lessons-hpThe Lesson Schedules function on LDS.org was discontinued December 31, 2016. The menu item for “Lesson Schedules” no longer appears on LDS.org.

Lesson Schedules (lds.org/lesson) is a function on LDS.org that wards and branches can use to post the schedule of priesthood and auxiliary lessons. It is an online place where members can see which lesson will be taught each Sunday. It is a good idea in theory, but here’s the problem—only 750 of the Church’s 30,000 wards and branches use it.

Here’s the next problem—it has several technical problems that frustrate users, which aren’t easy to fix because the system runs on old technology that would need to be updated. A cost-benefit analysis showed it was too expensive to update, given that so few wards and branches actually use it.

Furthermore, in today’s world, there are a wide variety of alternatives, such as the following:

Old Fashioned Printed Lists

Our ward prints a small bookmark at the beginning of the year and gives a copy to each member. One side lists the schedule of Gospel Doctrine lessons and the other side lists the lessons for Melchizedek Priesthood and Relief Society.

Some wards list in the weekly announcements (often distributed with the sacrament meeting program) the lesson schedules for the current and upcoming weeks.

Ward Calendar

The Ward Calendar (on LDS.org and in the LDS Tools mobile app) lets you set up various calendars for specific purposes. You could create a calendar for Lesson Schedules and enter the lesson titles, such as “Gospel Doctrine: Lesson 13” or “Relief Society: Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Gordon B. Hinckley, Lesson 3” on each Sunday. Then, inform ward members about this calendar, which is easy to turn on or off when you view the calendar to separate it from other ward events.

If different teachers teach the class from week to week, the appointment could also list the name of the teacher. The description won’t allow you to enter a link to the actual lesson, but people should be able to find it from the lesson number.

Digital Solutions

Some wards may find it more convenient to list all the lessons in a Word document and post it in a shared location, such as on Facebook, Google Docs, or Dropbox. (These are all free services.) To make it easy for your ward members to find, you could use a free service such as bit.ly to create a short URL that is easy to type. You could then publish that URL in your weekly announcements.

If you use online resources, please refer to the Church guidelines at internet.lds.org.

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