The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Seminary program has come a long way from its humble beginning in 1912, when 70 students enrolled in the program from Granite High School in Salt Lake City.
Now, nearly 370,000 high school students around the world take LDS seminary classes either before, during or after school.
This Sunday at 6 p.m. a worldwide broadcast will celebrate the centennial anniversary of the program.
Boyd K. Packer, president of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, will address high school students, their parents and leaders. Packer was a former seminary teacher in Brigham City.
The broadcast will be live via satellite at LDS stake centers.
Seminary is the study of religious history and scripture for high school students. Students start seminary in ninth grade and take four years to complete the program. Courses include Old and New Testaments, the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History.
Don Edwards oversees the seminary programs in the Weber area. He said the primary focus of seminary is to help youths and young adults fully understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ and to help them have a sure knowledge that Jesus Christ is the Savior.
“You can’t do that unless you understand the teachings,” Edwards said.
Seminary allows time for the teachers, trained by the LDS Church’s educational system, to go in-depth with those teachings on a daily basis.
Edwards thinks the effect for many students can be life-changing.
Riley Jones is a ninth-grader at Mount Ogden Junior High School and says he loves seminary. He enjoys it so much, in fact, that he and many of his friends spend their lunchtime in the seminary building.
“Every school day, I can go there and feel the spirit, and it just makes me happy,” Riley said.
He said he loves the positive atmosphere in seminary and feels he can truly be himself. He likes being with others who have the same interests he does.
That’s one of the reasons ninth-grader Abbie Lund said she loves seminary too. Her favorite part is the lessons.
“They just have a way of teaching us stuff in a way that a teenager can understand,” she said.
Abbie also spends her lunchtime in the seminary building and said it gets her away from all the craziness of school.
“I like to be there, because people aren’t swearing and gossiping,” she said. “It’s my favorite class.”
Riley agrees that it’s one of his favorite classes as well.
Both students said they’ve seen the positive changes in their friends who have enrolled in seminary, but haven’t been members of the church.
Two of their friends have been baptized this year. Riley has noticed the change in their countenance.
“They are able to see what it’s all about, and it makes them happy,” Riley said. “It’s really cool to see the change, and makes me want to be a better person.”
Another focus of seminary is to provide support to local Priesthood leaders, Edwards said. The seminaries work closely with the local stakes to make sure teens are staying on track and attending seminary and church.
“We want to provide a supportive role,” Edwards said.
Enrollment is high in the Weber area. Some of the seminaries have gotten smaller in the Ogden area, but that is just because of demographics, Edwards said.
“We have other seminaries that are just growing like crazy,” he added.
In geographic areas with high concentrations of Church members, like the Weber area, a “release” from the regular public school curriculum is legislatively granted, and students attend seminary as a part of a normal school day.
In communities with fewer members, students generally attend daily or early morning seminary classes, courses taught prior to the regular school day and often beginning at 6 a.m. Some students attend seminary classes after school. Another option, in remote areas, allows enrollment in a home study course, in which students prepare their lessons independently.
Students may also choose an early-morning or after-school option to fit in a more rigorous course schedule with high school classes.
Church Educational System Commissioner Paul Johnson said students have to sacrifice some time to fit seminary in to busy schedules.
He points out that students will have spent 720 hours learning about the gospel of Jesus Christ once they graduate from seminary after the four years of coursework.
“The most important factor in the 100 years of seminary is the hundreds of lives it has touched over those years,” Johnson said.
“It is the individual lives that have been affected as young people have a chance to learn the gospel and to apply those teachings in their lives.”
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