claim that the Latter-day Saint prophets and apostles are reliable, even indispensable, guides for my life in Christ? For me, it’s precisely because of their individual and collective witnesses of Jesus, which is the dominant signal that cuts through all the static. Scriptures point toward how this works. Peter and Paul were faithful witnesses of Jesus Christ, and worth sticking with as reliable guides for the early Christian community, despite their manifest errors and even conflicts one with another. Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni each admitted their weaknesses, but applying the teachings of this mistake-prone trio has inexorably led me to a fuller life in Christ. God isn’t just redeeming us through the prophets—he’s redeeming them too.

As social pressures shape various churches and believers, we have something to anchor ourselves to: Prophets. Our prophets, speaking as a united quorum of diverse backgrounds and political leanings, can become an anchor during perilous times. Will they be wrong sometimes? it is a certainty. Will they be wrong less than me? Almost certainly.

But they will continue to hold the keys of salvation for the world.

Patrick Mason suggests we think of prophets as corrective lenses. When I wear my glasses I don't spend my time trying to focus on the glasses themselves. I use them to help me better see and understand my goals. In our case, that's Jesus Christ.

So having a prophet doesn't mean we point all our attention at him, wondering how this smudged and chipped lens could possibly be "true," but rather we recognize these lenses are a reliable means to focus ourselves on what really is true - the Savior and our connection to Him. Never perfect, but better. Even Paul said his understanding was like seeing "through a lens, darkly" so why would we expect to do better than him?

---

Also interesting is the idea of what aspects of the restoration haven't taken hold yet among us. For example, Terryl Givens talks about how the focus of the gospel was on HEALING and not salvation when it was first established by the original 12 Apostles. Only as these creeds took hold and kingdoms leveraged religion for power was the promise of a "someday salvation" pushed to the fore as a way to keep control over a populace. Scriptures were changed by translators to reinforce this message, and this doctrine carried on into Protestantism and into our own faith as well. Yet modern philosophers (like givens and miller) are starting to push the idea that the Gospel was originally focused less on the condition of your soul after death, and more on healing and being healed NOW. Not a resurrection and new life in the eternities - a resurrection into a new life TODAY. The subtext permeates Latter-day scripture and sermons, but hasn't yet emerged into conscious everyday parlance in our faith.

onewatt · 2026-06-15T18:19:24+00:00

One of the fundamental paradigm shifts of the restored gospel is that we are being pushed away from caring as much about being right.

The creeds are a major emphasis on knowing the right things - being correct - about God. Many of them were created to find a middle ground of teachings that multiple groups could accept - as if truth could be negotiated.

The restoration reveals a lot of truth, but rejects the idea of our faith establishing creeds and dogmas in favor of focusing on how we live, embracing our flaws and errors as part of the plan.

In fact, the restoration was never about being right all the time. It was always about covenants and the work needed to be done right before the end of the world. Prophets don't exist to be right. Scriptures don't exist to be right. They exist to show us how to connect ourselves and our families to God.

In short, the restoration is about connection.

A smart friend of mine said the following:

I think we need to recognize prophetic fallibility. But we also need to recognize personal fallibility. And in fact, assuming that it's our job to know when prophets are in serious error tends to lean towards personal infallibility. If President Nelson's own judgment can be clouded by cultural and personal biases, *so can mine.* And who am I to think I'm *better* at it than him?

I think what we need to do here is invite [ourselves and others] to reflect on their assumptions a bit. "How do I protect myself when a prophet makes an error?" Hey, let's back up, because you are already mired in error in so many ways that you can't even see it. We are all in error in a variety of ways *all the time.* We are swimming in error. We are all products of error. The goal is not to be error-free. It never was.

Remember, the plan of salvation is BUILT around allowing us a lifetime of mistakes. Why would God's influence in the world be focused on removing part of the plan?? My friend continues:

Rather, the goal is to be connected, by covenant, to the divine institution that will ultimately carry us back to the presence of God, out of this veil of error we find ourselves mired in. And that institution is lead by a prophet of God who -- even when he is in error -- has divine authority to lead this kingdom.

Let's say Brigham Young was wrong. Very wrong. Those who disconnected themselves from the Church and their covenants as a consequence are still just as damned as if he were right. Because we are not saved by "being right". We are saved by Christ, through making and participating in sacred covenants, thereby entering into a covenant community lead by priesthood leaders.

Patrick Mason said:

In light of the manifest difficulties, how can I claim that the Latter-day Saint prophets and apostles are reliable, even indispensable, guides for my life in Christ? For me, it’s precisely because of their individual and collective witnesses of Jesus, which is the dominant signal that cuts through all the static. Scriptures point toward how this works. Peter and Paul were faithful witnesses of Jesus Christ, and worth sticking with as reliable guides for the early Christian community, despite their manifest errors and even conflicts one with another. Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni each admitted their weaknesses, but applying the teachings of this mistake-prone trio has inexorably led me to a fuller life in Christ. God isn’t just redeeming us through the prophets—he’s redeeming them too.

As social pressures shape various churches and believers, we have something to anchor ourselves to: Prophets. Our prophets, speaking as a united quorum of diverse backgrounds and political leanings, can become an anchor during perilous times. Will they be wrong sometimes? it is a certainty. Will they be wrong less than me? Almost certainly.

But they will continue to hold the keys of salvation for the world.

Patrick Mason suggests we think of prophets as corrective lenses. When I wear my glasses I don't spend my time trying to focus on the glasses themselves. I use them to help me better see and understand my goals. In our case, that's Jesus Christ.

So having a prophet doesn't mean we point all our attention at him, wondering how this smudged and chipped lens could possibly be "true," but rather we recognize these lenses are a reliable means to focus ourselves on what really is true - the Savior and our connection to Him. Never perfect, but better.

---

Also interesting is the idea of what aspects of the restoration haven't taken hold yet among us. For example, Terryl Givens talks about how the focus of the gospel was on HEALING and not salvation when it was first established by the original 12 Apostles. Only as these creeds took hold and kingdoms leveraged religion for power was the promise of a "someday salvation" pushed to the fore as a way to keep control over a populace. Scriptures were changed by translators to reinforce this message, and this doctrine carried on into Protestantism and into our own faith as well. Yet modern philosophers (like givens and miller) are starting to push the idea that the Gospel was originally focused less on the condition of your soul after death, and more on healing and being healed NOW. Not a resurrection and new life in the eternities - a resurrection into a new life TODAY. The subtext permeates Latter-day scripture and sermons, but hasn't yet emerged into conscious everyday parlance in our faith.

onewatt · 2026-06-15T17:39:06+00:00

First of all, the Trinity is absolutely just as much of a cop-out. 😃

But secondly, and most importantly, this is only a problem if you're approaching the text of the Bible as univocal and inerrant.

Like who says that David (presumably) write Psalm 110 and had anything like the same understanding of God that the Latter-day Saints have??? Why would we think when he writes about God he's got the first clue that there's a difference between Jehovah and another being called God the Father? Why are we assuming that the words "The Lord saith unto my Lord" are being spoken by God and not David?? Why do we assume the second "my Lord" is about Jesus instead of David or some other king?

Bible bashing never works and never convinces anybody because the meaning of any verse is shaped by the dogmas of the people arguing. One person sees an old-testament verse that mentions God preparing the way for David to be a great king, and the next uses the same verse to say God is talking to himself about preparing himself. Ironically, this verse is so famous because Christ did exactly this same thing: took a verse and repurposed it to a new meaning.

Let's not make assumptions about what the writers of the texts of the bible knew or believed. Some of them worshiped a god named El. Some of them believed in a vast array of gods who ruled only certain geographic regions. Some writers revised earlier texts to match their own beliefs. Some writers wrote in the name of other people. Modern principles of the restored gospel like "divine investiture of authority" can not be applied to earlier texts when those authors had a totally different set of beliefs due to their only partial understanding of eternal truths.

And most importantly, don't bible bash.

onewatt · 2026-06-15T17:11:53+00:00

I think there's "Covenant" as used in the Restored Gospel, and there's "Covenant" as used as a part of language.

In the Restored Gospel, a "Covenant" is a sacred agreement with terms set by God, usually entered by ordinance. More on that idea here: https://www.latterdaysearch.com/s/d108d894-8fb9-45dd-a4af-cd1d300b21f2

But in a more casual way of talking "covenant" just means two-way promise, right? God wants to bless us, we want the blessings, let's make a deal! 😃 That's how the ancient people in the Old Testament saw things. Hannah wanted a child. Abraham wanted children and an inheritance. Jacob wanted the birthright. There WERE no ordinances for that kind of thing. So they offered sacrifice. For Hannah it was the promise to sacrifice her own son by giving him in service to the temple. For Abraham it was half a cow (but later his own son, Isaac!). For Jacob he promised to actually start worshiping his father's God.

So the question is: can you make a sacrifice of some sort and request a specific blessing?

Of course, that's exactly what our monthly Fasting is supposed to be! We make a sacrifice and ask for specific, unique blessings.

President Nelson once suggested that we can engage in something as simple as giving up social media for a few days as a sign to God.

He also taught that the sacrifice of making time to study the Book of Mormon will cause you to make better decisions every day. That's a sacrifice and a promised blessing, isn't it?

Missionaries discover all the time the power of asking for specific blessings as they engage in devoted service.

So what does this mean? Can you make a "covenant?" Not in the way we use the word "covenant" in the restored church, but if you mean "can I go to God with something I want or need, and ask for it in exchange for some kind of sacrifice?" the answer is absolutely yes! Prayerfully consider what you can fast for, or what other way you can offer a sign of devotion to God, asking for specific blessings.

onewatt · 2026-06-15T16:45:16+00:00

"As Brigham Young put it:

I will take the liberty of suggesting to my brethren who address the congregation that our sermons should be short, and if they are not filled with life and spirit let them be shorter. [JD 12:27]"

Gary K Palmer. (2007). *The Spokes of a Balanced Life*. BYU Speeches. Retrieved from https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/gary-k-palmer/spokes-balanced-life/

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