My own fault?

[Anon70]

So many awesome comments. I won't confront. I will persevere in trying to make interesting lessons. If the ward complains, maybe I'll get released and that will be one step closer to the door.

[moksha]

... then right in the middle someone who doesn't enjoy my lessons raised their hand and asked me why I have to make everything so complicated. The gospel is simple. Just stick to the manual.

Good rejoinder: "So you are suggesting a simple gospel for simple minds, eh?" Not sure simplicity flys in too many quarters of the Church, for instance, Church apologists seem to fear the simplicity of Occam's razor. Church cosmology is complex enough to benefit from a diagram in explaining all of it.

[Mormorrisey]

From personal experience, even sticking to the manual and official church materials can get you canned, so I would wear it as a badge that this guy took after you. As long as others enjoy your lesson, just continue what you are doing and tell this guy, suck it up, buttercup. Until the powers that be start to criticize you, just keep doing what you're doing. I won't rehash my entire story, it's in the NOM database somewhere. I certainly don't see my release as GD teacher an indication of how my teaching was received, it was just ONE older guy who thought I was full of anti-Mormon lies, just because I read the essays. So he made sure my lesson on the 4 versions of the First Vision never saw the light of day, and I was released. But it's actually made my life easier, so maybe if this clown goes on a crusade and gets you released it won't be so bad!

The person I feel bad for now is the woman who replaced me. She's a pretty good teacher, but she sticks ponderously to the material, and will not deviate one iota from the questions asked therein. In other words, EXACTLY who the correlated church wants teaching these lessons. The challenge is, as NBI points out, it's the material itself that is as dry and uninspiring as the Sahara Desert. This poor woman is spending the entire 40 minutes polishing a correlated turd, and it's a painful experience for everybody except the truly TBM in the ward. I feel so bad for her, I do my best in complimenting her lessons - the problem is, I feel no need to actually go, so I've missed about half of them. The other good news is that I'm no longer silent about telling people why I was released. The last person who said she missed my teaching and asked if I would teach again, I simply said, "my perspective is no longer welcome in our ward." And that's the truth. So until someone in charge tells you what this one "protector of the pulpit" is selling, keep on truckin', because there are the silent doubters who will appreciate your perspective.