With the COVID-19 virus spreading, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has temporarily suspended gatherings of church members. We have been asked to teach the gospel to our own families in the mean time. Isn’t it wonderful that home centered gospel learning has been implemented for a year before this happened?
Depending on each stake and ward, the sacrament will be administered at least once a month. If your bishop has authorized worthy priesthood holders to administer the sacrament in his own household, then using this Family Sacrament Meeting might be helpful!
You can print one out and laminate it and use a Wet Erase Expo Marker to write on and erase. Or you can print a new one out each week.
To bring the spirit to your family sacrament, I would suggest having prelude music playing in the home and having everyone dressed in Sunday clothes. Having young children myself, our opening song would be a reverent primary song to start off the meeting, rather than a wiggle song. If you have older children who can read, you can choose a hymn and use the Sacred Music App to play and read hymns. Do this for the closing prayer as well.
Before the Family Sacrament Meeting, designate a family member to say the opening prayer and closing prayer and write it down. Same as the opening song, you can use the Sacred Music App to play a sacrament song. Sacrament songs are numbers 169-197 in the hymnbook. You can look up “sacrament” in the topics option of the app to find a sacrament song as well.
The administering of the sacrament is according to your own ward and stake. If a priesthood holder in your home has been given authorization to do so, do the sacrament portion of the meeting. Teach your children to think of Jesus during this time.
I added scripture to the outline because I have a 3 year old daughter who desperately wants to participate in lessons. If you have a young child, have them read the scripture that relates to the lesson. For instance, if you are doing a lesson from the Come, Follow Me Primary handbook, the lessons are generally specific to a scripture.
The Come, Follow Me Lesson portion is different for every family. Some families have older children, some families have younger children. The length of time and amount of discussion depends on that. This is your time to teach the gospel and share special insights! Bear testimony of the principle you discuss and ask for your family to apply it to their lives.
I hope the best for your family! Stay happy and enjoy your time together!
