John 2-4 "Ye Must Be Born Again" (Feb 6-12)
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In this week’s lesson, “John 2-4: Ye Must Be Born Again” (Feb 11-17), we focus a lot on water! From Jesus changing water to water to Him speaking with the Samaritan woman about living water. You’ll find all kinds of fun ideas, free handouts, and resources below.
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Study Suggestions
To help you dig deeper on a topic and answer your questions along the way.
John 2-4 from the Institute New Testament Teacher Manual (Lesson 22)
John 2, John 3, and John 4 from the Seminary Teacher Manual (Lessons 61-63)
”The Blessings of Worship” by Bishop Dean M. Davies
"Worship through Music" by Elder Dallin H. Oaks
"Sacrament Meeting and the Sacrament" by Elder Dallin H. Oaks
“Ye Must Be Born Again” by Elder David A. Bednar
“Drawing the Power of Jesus Christ into Our Lives” by President Russell M. Nelson
Deseret Bookshelf PLUS Recommendations
These are great to listen together in the car on the way to school. My whole family loves listening to the youth speaker ones especially. Remember, as a Deseret Bookshelf PLUS member, you can access these eBooks or audio books anytime. Find out more about Deseret Bookshelf PLUS.
- "Worship: Adding Depth to Your Devotion" by Eric D. Huntsman
- "Sacramental Reflections: Feasting at the Lord's Table" by Truman G. Madsen
- "Have You Been Born Again?" by Brent L. Top
- "I'll Never Do It Again" by Brad Wilcox
- "Living Waters" by Brent L. Top
Media- Videos, Music, Images
Watch a video and discuss it after dinner, print out images for your bulletin board, make a playlist to use to encourage personal study time, or learn a new song!
VIDEOS
I Stand All Amazed (about 5 1/2 minutes)- The Choir at Temple Square
Jesus Turns Water into Wine (about 2 1/2 minutes)- Bible Video
Jesus Cleanses the Temple (about 1 1/2 minutes)- Bible Video
Jesus Teaches of Being Born Again (about 5 1/2 minutes)- Bible Video
Jesus Teaches a Samaritan Woman (about 4 minutes)- Bible Video
The Woman at the Well (about 7 1/2 minutes)- Bible Video
Ye Must Be Born Again (about 15 1/2 minutes)- General Conference talk from Elder David A. Bednar
Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Wonders Among You (about 19 1/2 minutes)- General Conference talk from Elder Jeffery R. Holland
The Blessings of Worship (about 11 1/2 minutes)- General Conference talk from Bishop Dean M. Davies
Personal Worship (about 2 minutes)- Clip from Elder Goaslind
Sacrament Worship (about 1 1/2 minutes)- Clip from Elder Dallin H. Oaks
MUSIC
Use your LDS Media App to quickly put together a playlist to listen to as you ponder, get ready for the day, or drive in the car.
Use the Hymns under the topic of Love and Worship.
Use the songs in the Children’s Songbook under the topics of God’s Love, Sabbath, Testimony, and Reverence.
IMAGES
Hang one on the fridge, mail it to a friend, cut it into a puzzle, and more! Bright Idea posters come from the Friend, Mormonads are from The New Era, and others are images found throughout LDS.org
Woman at the Well- Bible Video photo
Woman at the Well- Illustration
Praise the Lord with Singing- Bright Idea
As I Take the Water and Bread…- Bright Idea
Sabbath Day and Sacrament Mormonads
No More Wine- Bible video photo
Nicodemus Listens to Jesus- Bible video photo
Living Water- Mormonad
Seek the Living Water- Mormonad
Christ and the Samaritan Woman- Gospel Art
Questions to Ponder
Use these questions to help you ponder as you do your personal studies, encourage journaling for your kids, text them to a friend or child to get the conversation going, or take them with you in the car and randomly draw from a bag as you carpool to school or your next practice. These go beyond the questions in the manual.
What do you feel is the significance of Christ’s first recorded miracle changing water to wine? How does it apply to your life?
What can you learn about Mary in John 2:1-11? How can you apply what you learn from her to your life?
How has following the gospel of Jesus Christ changed you? What do you hope it continues to help you change?
Why is the cleansing of the temple significant? How can you nurture a reverent and respectful attitude toward the Lord’s house?
What can you learn from Nicodemus’ conversation with Christ and his resulting actions?
How have you recorded and shared your own conversion story?
How might recognizing the process of rebirth in yourself be used to help others to be reborn?
Why do you continually need to be reborn? How do you do it?
What part of the ordinance of the sacrament is especially meaningful to you? Why?
What personal meaning does the sacrament have to you?
Why do you look forward to taking the sacrament every week?
How has partaking of the sacrament blessed your life?
Why do you think the sacrament is repeated weekly?
How do you feel during the passing of the sacrament?
How do you prepare yourself to partake of the sacrament each Sunday? Is there anything you wish to change?
What helps you recognize Heavenly Father’s love for you? What do you do to show God you love Him?
What hymns, scriptures, or general conference talks speak directly to you from our Heavenly Father?
How does feeling His love help you be obedient to the commandments?
What does it mean to you to worship God? How do you show your devotion and love for God?
How do we as Latter-day Saints worship God?
What role has reverence played in your worship? Is there anything you wish to improve?
What can you do to improve how you worship in your home? at church? in the temple?
How does your Sabbath worship reflect your beliefs as a latter-day follower of Christ?
What helps you worship throughout the week?
How does your worship of the Savior bless you? How does it bless others?
What do you learn from the Samaritan woman about conversion?
When have you drunk of the “living water” that Christ offers? What could you do to drink more frequently?
How has drinking of the “living waters” brought you happiness?
Like the Samaritan woman, how can you be an instrument in God’s hands and help soften the hearts of others to accept Jesus Christ (John 4:27-30)?
What can you learn about gathering Israel from John 4:35? When should we “harvest”?
Teaching Ideas
These are my ideas. My hope is that my thoughts may be a springboard to your own great ideas that are right for you and your family. Some ideas are for families with young children while others might be for widows meeting together as a group. Read through and find what’s right for your situation.
As you read about Christ changing the water into wine, use my handout to discuss ways Christ can help us change too. The purple, wine portion gets glued underneath the first page so when you cut the three flaps open, you’ll see it changing. Write your answers on each flap. There are two sizes so you can do it as a family or glue them in your journals to do individually.
To help discuss being born again, use my baptism cup printables from the Primary lesson helps for Matthew 3; Mark 1; Luke 3. Instead of putting my printable images on the straw, add a photo of your child as a baby on one side and when they were baptized on the other. If they haven’t been baptized yet, you can use my printable images to represent when they will be.
We discussed baptism a couple of weeks ago so I didn’t add anything new here. However, you could use the Primary handouts from a couple of weeks ago to review then lead that discussion into the sacrament and ways we prepare for that. This pin from LDS.org has a clear outline of ways to prepare. Then you can discuss how our preparation allows us to more easily feel the love of God.
Use my Come Follow Me Sticky Notes to help you teach! Give everyone a specific verse to focus on then stick them all on your TV. How do the answers relate to each other? Are they the same or different? What new insight do you gain from seeing the scriptures through another person’s eyes? Each sticky note gives you a new idea to involve your family!
Print out some Mormonads! You can hang them up and discuss how the sacrament is a sacred ordinance that allows us to feel the love of God. Then try to make your own Mormonad either as a family or individually.
Have a musical testimony meeting! Each person picks a favorite hymns that help them feel the love of God. Then they share the hymn and why it means so much to them. Finally, they get to pick one verse everyone sings together (verse 3, 1, 5, etc). You can use the LDS Media app to have music to sing along with if you don’t have any instruments.
Make a family playlist! Use the LDS Media app again but make a playlist this time of everyone’s favorite hymns. Play it each week as you drive to or get ready for church.
Discuss how we worship during the administration of the sacrament. It's a great time for meditation and to commune with God. How do we do that? How can we teach our families to reverence the sacrament? How do we continually treat it with proper respect even though it is something we participate in regularly?
Experiment time! This object lesson can help you discuss how Christ has the power to change us as well as living water. It’s a great way to tie the two stories together. For a visual explanation of this experiment, check out A Dab of Glue with Little Learners’ post. You can glue the experiment cards in your journal and discuss the answers together.
Have fun with symbols this week. As stated in the Family Study section, see what items in your home you could use to teach spiritual truths. Use my matching cards to discuss some of the symbolism the Savior used them use the blank cards to draw your own comparisons. See if you can guess each other’s!
Discuss what things you want to keep out of your home as well as those things you want to strive to keep in (John 2:18-22). Cut the house image in half then glue on at the edges so it will open like a door to the temple scene underneath.
Help your family understand and memorize John 3:16 with a fun telestration type of game. There is a phrase at the top of each page. The first person draws the sentence the best way they can. The next person then has to write a phrase from the illustration and so on and so forth until you get to the end of the page. Laugh at the results then study the scripture for real. You may need to use the same phrase multiple times so everyone in your group can be doing something. You may want to go over a few reverence guidelines first as you do this activity.
- Still looking for more? Did you know Teach Me Messages has weekly lesson packets too? They have fun activities like the game pictured above. Remember to tell them I sent you!
Activity Pages
Use these activities during your lesson, as a morning activity reminder, or any other time to quietly reinforce this week’s lesson. These resources are from LDS.org.
For activities on Baptism and Repentance see the lesson helps for Matthew 3; Mark 1; Luke 3.
Sabbath and Worship
Remember the Sabbath Day- For each activity a child says is good to do on Sunday, he can put a piece of manna into the basket.
The Lord's Day- A paper folding game- You could glue in pictures instead of words. Good way to keep some kids’ attention.
Lily's Sunday Morning- Find Lily's matching socks so she can go to church
Getting Ready for Church- Find the hidden objects
Going to Church- Maze
Saturday is a Special Day- Find the missing objects
What is This?- Guess the pictures
More than Just Quietly Sitting- Like a matching game but with how to be more reverent
The Sabbath is a Delight- Make a Sunday mobile
COLORING PAGES
Sacrament
The Nephites Learn of the Sacrament- Tell this story and color the picture or make it into a book. Its always fun to add stickers to little booklets or small pictures of themselves in the artwork if you can manage it. Since there are just 3 pictures you could string them on a piece of yarn with straws or foam shapes separating the pictures to make a necklace too.
Taking the Sacrament- This is a door hanger that you can paste pictures on of the Savior. Talk about each picture during your lesson.
The Sacrament- A cut and paste activity about what we do for the sacrament.
Remember Him- A great picture wheel to color.
Remember- You can play a matching game with these pictures or just cut and paste. You could also play this as a fishing game.
On the Road to Emmaus- Make this one into a puzzle to put together as a class then sing the song and practice what it says.
I Can Repent and Be Baptized- A great 3-D poster to put together to remember how the sacrament and baptismal covenants are tied together.
I Will Remember Jesus Christ- Make a booklet to write down thoughts during the sacrament
Remember Jesus Christ during the Sacrament- Make this wheel to look at during the sacrament
Sacrament- Word search
Sacrament Time- Use this poster to talk about how different people are reverent during the meeting- probably better for younger classes
The Sacrament- Fill in the blanks by using the clues
The Sacrament- Discover the promises as you fill in the blanks
What Should I Think About When I Take the Sacrament- Answers from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland (Quorum of the 12 Apostles)
A Sacred Prayer- Fill in the blanks for the sacrament prayer
How Should I Behave in Sacrament Meeting- Poster with ideas and pictures to show what to do.
COLORING PAGES
My Faith in Jesus Grows When I follow His example and keep His commandments
