Dan Duckworth is the founder and host of LeaderQuest, an elite leadership program that transforms managers and executives into dynamic changemakers. He speaks, teaches, and writes on leadership and leadership development, and provides one-on-one coaching to leaders aiming to drive transformational change. Dan has served as a board member for Leading Saints since 2019. To learn more, visit idylli.co or find Dan on LinkedIn. 

The Typical Sunday School Class

If you were to walk into a typical Sunday School class within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with eyes wide open, what would you observe?

In a typical youth Sunday School class, an overwhelmed but well-meaning adult struggles against the appalling apathy of the young students. The teacher dominates the session, marching her lethargic students through the assigned curriculum. The youth express their disengagement through stone-faced silence, chit-chatting, or hunching over their phones as they text or play games. The teacher’s forced smile fades with each attempt to engage them. There is minimal meaningful dialogue, almost no peer-to-peer interaction, and a noticeable lack of connection to the youth’s personal lives and real challenges. The nominal participation of a few students who offer rote answers reflects a sense of obligation rather than genuine interest.

Across the hall, in a typical adult Sunday School class, the teacher is likely over-prepared and caught up in the drama of his own self-worth as he subconsciously performs for his peers. Aware of the “new” approach to teaching, he creates the illusion of group participation, but his underlying fear of chaos and need for control nullify his efforts. Thus, a few self-assured participants dominate the discussion, recycling well-worn statements that affirm their established views and validate their past experiences. Meanwhile, the rest of the class sits in silence, either frustrated by the shallowness or ignorance of the comments or burdened by their private struggles, which are rarely, if ever, acknowledged in the room. Most simply wait for the class to end, not because they are unfaithful or inattentive, but because the experience offers little relief to their real-life spiritual challenges.

As Stake Sunday School President, I’ve been observing Sunday School classes closely for 18 months—in my stake and many others—and I’ve concluded that Sunday School is broken. While that may sound alarmist, what else can you call something that consistently fails to deliver its intended value, if not “broken”?

The Stated Purpose of Sunday School

To fix something that is broken, you have to have an idea of the intended value of that thing. What are the intended use and outcomes of Sunday School? What is it supposed to accomplish? What need does it fill?

We can’t improve Sunday School—let alone transform it—until we understand what it’s supposed to be.

The Handbook says this is its purpose:

“The Sunday School helps accomplish God’s work of salvation and exaltation. It does this by helping God’s children learn and live the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

But what does it mean to “learn” and “live” the gospel? And how do you “help” someone achieve those ends, really? Without a clearly defined and disruptive vision, our past experiences will dictate how we interpret these terms. But using our current approach to Sunday School is like using a broken widget as the blueprint to design new widgets—without recognizing that the current state is flawed, we simply replicate the same patterns that aren’t producing desired results.

If we don’t challenge the status quo, we risk repeating ineffective approaches to teaching, where “learning” is reduced to rote memorization of gospel principles and “living” the gospel becomes about outward compliance rather than deep, personal transformation. To break free from the status quo, we first need a new vision of what Sunday School could be, which means we need to clearly delineate how “learn and live” going forward is distinctly different from what we do today.

What it Means to Learn and Live

The most common teaching approach we encounter—both in the Church and elsewhere—is teaching for knowledge transfer. This can take many forms: lectures, presentations, Socratic discussions, projects, or even new-age concepts like flipped classrooms that encourage students to learn new material outside of class and reserve class time for practice and discussion. The unifying characteristic of these varied methods is the unseen instructional intent: to ensure that students know something.

While there is undeniable value in acquiring knowledge about gospel principles and Church history, its impact is inherently limited to the realm of intellectual understanding. Knowing facts and doctrines is important, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient to achieve meaningful spiritual growth or personal transformation.

There is a different form of teaching and learning, one focused on conversion and behavioral change, as opposed to mere knowledge acquisition. This type of teaching engages the heart and spirit, empowering individuals to not only know the gospel but to be changed by it, transforming their attitudes, behaviors, and relationships with God and others.

Elder Oaks juxtaposed traditional and transformational teaching this way:

“In contrast to other preaching, which teaches us to know something, the gospel of Jesus Christ challenges us to become something.”

To underscore this distinction, he concluded that becoming like Jesus Christ

“requires far more than acquiring knowledge.”

Transformational teaching differs fundamentally from traditional knowledge-based teaching because it has a totally different objective: to cultivate personal qualities, values, and behaviors by engaging students through reflection, dialogue, and disruptive experiences. Where traditional teaching is measured by students’ understanding and retention of information, teaching for character development is assessed by changes in students’ attitudes, behaviors, and capacity for self-management and self-development. Ultimately, the goal of transformational teaching is to empower students to drive their own development.

In transformational teaching, the outcomes of “learn” and “live” are not separate steps but merged into a singular concept, much like “law and order” or “faith and works.” You don’t first learn and then live—learning happens through living. This is the natural process of character development, and indeed the essence of mortality, where personal growth unfolds as we navigate life’s experiences.

If spiritual development happens organically without intervention, what is the role of an intervention like Sunday church or Sunday School, specifically?

In line with the Hippocratic oath, transformational teaching must first “do no harm” to the natural process of spiritual growth, ensuring that it doesn’t obstruct or disrupt it. This is my greatest concern with our current approach to church, particularly Sunday School. We have created a plastic, hollow experience—a charade that lacks true power. As a result, when our children and members face real spiritual needs, not only do they fail to find solace or solutions in church, but they are often repelled by it. Instead, they seek the “balm of Gilead” elsewhere because it seems painfully absent in our Sunday services.

Second, any intervention should aim to stimulate and accelerate organic growth by cultivating the conditions most conducive to it, creating an environment where learning and living the gospel naturally go hand in hand. Importantly, the goal is not to force growth, as is often the case with traditional teaching, where we control the environment, process, and outcomes. Instead, the goal is to enable growth to happen on its own terms and in its own way. This requires a level of dynamism, flexibility, and fluidity in the approach, allowing the process to unfold naturally, created in real-time by the participants themselves, and guided by their individual, emerging needs.

The Discerned Purpose of Sunday School

Of course, there’s a time and place for sermons, preaching, and even didactic teaching. But our learning environments have become muddled, with no clear delineation between them. Sunday School is barely distinguishable from group meetings or seminary classes, especially in this new era of aligned curriculum. This blurring of boundaries is a sign that we’ve lost sight of the true purpose of these distinct settings. Each should offer a unique and meaningful experience, but instead, they’ve become indistinguishable, reflecting a deeper misunderstanding of their genuine roles.

Among all Church settings, Sunday School is uniquely suited for transformational teaching and learning—let’s explore why. I previously wrote about the natural order of church, which is to gather in Christ, whether spontaneously or on a schedule. However, in practice, we operate within the structures prescribed by Church leaders. Instead of rethinking the entire premise of our Sunday services, we can look to the existing structures to discern what greatest good can be accomplished within them.

Aristotle said that to understand the purpose of something, you don’t need to ask its creator—you only have to observe its unique characteristics. For instance, the purpose of a cup is clearly to hold water, just as the purpose of sheep is to produce wool, and the purpose of a hammer is to drive nails. While these objects may serve other functions, their highest purpose, or the greatest good they contribute, is rooted in what sets them apart.

Similarly, by examining the intrinsic nature of Sunday School, we can discern its highest and best use—its dynamic purpose—which is to foster transformational learning within the framework of the gospel. Let’s examine the unique attributes of Sunday School that shed light on its purpose.

The Membership

The core feature of Sunday School is its membership, which is comprised of individuals with an interest in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. While a small minority may seek an intellectually rigorous experience, the unifying factor for this diverse group is that each person is navigating their faith journey. Each has unmet spiritual needs and is looking to Jesus Christ as a source of strength and power. Though their life circumstances vary widely, their universal need is for spiritual progress, not mere religious education. They come seeking to deepen their relationship with the divine and to find meaningful spiritual growth.

The inclusion of mixed genders in a single Sunday School class indicates that the experience must be universally relevant across gender lines, addressing gospel principles that apply to all. At the same time, the age separation—with youth and adults in distinct groups—acknowledges the significance of participants’ life experiences. This structure allows for discussions to be more contextualized and meaningful, tailored to the specific challenges and perspectives that come with different stages of life, thereby deepening the relevance of the learning experience.

Another distinctive characteristic of Sunday School is that it is not a standing body. The group is transient, meaning its members come together for the duration of the class but have no shared responsibilities or identity outside of it. Unlike other church settings, such as priesthood quorums or Relief Society, where members have shared responsibilities and opportunities beyond formal meetings, Sunday School participants disperse back into their families and neighborhoods after the class ends.

The transient nature of the group, combined with the lack of an ongoing group identity outside the classroom, shifts the purpose away from community development and squarely on personal development. Sunday School, unlike other Church settings, is about providing each person with the structure and support they need to navigate their unique challenges and situations. The focus isn’t on building a cohesive, empowered group with a collective mission but rather on empowering individuals to show up differently in their families and communities.

The Teacher

Another unique characteristic of Sunday School is the nature of the teacher. In most settings, the teacher is not a trained or skilled professional but a lay member of the congregation. They’re often called to serve in this capacity without formal training in education or theology.

Even when teachers are adults leading youth classes, they don’t function as authoritative experts on the subject matter, though they often pretend to. Instead, they are fellow learners on their own spiritual journey.

The idea that there is no single expert in the room is central to the dynamic of Sunday School. When teachers try to adopt an “expert” posture, it can feel inauthentic or incoherent to the class. Rather than fostering an open, collaborative learning environment, it can unintentionally shut down discussion or make the experience feel less engaging and participatory.

In short, the expectation isn’t for the teacher to act as an expert but to facilitate learning and spiritual growth. This dynamic—where no one is an expert and all are learners—makes Sunday School different from traditional classrooms and shapes its purpose and approach.

The Gathering

A critical third characteristic is that Sunday School is a gathering, which signals the importance of the communal experience in individual development. Though Sunday School is focused on personal transformation, it is the communal aspect—the coming together of diverse individuals—that enables this process. By sharing insights, reflecting on experiences, and engaging in dialogue, participants help one another grow in ways that wouldn’t be possible in isolation.

This gathering isn’t about collective identity or a shared mission beyond the classroom, as in other Church groups, but about creating a space where community enables personal growth. The act of gathering itself—bringing together diverse experiences and perspectives—provides opportunities for participants to see the gospel from different angles and apply it in new ways to their own lives. Thus, Sunday School offers a unique setting where community fosters individual transformation.

The one-to-many communication style of traditional teaching undermines the potential for genuine social interaction in this space. It directly contradicts the self-evident purpose of Sunday School, which is to foster engagement and communal exploration rather than passive reception of information.

In summary, Sunday School exists to facilitate personal spiritual growth through a communal learning experience. It provides an environment where individuals, who are at various stages of their faith journey, come together to reexamine their belief systems and explore the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Unlike other Church settings, the focus is not on building a lasting group identity or working together toward a collective mission but on empowering each individual to deepen their faith and reconsider their unique life challenges through the lens of the gospel.

How the Role of the Teacher Shifts

From the discerned purpose of Sunday School, we can see that the role of the teacher differs significantly from traditional teaching settings. In traditional education, where the intent is primarily knowledge transfer, the teacher is seen as an expert whose job is to impart information to students, who passively receive it. The success of this model is often measured by how much content students can understand and retain.

In a transformational Sunday School, however, the instructional intent is not focused on the simple transmission of knowledge. Instead, it aims for personal spiritual growth through communal learning and adaptive reflection. The objective isn’t just to have participants “know” gospel doctrines but to help them internalize these principles to revamp their attitudes, behaviors, and relationships. The learning process is experiential and transformational, where participants engage actively with the material, their peers, and their own faith journey.

This shift in instructional intent leads to a much different role for the teacher. Rather than being the primary source of knowledge, the teacher in Sunday School becomes a facilitator of spiritual discovery and dialogue. The teacher’s responsibility is to create a space where participants feel safe and supported to explore, reflect, and share their emerging insights and experiences. The teacher encourages open dialogue, helps guide discussions, and fosters an atmosphere where individuals can learn from each other’s perspectives.

The phrase “replace the sage on the stage with a guide on the side” captures the essence of this shift in teaching approach. In traditional models, the teacher acts as the “sage on the stage,” an expert who presents knowledge from a position of authority. However, in the context of transformational teaching within Sunday School, the teacher’s role is that of a “guide on the side.” This means that instead of delivering information from a position of expertise, the teacher facilitates discussions, encourages exploration, and fosters personal application of gospel principles.

Thus, the teacher’s role shifts from expert to facilitator, with success being measured not by how well she conveys information but by how well she engages the group in introspection and authentic dialogue. Despite this shift in instructional intent and methods, the teacher remains a teacher. More than ever, in this new paradigm, she fulfills the Handbook’s mandate to “help” participants “learn and live” the gospel.

How Do We Get from Here to There?

If the goal is transformational teaching, but we continue to be inundated with transactional teaching in our Sunday School classrooms, how do we get from here to there?

Despite the Church’s concerted efforts to introduce new approaches to teaching and learning with “Teaching in the Savior’s Way” in 2016 and “Come, Follow Me” in 2019, little has changed beyond the terminology we use. While we now describe our practices and techniques in chic new terms, the underlying beliefs and mindsets remain largely unaffected. It’s akin to putting lipstick on a pig, or as Jesus said, whitewashing tombs. This type of superficial change, often seen in corporate environments, is harmful because it breeds cynicism. When we claim to have changed but haven’t, it erodes trust, making genuine reform more difficult, as future efforts are likely to be met with skepticism.

In the past two essays, I have delved deeply into the natural order of church and the true purpose of Sunday School. This is crucial because we cannot move to the practical steps of change until we are firmly grounded in a clear vision of what we are trying to create. We can’t fix what is broken until we understand what it should be.

I’ve been working through this for the past 18 months in my current calling and for over 5 years altogether, having served as a Sunday School teacher for 4 years before being called to the stake. If you want to become a transformational teacher and create transformational experiences for your people, you must likewise spend time “in the wilderness,” as Christ did—deeply reflecting on the nature of Sunday School, its inherent purpose, and what this reveals about your role and mission, regardless of your calling.

Vision is the foundation of all true change, but it cannot be handed to you—not by the Brethren, and certainly not by me. You must do the hard spiritual work to let the vision of what could be—and should be—emerge within your heart and mind.

Can you discern the true purpose of Sunday School?