LDS NEWS - SEMINARY BEFORE SUNRISE

Seminary —- before sunrise

High school students gain a ‘foundation’ in Mormon class.They say teachings help guide their decisions.

By Gracie Bonds Staples

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Before daybreak, before this north Fulton County community is fully awake, 17 high school students gather to study the finer points of Scripture and thus build their faith.

They sit barefoot in a circle of sofas and chairs in a spacious basement family room —- eager soldiers studying.

“Welcome to seminary everyone,” says Brenda Yates, the woman of the house and class instructor, taking her seat.

It is 6:40 a.m. on a recent Tuesday, the second day of the second week of seminary, a program of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Every day before school starts and until the end of the school year, these students will meet to build their knowledge of the Book of Mormon. Next year, they will take up the Doctrine and Covenants, modern-day revelations from church prophets, then the Old and New Testaments.

The students —- each here of his or her own volition —- are fully engaged, foregoing for the moment reading, writing and arithmetic for spiritual matters.

“It’s an incredible dedication on these kids’ part,” Yates said. “We’re talking 680 days of seminary by the time they graduate high school.”

For more than half a century, the church has welcomed youths who attend public, private and home schools all over the country in members’ homes, in churches and —- where permitted —- school classrooms to strengthen their faith and build friendships.

This is Carlie Stevens’ first year at Chattahoochee High School but her fourth in seminary. A recent transplant from Arizona, the 17-year-old said she finds the classes comforting as she goes through the day.

“Plus, it’s good to be surrounded by people who are just like you even if it is early,” she said, laughing.

This class in Johns Creek is one of 80 held in metro Atlanta, said Konrad Erni, the southeast area director of seminaries and institutes —- the program for those ages 18 to 30 —- for the Mormon Church. In all, Erni said, more than 1,000 students are enrolled in seminary classes just in metro Atlanta. An estimated 300 college students study in institutes at Georgia Tech, Georgia State, the University of Georgia and other sites.

Erni said the classes help balance students’ secular education with a religious background, a goal gaining traction in public schools across the country.

Indeed three states, including Georgia, have passed laws in recent years calling for public high schools to offer elective courses that teach the Bible. In Georgia, the State Board of Education is required to create two optional, nondevotional classes on the history and literature of the Old and New Testaments.

The Mormon Church established its seminary in 1912 out of a concern for religious education, Erni said.

The church wanted to provide students with a “gospel base” upon which to build their lives, to deal with the problems and challenges they will face and “understand how God speaks to men,” he said.

Seminary classes are taught by church volunteers such as Yates, who after years of getting up early to deliver her children to seminary is now teaching her son and 16 others, mostly students from nearby Chattahoochee High.

Before the year is over, the students will have committed 25 Scriptures to memory. By the end of the fourth year, 100.

Today’s Scripture is from the Book of Mormon, Helaman 5:12, a verse about having a foundation in faith, and includes a carefully orchestrated illustration to make the lesson come alive.

“Zach,” says Yates to her 16-year-old son, “choose five people you’d want to be your bodyguard, to walk with you in a dark alley.”

Then surprisingly, Yates asks them to build a human pyramid in the middle of the floor —- three on the bottom, two in the middle and then finally Zach on top.

On the count of three, they each reveal a word or phrase written on scrolls of white paper: Christ, faith, Scripture, Holy Ghost, eternal truth.

“So what in the world could this possibly have to do with Helaman 5:12?” Yates asks. If you build your foundation on Christ and his promises, they agree, you cannot fall.

Phill Shanklin, 17, and Aaron Bartlett, 14, said the classes are a reminder to maintain their moral standards, especially when confronted with drugs, profanity and premarital sex.

“I notice that when I come out,” Bartlett said, “I make better decisions during the day.”