Are Our Lessons “Shiny”
Do our lessons "call" to our students, because of their "shiny" nature? For nothing can be worse, especially for early morning seminary students, to sit through a lesson while the teacher dully drones on. Even if that teacher is well-meaning, the dryness of the lesson can repel even the most intent of students.
By C.S. Bezas

Eternal Masterpieces
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. Both painters and seminary teachers may create masterpieces.
By C.S. Bezas

Who are the Kids You Teach?
To teach well you need to understand well who it is that you teach. Otherwise, your lessons may not meet your students' true needs.
By C.S. Bezas

"Until I Had Written It"
Journals are especially powerful for gospel teachers. When we honestly record our thoughts each day after class, those thoughts then become priceless tools of instruction for us later on.
By C.S. Bezas

Consecrated to Be Holy
Seminary teachers who consecrate themselves to the Lord's service receive special blessings inherent to their particular form of service. Their purpose is to consecrate their talents and efforts for the edification and instruction of the Lord's youth.
By C.S. Bezas

Charity — the Ultimate Teacher's Gift
Loving others first, before they love back, perhaps may well be one of the Savior's most amazing traits. After all, Christ set the perfect example in all things. How could one do better than that?
By C.S. Bezas

Five Factors to Fine Teaching
There are many factors that greatly affect a teacher's ability to serve diligently in the classroom or even in other scenarios. Among the important factors are five that bear mentioning. They are diligent study, prayer, attention to detail, restful moderation, and desire.
By C.S. Bezas

Modern-day Joshuas
Our youth can be modern-day Joshuas — valiant servants who keep the commandments, who remember courage, who study and ponder often the laws of God. The world certainly isn't going to ask the youth to lift their sights, their standards, and their actions to a higher plane, to a greater strength. But the Lord asks our youth to do the same.
By C.S. Bezas

Mending Cracked Dams
The pressures facing our young men and women today are in many ways far more blatant and common place than anything you or I might have encountered in our own childhood. Under this daily exposure to such heavy and disturbing choices, at any point cracks may begin to appear in our youths' spiritual dams.
By C.S. Bezas

The Highest and Holiest Purpose
Whether it is the pull from our own challenges outside of the classroom or whether it's the unthinking, sudden tugs from our students, teaching can sometimes nearly topple us. Especially when a teacher is an early morning seminary teacher, things can appear particularly taut in the middle of the night.
By C.S. Bezas

Plant a Seed of Faith
Like seeds, our youth can be encouraged to grow — but they can't be forced. The trick is to give them just the right amount of attention, and then let them sprout on their own.
By C.S. Bezas

When Your Son Might be Blind
We are not to judge another's experience as "difficult" or "not difficult." This is true even when working with our youth in the classroom. Only the Lord can make that call.
By C.S. Bezas

The Tsunami is upon Us
It is not surprising to hear spoken from the General Conference pulpit that we are to have our computers in main areas of our homes. We're told to remove TVs, VCRs, and DVDs from our children's bedrooms. Yet how many of us actually have followed both of these counsels?
By C.S. Bezas

Unexpected Thumbprints
Life is full of surprises, even unpleasant ones. Some we cause and some we don't. How frustrating to have to deal with a situation we don't deserve! Yet it is at this precise moment that we can choose to show personal, mature inner strength.
By C.S. Bezas

Family Matters
To create strong youth, we need to first create strong families. The Church has given us helpful guidelines to follow that will provide a framework of love and support for family life.
By C.S. Bezas

We Will Take Heed!
Even after he raised a young man from the dead, the Apostle Paul needed no praise. He apparently knew that the life of a servant of God flowed on a continuing road of effort.
By C.S. Bezas

Just How Obedient Do I Have to Be?
One adult determines to follow the principles in the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet for the year 2007.  She reasons, why should the youth have all the blessings that are promised to those who follow the counsel in this pamphlet?  Adults should seek those blessings, too.
By C.S. Bezas

Simple Words of Truth
The scriptures are God's own guidelines for our lives. What am I doing to utilize this amazing gift of God's words in my own lessons? How much do I rely on His teachings, rather than my own ideas?
By C.S. Bezas

Until They Know
We are told we simply have to "knock, and the door shall be opened." But that may seem easier said than done for some of today's youth, who still need to learn how to harness the power of prayer.
By C.S. Bezas

Rewriting Regrets
It is a new year. We have so much before us. What is the best way to approach the twelve months ahead?
By C.S. Bezas

In Righteousness We Will Live
The Lord asks for righteousness from His youth. He doesn't demand perfection.
By C. S. Bezas

Come, Ye Disconsolate
Wars are occurring in disparate and far off locations, yet conflict also occurs in our own streets and backyards. Our youth are surrounded by it all. Will they yield to the despair of our times?
By C.S. Bezas

Reaching Out to Others at Christmas
If your blessed state during Christmas has made you keenly aware that others are not so fortunate, don't just feel guilty. If you reach out, you can touch the lives of others in meaningful ways.
By C.S. Bezas

Fortifying Foundations of Faith
Life can be a minefield of unforeseen difficulty and even tragedy. Scripture mastery scriptures give youth a foundation of faith to fortify them when these tragedies arise.
By C.S. Bezas

Scripture Scripture, Who has the Scripture?
Seminary teaching can be a delight, but it can be a challenge to continuously find fresh approaches for Scripture Mastery applications. Here's one game you might try once the kids have many of their Scripture Mastery verses memorized.
By C.S. Bezas

A Revvvvving Review
If you use this technique when teaching scripture mastery verses to your students, the verses will become easy for them to find and simple for them to understand.
By C.S. Bezas

A Scripture Mystery-Mastery Game
A cupcake baking pan and twelve circles are all you need to teach students the principles behind scripture mastery verses as well as the verses themselves.
By C.S. Bezas

Seek First to Understand
It does not matter how much a person sacrifices. What matters is where that person's heart and mind are during the sacrifice.
By C.S. Bezas

The Problem of Apathetic Students
What about students who don't want to learn? Is there any way to reach students who refuse to experience the joy of the gospel?
By C.S. Bezas

Your Perspective, Please
How are the teenagers in your ward doing? And what can you do to help them?
By C.S. Bezas

Speaking of Principles
The world shouts belligerently, filling the ears of our youth with all kinds of garbage. How will they sort through the gunk to find that which is true?
By C.S. Bezas

A Life of Peace like a River
I am very aware that every moment in front of my students is as if it is being recorded by some celestial "cam" and one day may be viewed as part of my stewardship review before the Lord himself.
By C.S. Bezas

From a Parent’s Perspective
Does a tardy student necessarily equal an inconsiderate student? There are a whole lot of mitigating factors that should prohibit anyone from judging.
By C.S. Bezas

Dealing with Tardiness
Just as termites can erode a structure, tardiness can do the same to an otherwise beautiful seminary lesson.
By C.S. Bezas

Behavior Problems in the Classroom
Seminary teachers have the necessary right to suspend or discipline any students that cause serious problems within the seminary program. Parents need to be informed when their children are doing well in seminary and especially when their youth are not.
By C.S. Bezas

The Burden of Balance
Was it really possible to achieve success as a seminary teacher without — over the top effort? — How could a gospel teacher possibly work smarter without working harder?
By C.S. Bezas

Enjoying the Journey
All is not a bed of roses when you begin to teach seminary. Fortunately, the rewards will eventually outweigh the challenges — especially if you take advantage of the seminary teacher's secret weapon.
By C.S. Bezas

Full-Hearted Obedience
Obedience does not always bring absence of pain or absence of trial. In fact, sometimes it summons it. There is much for our seminary students to understand as to the topic of obedience and to grow in appreciation for it.
By C.S. Bezas

Powerful Teachers Pray
One of the most powerful tools any teacher can use is the power of prayer. Our use of this great gift can literally shine on our faces.
By C.S. Bezas

The Fruits of “One-ness”
It might be surprising to find out how many of our youth have never felt “at one” with anyone. If they have not felt this way with any individual they have seen, how can they understand how to become one with the Lord, someone they haven’t seen?
By C.S. Bezas

I Am Oh, So Green!
If you think you know it all, you may be rotting on the vine. Humility and teachability keep us fresh.
By C.S. Bezas

The Battle is Real
Our students have one life to prove their faithfulness to the Lord. This is why choice matters. This is why we teach with such clarion voices. This is why we serve our youth the way we do.
By C.S. Bezas

Spiritual Bumblebees
Those squirrelly boys who sit in the back of the classroom and make your life miserable — can you see them with an eye of faith?
By C.S. Bezas

A Scriptural Emphasis
Can a powerful 3,600 RPM saw really be any more dangerous than life in today's world? Yet people seem more likely to read a saw's instruction book than to read the Lord's instruction book, the scriptures.
By C.S. Bezas

Teaching Youth to Savor the Meat
Every day our students walk back and forth between two worlds — that of the adversary and that of the Spirit. At some point, they will choose which one to inhabit permanently. With a solid scriptural foundation, they will have the ammunition they need to help them make the right choice.
By C.S. Bezas

Games in the Seminary Classroom: Friend or Foe?
Here's a thought. How many hearts have been wounded because of flung words or hasty accusations during competitive moments in seminary
By C.S. Bezas

What to Do with Teacher Fatigue?
Fatigue. You are tired. It's the end of the seminary year. Whether you teach early morning seminary or full-time seminary, here are five points to help you remain fresh for your students even to the final day of class!
By C.S. Bezas

Report from the Seminary Cam
The most valuable advice I received as a new seminary teacher came from my CES director after observing my classroom — make sure every day your students are in the scriptures themselves. I soon learned that it is actually in reading the word of the Lord that one falls in love with the scriptures.
By C.S. Bezas