You teach the Sunday Relief Society lesson. Your job is to create spiritual space — questions that open things up, a room where women feel safe to speak honestly, and a lesson that leaves people thinking rather than just having listened. The conversation matters more than the content.
Day One
Do These Things First
Connect with the Relief Society President.↗ text her
Ask: How often am I teaching — every week, every other week? What does the lesson schedule look like? Is there a co-teacher I'm rotating with? Are there any class dynamics or individual situations I should be aware of?
Know the curriculum. Relief Society uses Come, Follow Me ↗ — the adult edition, following the same weekly scripture block as Sunday School. Confirm with the RS President whether RS runs on the same weekly schedule as Sunday School or on its own lesson rotation.
Attend a few Relief Society lessons before your first one. If you haven't been in the room recently as a participant, go. Notice how women engage, what kinds of questions land, who tends to speak, and what the energy of the room is. You can't teach a room you don't know.
Get the lesson schedule and mark your dates.
Know which Sundays you're teaching well in advance. Last-minute lesson prep is possible — thorough preparation is better. Knowing your dates lets you start reading and thinking early.
Your Role
What the RS Teacher Actually Does
You teach the Sunday Relief Society lesson — typically the second hour of church for the women of the ward. In most wards, the lesson follows Come, Follow Me; in some, it follows a separate schedule the RS President sets. Either way, the format is the same: a facilitated discussion, not a lecture.
How often you teach depends on how the RS President has organized the calling. Some wards have one dedicated teacher; others rotate between two or three teachers. Confirm your schedule and stick to it — your presidency is coordinating worship for a roomful of women, and a last-minute change cascades.
Relief Society is one of the oldest and most significant women's organizations in the Church. The room you're standing in front of contains women across decades of experience — new converts and lifelong members, mothers and singles, those in spiritual peace and those who are struggling quietly. A lesson that creates genuine space for all of them is the goal. A lesson that assumes everyone is in the same place is not.
Preparation
How to Prepare a Lesson Worth Teaching
Read early
Read the Come, Follow Me material for your lesson week as early as possible — ideally a week ahead. The ideas need time to settle. Something you read on Tuesday will generate a better question by Friday than something you read the night before.
Find your anchor
What's the one idea or passage from this lesson that is genuinely meaningful to you? Start there. Lessons taught from personal conviction feel different than lessons delivered from an outline. Your class will sense it either way.
Write real questions
Write questions you actually want the class's answer to — not questions where you already know what you want them to say. "What did this teach you about..." opens things. "Wasn't it amazing how..." closes them. Aim for four to six questions you'd genuinely be surprised by.
Arrive early
Get to the room before women start filtering in. Arrange chairs, if possible, to encourage dialogue rather than rows facing a single speaker. Greet women as they arrive. The two minutes before the lesson are relationship minutes — and they prime the room for what follows.
Teaching Relief Society
What Makes a Good Lesson Great
Create safety before you create depth
Women will share honestly in proportion to how safe they feel doing so. Warmth at the start of class — your genuine presence, a question that's easy to answer, a moment to breathe — lowers the guard. A room that feels safe produces discussions that are real. A room that feels evaluative produces answers that are polished and shallow.
The difficult passages are worth engaging
Some Come, Follow Me lessons will land on texts that are uncomfortable — passages with gender dynamics that feel complicated, historical events that are hard to square with faith, doctrines people have genuine questions about. Don't skip past them. Acknowledging "this is a passage I've wrestled with" is far more useful to most women in the room than treating it as settled. You don't have to resolve everything — you have to make it safe to bring it in.
Redirect dominant voices
Every Relief Society has strong voices — women who speak early, speak often, and speak at length. You can honor them while also creating room for everyone else: "Thank you — I want to hear from a few others. Who hasn't had a chance to share yet?" The quietest women in the room often have the most to offer and the hardest time believing it.
Personal testimony over doctrine delivery
A brief, genuine "I've been thinking about this all week because..." does more to open a class than five minutes of doctrinal explanation. You're not the authority in the room — you're the person who prepared and invited. Teach from that position.
End on time, and end on substance. Relief Society lessons that run long feel disrespectful of people's schedules. Lessons that end with a throwaway "any final thoughts?" feel incomplete. Aim to close with a brief, genuine statement of what you take away from the lesson — and let that be the last thing in the room.
Key Contacts
Who You Work With Regularly
RS President
↗ text
Your direct leader. She coordinates the Sunday lesson schedule, manages the overall RS calendar, and is your first call for any question or concern. Keep her informed — especially if a lesson goes in an unexpected direction or something difficult surfaces in class.
RS Secretary
↗ text
Coordinates the lesson schedule, room setup, and any printed materials. If you need something for your lesson — a handout, a particular room arrangement, supplies — start here rather than trying to arrange it yourself.
Co-Teacher
↗ text
If you rotate with another RS teacher, stay coordinated. You don't have to teach the same way — but knowing what they've covered recently helps you avoid redundancy and build on what the class has already discussed.
Class Members
Know them. A teacher who knows that Sister Harris is going through a difficult divorce, and that Sister Park just returned from caring for an aging parent, teaches with more awareness and care. The relationships you build outside of class change what you're able to offer inside it.
Quick Notes
Operational Notes
Log your meeting schedule, room numbers, key dates, or anything worth handing off when you're released.