Tips for Home-Centered Gospel Study
The town of Paradise, California was recently burned to the ground. Most people were able to escape, but their homes were gone. As were both of their church buildings, I understand. What an ordeal, to find shelter and necessities–these people likely had to leave their smoldering town, to stay with friends or family for who-knows how long. I wondered about the next Sunday. When they woke up with no familiar chapel to worship in, was there suddenly no Church at all? No, there was still the Gospel, and they were still a family and were in a makeshift home somewhere. Suppose they were in a shelter or had moved in with friends not of their faith. Now their gospel worship needed to be Family-Centered. Wherever the new “home” was, that was where they taught the gospel too.
In this day of foretold calamities, the gospel must be in our hearts. And we families may at times, be the only source of spiritual nourishment for each other. Of necessity, our worship may need to be mostly home-centered. “World conditions increasingly require deepening individual conversion,” taught Quentin L. Cook (“Deep and Lasting Conversion to Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” Ensign, November 2018). That is the goal of this new plan—less time at church and more study at home.
How can we form strong and effective centers of gospel learning in our homes? How can we get happy support from our kids? I asked several different families their input, what they did to make the new “Come, Follow Me” program work. Here’s some ideas:
1. Come up with Your Family’s Style—Together.
Our family sat down together to figure out how we would do this new plan. “When shall we do this family study?” we asked. “After church!” our 13-year old responded. “But you like to take naps after church,” I reminded him. “What about those? And Dad has meetings sometimes.” “Oh yeah, (he didn’t want to give up that nap!), before church sounds good.” We came up with the idea of getting our showers in and dressing for church, then having our breakfast, and then we’d study until time to go. If we had simply announced, “Everybody come at 9:30!” it would likely have met with resistance, but since they had a say in the plan, they supported it better.
We came up with an assignment wheel: a circle sliced into pie-shape portions—one wedge for each person. The wheel goes around on a brad, showing each of us taking turns giving the lesson, reading our missionary’s letter, discussing our ministering families, and a giving a thought from Preach My Gospel. Each family’s set up will be different, and it might take awhile to come up with each of our own family’s style.
2. Make Home-Centered Study a Happy Time!
It’s important to connect good feelings with a good thing–like scriptures! When I had two little toddler girls, we did this by always having graham crackers with scripture study. We got a few crumbs in the books, but they always loved to come!
One young mom told me that her children really like juice. They ask for it all week. So now, on Sundays they get juice. It makes it something to look forward too: “Study time? Yay! We get Juice!!” For the very first week of the year, this mom cooked a favorite special breakfast, to build excitement for the new Sunday schedule. Another family I talked to likes to light a candle at the kitchen table, to bring some awe and ambience.
Still another bought each of their kids (young kids who didn’t have baptism scriptures yet) their very own paperback New Testament. It is blue—like a paperback Book of Mormon—and the kids can mark it and put scripture stickers in it! Games are good for bring some fun to Sunday Study, like a scripture chase or a set of questions to answer then proceed to first, second, third base and home on a homemade baseball diamond. A different family likes to make sure to watch any church videos that go with that week’s lesson—they are so well done and catch the kids’ interest.
3. Small segments May Be Best.
One mom told me that for their young family, 10-15 minutes a day of study after dinner works better than a long session on Sunday. The kids can only handle a short message for now.
Another family also found that their two young boys, age 3 and 1 ½ could not sit still very long. They had to keep their study Very Short. But then, they discovered a wonderful plan. After the boys were tucked in bed each night, Mom or Dad would sit in the doorway and tell them a story of Jesus. The boys seemed spell-bound—the stories had their entire attention. And both parents loved the challenge of filling in the details of the scripture stories to make Jesus come alive for their sons. It has been so sweet, this mom told me, “the boys totally listen, and they remember the stories. I feel so good that the last thing before they go to bed is a Story of our Savior!”
4. Let the Kids Teach.
Our pre-teen and teenage kids know how to teach. They have been helping teach their church classes for awhile now. They can tell a story, ask a good discussion question, read a scripture that goes with it, and testify that it’s true. We should capitalize on this for sure. After all, the one who teaches is the one who learns the most!
Also, we could let them take turns being in charge. Some kids especially like running the show. When I was growing up, one of the Family Night assignments at our house was to be the “General.” That lucky person got to call on the different members of the family to do their part. My sisters and I loved it when it was our turn to be General. We would set up a little desk and paper and pencil—all prepared for our big turn!
5. Make it Personal.
One great mom I know told me that she likes to read over the whole “Come, Follow Me” lesson for the week on Monday. She then has an overview, and can ponder through the week what her family especially needs right now. I tried it last week, and my lesson seemed to go extra well—effective ideas came that made a difference.
6. Give Assignments and Have Them Report.
We decided that we were going to take a little time as part of our Home-Centered study to talk about our ministering families. One week, we came up with conversation starters that would be effective for each member of these family and show we care. Another week, the assignment was to pray for each of these people by name. The next week, we found that it pretty much didn’t happen, but that’s ok—we gave it another week! Or two. It’s not like there is a time limit on this! It’s a journey, and it’s ok if it takes awhile to get figured out what is going well.
The idea is to encourage doing something with what we learn, and reporting what happened, to each other.
7. Don’t Forget Family Night.
Monday nights are still set aside for family, but we can decide just when FHE works best for us!
I was delighted actually, when this all happened, that Monday night could be more for fun activities and family service. “A family activity night could be held on Monday or at other times,” was how Elder Cook put it (Ensign, Nov. 2018). The lesson portion had been taken care of on Sunday, so we could play cards or volleyball or help a neighbor with their yard for FHE (instead of worrying that “we really should be doing a lesson!”) One mom told me that they use Monday’s FHE for topics that family needs, such as honesty or good manners, and Sunday’s study is in the scriptures.
8. Family Power.
My son just turned 18, and I can’t believe he is missionary age already! Still a Senior in high school, we have just a short while to see that he is prepared for missionary service. Why has no one invited him to Missionary Prep class at the church? Why can’t I find out any information about it at all? Our family had recently moved to a new community, and we didn’t know “the ropes” on things such as Mission Prep. “Wait,” I caught myself. “We were just taught that we are not to leave the gospel learning to the church anymore.
Maybe Missionary Prep needs to be Home-centered as well! We could teach from Preach My Gospel too! We decided to have one person do a spotlight on one piece of their choosing from Preach My Gospel as part of our Sunday Study. It will only help the younger sibling too! This son taught us a beautiful lesson on truly listening the other week. And because he taught, he likely learned the most!
So another son just turned 18, and I can’t believe he is mission age! Thankfully, he still needs to finish high school first! But I started becoming anxious about preparing him for a mission. Where is the Mission Prep class in this area? I wondered, starting to feel upset that no one had invited him to one. “Wait,” I caught myself. We’re not supposed to be relying so much on the church to teach our kids.
Maybe Missionary Prep needs to be Home-centered as well! We can teach from Preach My Gospel too! We decided to have one person do a spotlight on one piece of their choosing from Preach My Gospel as part of our Sunday Study. It will only help his younger brother too! This son taught us a beautiful lesson on truly listening the other week. And because he taught, he likely learned the most!
Our families are free to use the Spirit to tailor to our particular needs a new way of deepening testimony and strength—all in our gospel-centered homes!
I’d love to hear your ideas below!