The Seminary Notes Blog

Working in Seminary is one of the best-kept secrets in the church!

I was first asked in 1983 to serve as a CES Volunteer in Seminary as a home study teacher in Indianapolis. Since that time until now I have been involved, almost continually, with Seminary and Institute in one form or another. I have taught Seminary in Indiana and Virginia, and my wife taught Seminary in New York. I have also enjoyed the privilege of teaching Institute in New York and northern Virginia.

When our family moved from Kansas to Virginia in 1995, I was asked to teach early morning Seminary. It was an Old Testament year, and I started making handouts, quizzes, and activities for my students. There were six Seminary classes meeting in our church building, and the other teachers started asking for copies of my materials – which I gladly copied for them.

Within a few months, though, I was soon receiving requests for copies from teachers outside of our stake. One of the teachers I taught with encouraged me to print the pages, shrinkwrap them into a resource packet, and offer them for sale. I did, and our small family business Scripture Mastery Resources was born in 1996.

Since 1996 I have created two scripture mastery packets for each Seminary year. Teacher requests also led to the creation of Picture Clues, Old Testament Spanish, and “All Seminary” scripture mastery resource packets. I have also co-authored two Book of Mormon Readers Theater volumes (available on CD) and an “All 100” Scripture Mastery CD that contains hundreds of scripture mastery pictures, 48 scripture mastery screensavers, and 100 scripture mastery computer jigsaw puzzles. We also distribute some recently released scripture mastery CDs – “Mastering the Scriptures” and the “LDS Scripture Rock” CD and karaoke series.

Church Education plays a large role in my life. Vocationally, though, I am a colonel in the United States Army with almost three decades of active duty service. I have spent a majority of my career involved with education – serving as an Assistant and then Associate Professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point and as a Professor at the National Defense University in Washington, DC.

I served a mission in Great Britain (England, Cornwall, and Wales) in the mid-1970s and have served in a wide variety of church callings as we have lived in Utah, Indiana, Germany, Illinois, Virginia (three times), Kansas, and New York (twice). I married my BYU college sweetheart, and we have four great children and two adorable granddaughters.

This blog is intended for Seminary teachers (early morning, home study, and release time). Each newsletter is also posted each week on my website (www.KenAlford.com). There you will also find archives of previous newsletters from 2001-2006.