This month marks the 40th anniversary of when the First Presidency designated Monday night as Family Home Evening night for members of the Church! No Church meetings are scheduled on Monday nights so that we may gather our families and strengthen them on this very special night every week.
We live in such a complicated time—it seems like all the time-saving inventions and amazing technology has served to only increase the expectations of what we CAN get done! Most of us are so busy it is a real challenge to think about planning a formal, structured Family Home Evening every single week.
But Pres. James E. Faust said: "To combat the world’s evil influences, we need the strength that comes from family home evening" (Ensign June 2003). The stakes are so high right now, we can’t afford not to do it!
It is important enough to be a top priority, and also simple enough that even the busiest families can manage it!
There are different challenges you may face, depending on your circumstances.
~ young children
Family Night in a Basket - (this idea so cracks me up, but I think it would really work!)
~ crazy schedules – maybe your Monday nights are booked. With Chris's very strange and unpredictable schedule, we have been known to have "Family Home Afternoon" right when the boys get home from school. Or even "Family Home Morning"! :)
~ no children, or single (I'll mention later on what my empty-nester parents are doing for their FHEs)
~ spouse not a member or less-active (such a tough one - I hope for your comments on what has worked for you if you're in this situation)
I pray that as you ponder your own unique situation, the Holy Ghost might prompt you as to how to accomplish this great work in your own personal circumstances. Remember 1 Nephi 3:7 – The Lord will help you do what He commands!
1. The Unimportance of Fancy-ness :)
Probably the most important thing to remember is, KEEP IT SIMPLE. Better to do things plain and simple, than not at all!
For us, a lesson includes, at the very minimum:
A Scripture
A Principle
A Testimony
Anything else that becomes part of a lesson is only to support those 3 things. Sometimes if things are really crazy, we have had a lesson that is simply telling a story from the scriptures, focusing on the principle in one particular verse, and then bearing testimony. It took only minutes, but helped us feel the Spirit as a family, and we felt strengthened as we had to go on to the other things scheduled.
2. How We Do It - using Church-produced resources
Our Spiffy Chart
gets rotated every week. This is helpful because it keeps it fair and organized. (The boys would just love to be on "Refreshments" every time. :) The names are on velcro. You could do this even simpler if you want, or beautiful and fancy, of course. Just don't let not having a fancy chart stop you from doing FHE! :)
FHE manual – oldie but goodie
Gospel Art Kit and Gospel Art Book - we use the pictures from these A LOT.
Friend magazine – great for children preparing lessons. At the back of each issue, it gives specific FHE ideas that are usually quite simple to put together, and of course, fun for children.
Preach My Gospel – prepare for baptism or mission! We use this when our children turn 7. For most of the year before their baptism, our FHE lessons come from Preach My Gospel, the lessons that missionaries teach investigators. We break it down by heading and paragraph within each lesson. I have posted many of our past lessons online here, if you'd like to see how we do it. (I plan to finish posting them when Hyrum turns 7 in January! :)
My parents just sent off their 8th child to college and a mission, and are planning to serve full-time missions themselves when my dad retires in about 4 years. They use Preach My Gospel for their empty-nester FHEs to help prepare themselves for when they are missionaries. They served Spanish-speaking missions when they were young, and so they even do this FHE study in SPANISH to help refresh their language skills. This sounds so fun. I look forward to doing this in German when Chris and I are preparing for our missionary service after the kids are grown!
Behold Your Little Ones - nursery manual - makes great FHE lessons for the preschool set
Scriptures - most important resource, along with the most recent General Conference report!
The links above take you to those things on the Church's website. But if you want your own copies, to hold in your hot little hands :), all this stuff you can order online, with free shipping, directly from the Church.
3. The Importance of Spiritual Preparation
FHE should definitely include fun, but that is not its main purpose.
A dear friend of mine in Tallahassee, Sis. Dransfield, said once: “We should give every FHE lesson as if it were our last chance to teach our children how to get back to Heavenly Father.” I love this. It has really helped me focus on how to prepare my lessons in a way that brings about a spiritual experience for me children and crucial knowledge that they must have.
Feeling the Spirit is more important than just a fun time.
2 Nephi 25:26 “And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ. . . .that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.”
Mosiah 4:15 “. . . Teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness. . . .”
Be sure your lessons are based on the scriptures and words of the living prophets! And probably the most important thing is that YOU are in tune with the Spirit. If the right things are in place, daily scripture study and prayer, then giving the FHE lesson is a natural outgrowth of what you have been learning or what you have felt prompted that your family needs to hear.
During the lesson, our goal is for us to feel the Spirit. That is what can really strengthen a family. We encourage the boys to sit peacefully (not always an easy task) but it’s not a lecture. We try to have it be more discussion-oriented, asking them by name to answer questions, etc.
Feeding our spirits through this sort of experience is what is really important about FHE. Then comes the sprinkles on the cake – the game and treat. :)
Promised Blessings and My Testimony
The prophets who revealed this counsel to have FHE have also shared the blessings promised to us by Heavenly Father. The First Presidency, under Joseph F. Smith, said:
"If the Saints obey this counsel, we promise that great blessings will result. Love at home and obedience to parents will increase. Faith will be developed in the hearts of the youth of Israel, and they will gain power to combat the evil influences and temptations which beset them."
I asked Chris what blessings he felt that our family had received through having Family Home Evening. He said:
~ Our children have developed testimonies early on ~
~ They would be disappointed if we didn’t have FHE ~
I am so grateful for these. It hasn't always been easy. Satan makes it seem too hard to do sometimes. During a time of grief and depression for me, there was one night when I felt I just couldn't do it. I closed myself into my bedroom, sobbing. How could I bring the Spirit into our home when I wasn't feeling it at all? Thankfully, with prayer and some help from Chris, I managed to at least bring myself to begin the lesson. Soon the peaceful feeling of the Holy Ghost came into the room, and I myself was the one really strengthened that night.
If we just have the faith to do it, amazing blessings will come! Family Home Evening is one of the “small and simple things [by which] great things [are] brought to pass” (Alma 37:6). I testify of this in the name of Jesus Christ.
