A serious question for you religious/LDS followers: I'm genuinely curious, how do you do your gospel study in your own home?
- Do you read chronologically? Cover-to-cover? Topically?
- For a certain amount of time or a certain number of pages/chapters?
- Do you only read the Book of Mormon? Standard works?
- Do you study conference talks/other Church-approved lit (like "Daughters in my Kingdom" or Priesthood/Relief Society manuals)?
- Do you use Preach my Gospel?
- Do you journal what you study?
- Morning or night?
- What about your family scripture study--a certain number of chapters or length of time? From the actual books or from the Children's illustrated/story-based versions? Do you just read, or do you discuss? Do you ever act it out or do other activities/challenges with what you read?
I'm asking because I don't really have "one way" I do it, and I wonder if that's normal. Sometimes (like right now) I read the Book of Mormon cover-to-cover because I haven't in a while. (Or I listen to it on my iPhone. :) Sometimes I use Preach My Gospel to guide my study, and sometimes I study topically like I'm preparing a talk. Usually once or twice a week I study from general conference talks now instead. When I feel SUPER busy, I want to carry around my scripture mastery cards and just focus on thinking about one scripture passage whenever I can throughout a whole day for 100 days (I kinda want to do this after I finish the Book of Mormon this year, because I forget most of them now). I rarely journal what I study (unless I feel the need to) but sometimes it REALLY helps. I like studying in the morning, when I'm fresh and ready to "put on my armor" for the day, but I tend to have more time in the evening, or need the comfort of the scriptures to be able to fall asleep at night. Paul and I don't read together right now, because we didn't really get much out of it when we read cover-to-cover together, but we try to take time to talk about what we're studying. I'd like to get into a gospel study routine more. I guess I'm trying to figure it all out myself and just wanted to have your input. :)
I think following your instinct and the spirit to what you need now for study is good. I think mixing it up is REALLY good. I usually just read through, but I have done other things too, like study by topic, etc. I think as long as you are consistently studying everyday, that that is the important bit to get a lot out of it.:)
ReplyDeleteNot disagreeing with Clair at all, but following my instinct is not a good plan FOR ME. My instincts are not so strong that I can follow the Spirit in choosing what to study and how to do it. I NEED a plan. So I made myself a plan in January (had a r.s. activity about it, in fact) that is pretty simple for now, and will evolve some for sure. My plan includes spending some time every day (ideally) reading the Book of Mormon; it is THE ONLY book of scripture that I've heard general authorities repeatedly say we should study every single day. But there are a lot of other things we should be reading. So my schedule is like this: Sunday - Sunday school lesson for the following week, Monday - Preach My Gospel (our stake has really stressed that one), Tuesday - Daughters in My Kingdom (if you haven't read it yet DO IT! It's awesome), Wednesday - "current" General Conference talk, Thursday - For the Strength of Youth pamphlet (also stressed in our stake, did you know they updated it this year?), Fun Friday - memorize a scripture, Saturday - relief society lesson for Sunday. I'm not perfect at it at all, but I really like my plan. I just felt overwhelmed by all the stuff that I knew I should be reading, and the severe lack of time to study all of it. This helps. I try to read a chapter or two from the BoM in the morning, and do my other scheduled reading at night. ALSO, I made the online scriptures my homepage in my web browser. :) So if I feel like I have a minute I can read the scriptures online as well - or instead. haha
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