You teach the Sunday Elders Quorum lesson. Your job isn't to deliver content — it's to open a conversation worth having. Men learn through discussion and reflection, but they need more invitation than women typically do. The quality of your questions and the safety of the room matter more than how much you cover.
Day One
Do These Things First
Connect with the Elders Quorum President.↗ text him
Ask: How often am I teaching — every week, every third Sunday, rotating? What curriculum are we following — Come, Follow Me, general conference talks, something else? Is there a co-teacher I'm rotating with? Any class dynamics or individual situations I should know about?
Know the curriculum and your schedule. Most wards follow Come, Follow Me ↗ for Elders Quorum lessons, though some use general conference talks or a rotation set by the EQ President. Confirm which weeks you teach — then mark them and start reading ahead. Last-minute prep is survivable; a week of thinking about the lesson is not.
Sit in on a few quorum meetings before you teach. Even if you've been in Elders Quorum for years as a member, watch it from a teacher's perspective: who speaks, who doesn't, what kinds of comments land, what makes the room feel open or closed. You can't teach a room you don't know.
Get the EQ Secretary's contact for room coordination.
The secretary handles the meeting schedule and logistics. Know who to contact if you need something set up or if you ever need to arrange a substitute.
Your Role
What the Elders Quorum Teacher Actually Does
You teach the gospel lesson during Elders Quorum on your assigned Sundays. Depending on how the EQ President has organized the month, that might be every Sunday, every third Sunday, or on a rotating schedule with a co-teacher. The format is the same either way: a facilitated discussion, not a lecture.
The lesson typically follows Come, Follow Me — the same weekly scripture material the ward is studying together — though your EQ President may have a different curriculum in place. Either way, your role is to take that material and find what's genuinely worth discussing with the specific men in your quorum, not to cover everything in the manual.
Men often need more invitation to open up than women do. Elders Quorum rooms can go quiet in ways Relief Society rooms rarely do. That's not apathy — it's often men not being sure it's safe to say something real, or not having practiced it. Your job is to make the room feel like a place where a man can admit he's struggling, share something honest, or disagree with a reading. A lesson where three men speak will still matter to the fifteen who stayed silent if the room felt safe.
You report to the Elders Quorum President. Stick to your scheduled dates, communicate early if something comes up, and flag anything significant that surfaces in class — a member struggling, a doctrinal question worth bringing to the presidency, or a dynamic worth their awareness.
Preparation
How to Prepare a Lesson Worth Teaching
Start early
Read the Come, Follow Me material for your lesson week as early as possible — ideally a week out. Ideas need time to become questions. Something you read Monday morning will generate a better discussion point by Saturday than the same text read the night before you teach.
Find your anchor
What passage or idea from this lesson is genuinely meaningful to you? Start there. A lesson taught from something you're actually thinking about feels different from a lesson delivered from an outline. Men sense the difference immediately — and they'll engage if you're engaged.
Write real questions
Write questions you actually don't know the answer to — questions where you want to hear what the quorum thinks. "What does this teach you about how God views failure?" is a real question. "Wasn't it inspiring how Nephi trusted God?" is not. Aim for four to six questions that would genuinely surprise you with their answers.
Plan for silence
Men often take longer to respond than women do. Ask a question, then wait longer than feels comfortable. Ten seconds of silence is not failure — it's thinking. Filling that silence with your own answer trains the room to let you do all the talking. Ask, wait, and trust the room.
Arrive early
Get to the room before quorum members arrive. Greeting men as they walk in — by name, with genuine interest — is part of the lesson. Men who feel seen before the lesson starts are more likely to engage once it does.
Teaching the Quorum
What Makes a Good Lesson Great
Make the first question easy to answer
Don't open with the most important question. Open with something low-stakes — an observation, a reaction, something from the reading that stood out. Once a few men have spoken, the room is warmer and the deeper questions land better. The first five minutes set the temperature for everything that follows.
Don't rescue a struggling lesson with content
When a lesson isn't working, the instinct is to start talking more — filling the space, delivering information, covering ground. Resist it. A quiet room is more likely to open if you ask a simpler question or invite someone specific, not if you double down on presenting. The lesson exists to create conversation, not to replace it.
The difficult passages are worth staying in
Some lessons will land on texts men genuinely wrestle with — faith and doubt, hard Church history, passages that conflict with lived experience. Don't skip them or resolve them prematurely. Acknowledging "this is something I've thought a lot about and don't fully have settled" opens more than false certainty. Men who feel they're allowed to bring their real questions are more likely to keep coming to quorum.
Personal experience over doctrinal authority
Sharing your own experience — briefly, genuinely — does more to open a discussion than quoting sources. "I've been thinking about this passage all week because..." is an invitation. "According to the Apostle Paul..." is a presentation. You're facilitating, not lecturing. Teach from the first position.
End on time, and end with something real. Quorum lessons that run long erode trust over time. End with a brief, genuine statement of what you take from the lesson — not a summary, but an honest closing thought. That's the last thing in the room, and it matters.
Key Contacts
Who You Work With Regularly
EQ President
↗ text
Your direct leader. He sets the lesson schedule, coordinates the curriculum, and is your first contact for questions, concerns, or anything significant that surfaces in class. Keep him informed — especially if a member is struggling or a lesson goes somewhere unexpected.
EQ Secretary
↗ text
Handles the meeting schedule, room assignments, and records. If you need to arrange a substitute, coordinate room setup, or confirm a date, start here.
Co-Teacher
↗ text
If you rotate with another EQ teacher, stay coordinated. You don't have to teach the same way — but knowing what they covered recently helps you build on the conversation rather than repeat it.
Quorum Members
Know them. A teacher who knows that Brother Kim just got laid off, or that Brother Reyes has been carrying something heavy for months, teaches with more care and awareness. The relationships you build outside of class change what you're able to offer inside it.
Quick Notes
Operational Notes
Log your teaching schedule, lesson dates, curriculum notes, or anything worth handing off when you're released.