Are the videos produced in the Church Educational System available for home use or in Church auxiliaries?

V. Daniel Rogers, Church Educational System director of curriculum services. The primary purposes of the Church Educational System’s visual media are to enhance seminary and institute students’ scriptural understanding, to provide their teachers with an additional classroom teaching tool, and to help students better understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even so, the Church Educational System makes some of its videos available for families and Church auxiliaries.

Many Church members, for example, are familiar with the Hold to the Rod series. The series, used by Melchizedek Priesthood quorums and the Relief Society, was designed to instruct in scripture study. Two videos produced for the New Testament study year, To This End Was I Born and Godly Sorrow, have been used by priesthood leaders in training and motivational settings. To This End Was I Born was shown on cable and network television on Easter weekend 1993. Priesthood leaders may obtain the video by checking it out from a local seminary or institute.

Most Church Educational System videos, however, are produced especially for use in the seminary program, and their use is limited to that setting. The seminary program is a four-year study course, with each year focusing on one of the four standard works. For each course of study, the curriculum division selects approximately twenty-five scriptural segments that are particularly suitable for video treatment.

Those twenty-five segments represent four hours of video per 180 days of instruction. Each seminary video will be used in three teaching cycles of four years each, or over a total period of twelve years. If these seminary videos were used by other Church auxiliaries for youth or the family, the impact of the seminary experience would be diluted. Consequently, such use of seminary videos outside of seminary could diminish the impactful experience in seminary class.

Further, these videos are not intended for use without additional supporting lesson materials. Very few of the Church Educational System’s videos effectively lend themselves to general fireside or home use. However, when there is a need for these videos in adult settings, a copy may be borrowed from local CES personnel.

When seminary videos are replaced with newer videos created by the Church Educational System, those no longer used may be placed in meetinghouse libraries. These videos could be used in Primary, family home evening, Sunday School, and Young Women and Aaronic Priesthood programs.

We are pleased that Church members recognize the contribution Church Educational System materials make toward teaching and understanding the scriptures, and we encourage their proper use.

Photo by Matthew Reier