The gospel of Jesus Christ is all about invitation. The Lord gives us the ultimate invitation to "come follow me." All of this mortal experience is choice. Who do we choose to follow. What do we choose to do with our time. The scriptures are full of "if/then" statements. If you do these things (by invitation) then I will do these things by the laws which have been established.
The very first day of seminary we had the students come up with some goals. One of the goals they picked was to invite someone to seminary. We just picked a random date and proceeded. As the date approached my companion and I went over the lesson plans. We discovered that we were to have a lesson on the Armor of God 1 day after our invite day, so we swapped the lessons out. We counseled together about why that would be a more appropriate lesson for friends. As a side note I think it is really awesome that the students wanted to have a "normal" seminary day so that their friends could see what it was like everyday and not some game or party time. These kids rock! Anyway. We could focus on the similarities and differences between the account in Ephesians 6:12-18 and the Doctrine and Covenants 27:15-18 version from the Lord himself. That way we were in the bible and on neutral ground and then we could add further light.
As we were thinking about how to present this to the class I remembered an article I read in the New Era with some modern day armor.
I immediately contacted the most artistic and talented person I know and begged him to make me some armor. He thought I was crazy for asking but was excited for the challenge of how to make something useful out of cheap lightweight materials and not have it look like junk. I think I owe him my life or something for it. Next we needed the FBI gear and we have an "in" connection for that as well.
When my friend called to drop of the armor he made, he warned me not to get my hopes up because it wasn't that great. I reassured him that anything he did would far surpass my attempts and that I was extremely grateful for a scrawling on a piece of paper if that's what he showed up with.
Are you kidding me? This is your "not that great" effort! Dude, he is freaking amazing! It was a little too big for my model Ethan, but Jared couldn't stand on 1 foot anymore for me to get a picture. In case you are wondering. He decided to use craft foam (at the suggestion of his equally talented and amazing wife).
Shall I tie this back into invite? Sure why not. I invited my friend to a monumental challenge. He accepted. He is now a rockstar. Thanks to him, I'm pretty sure this is one of the lessons the students will remember and talk about well into their adult years.
We were pretty worried that we wouldn't get any friends on our invite day. My dining room is at capacity when we are using the tables, so we had to take my table out of my dining room to accommodate any extra people (we have 14 regularly attending).
As we were tearing apart my dining room and my children were casting doubt on my mind, I just kept thinking "if you build it, they will come." I had to have the seats so I could be prepared for extra people. There is nothing worse than not having seats for everyone! We had 3 friends come. One of them was a student's grandpa, but he never got to attend seminary and we love when he comes to visit. The 2 friends that came is not a reflection on how many of them actually invited people. Almost all did and some invited several. The point was not in the getting the friends there (which was a bonus) but it was in the extending of the invitation. They had to have gospel conversations with their friends in order to invite them to seminary. Let's face it, it is at 6 am. Not many people are willing to start their day that early.....but 2 did :0)
OK, I decided to tell a story about 1 of the kids. I won't use his name and I'm pretty sure he won't mind. Anyway, he had been praying to know who to invite. He had already invited several others with a bargain - he would attend their youth group if they would attend seminary. He held up his end of the bargain (they didn't come today). Still he was continuing to pray. He got the impression that he should ask one of his friends (that's a girl). He got to class and hadn't decided if or how he would invite her. She starts the conversation by saying "I had a dream about you last night." He got a little worried and asked about it. "I had a dream that you invited me to your church." I still get choked up when I remember him telling the story. He was then able to tell her that he had been praying for someone to ask to seminary. She came with him to class today. Revelation is alive and well and here on the earth today!
Back to class. We dressed up our 2 volunteers side by side in the type of armor mentioned in the bible and the modern armor we have today. We even got to add a couple of things like, night vision goggles, radar, gps, and a walkie-talkie (that article I mentioned talks about those devices). The other thing we got to talk about with the flak jacket is that there are different layers of protection -adding more layers line upon line. At the end of class they all got the Ephesians version printed out on full size candy bars. The only problem we have now is that because that lesson was so fun, the boring days of seminary will seem much more boring!
If we put on the Armor of God, then we will be protected against the evil day. By the way the conference talks went, we need us some serious armor and we need it now! I invite you to take seriously the council to suit up!
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