If you are trying to teach from this year’s D&C/Church History Gospel Doctrine manual, you may find yourself frustrated that it doesn’t walk through the Doctrine and Covenants chapter by chapter, or that it doesn’t simply review the History of the Church from the days of Joseph Smith to the present time. Irritated with the approach the manual takes? If so, there are reasons why you’ll need to adjust your teaching approach and most likely your expectations about the purpose of this particular Sunday School course. It helps to know a little bit about why it was designed the way it was.

Several years ago, a committee was called to rewrite this Sunday School D&C/Church History Gospel Doctrine manual and redesign the course of study. They...