David Said None of the New Sunday Schedule Touches the Kids

David leaned back from the laptop Monday night and said, "Mel, none of this touches the kids."

We'd waited until all three at home were asleep and then watched the Church's new Sunday schedule videos back to back, since the cabin internet had been no help the week before. David reads a schedule the way he reads a release checklist, top to bottom, hunting for the line that applies to him. The line he found was that Primary stays at 55 minutes. Sunday School, Relief Society, elders quorum and the youth classes are the ones that drop to 25, and the only people in our house old enough for those are the two of us, plus Emma down in Provo. Caleb won't be in an Aaronic Priesthood class until January, when the boys turning twelve that year move up together.

I'd spent a week picturing myself getting children ready for something. They'll sit in the same Primary rooms for the same fifty-five minutes. The ones getting less class are the grown-ups, and the grown-up who leans hardest on somebody else's lesson to do her Sunday reading for her is me.

So the changes I've made are mine. On Saturday nights, after the hike and the showers, I read the week's Come, Follow Me section, so I'm not finding out what the chapter is about in the pew while the teacher introduces it. A 25-minute class can't spare ten minutes for that. Monday family home evening already exists, so it gets the same reading in place of whatever I used to cobble together over the dishes, and after the lesson that lasted eleven minutes I know better than to promise more than a reading and one person willing to talk.

What happens on August 30 and September 6

The Church News piece of August 3 says wards will watch a series of short videos together on those two Sundays and then talk about them, with the schedule itself starting September 6. The videos went online that same Monday, August 3, in the Gospel Library app under Handbooks and Callings and on Sunday.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

Four videos went up on August 3. "The Sabbath and Sacrament Meeting" runs 11 minutes with Elder Bednar and Elder Kearon. "Sunday School" is 4 minutes with Paul V. Johnson, the Sunday School general president. "Relief Society and Elders Quorums" is six and a half, with Camille N. Johnson and Elder Valenzuela. The fourth is the youth curriculum one at 23 minutes, with Timothy Farnes and Emily Belle Freeman. The three meant for grown-ups add up to about twenty-one and a half minutes, which is shorter than a single one of the new classes.

A ward discussion goes better when half the room isn't hearing the thing for the first time, so I'd watch them before your ward does. The sacrament meeting video comes with a question for the ward, about shaping that hour around spiritual renewal and growth through Jesus Christ, and I'd want an answer in hand before somebody asks me for one out loud.

Relief Society and elders quorum will spend their 25 minutes on the most recent general conference messages, and by September that means April's. Sunday School stays with Come, Follow Me.

A class that size can't discuss four talks nobody has read. The teacher who texts her quorum or class on Wednesday with something like "we're doing the one from April about the Savior, link below, no pressure if you can't" has given the discussion a chance. A hallway announcement on Sunday morning gives everyone the same excuse.

What does "gospel learning at home" ask of a parent?

The Church's stated reasons for the change are to focus more on the teachings of Jesus Christ, to strengthen gospel learning at home and to increase fellowship and belonging at church. The middle one is the one that lands on parents.

D&C 68 is the section people reach for, and I understand why.

And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord.

D&C 68:28

Three verses earlier there's a sharper one, and verse 25 says that where parents in Zion don't teach their children the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ, baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the time a child is eight, the sin is upon the heads of the parents. That's a real verse and it names a particular list of doctrines and a particular age. I've heard it stretched over a Sunday-evening reading schedule, and the verse doesn't stretch that far. What it asks for in verse 28 is that children learn to pray and to walk uprightly. It says nothing about minutes.

Keep whatever you set up small enough to survive an ordinary Tuesday. Come, Follow Me comes in a version for adults and one for Primary-age children, which means a table with a toddler and a college student at it can use the same week's reading at two different depths. Someone will be bored on any given night. Let it be a different someone each week.

The free magazine, and the dates

The updated For the Strength of Youth guide is already in the Gospel Library, with 12 chapters laid out as a monthly study schedule. Starting in September the For the Strength of Youth magazine adds supporting material each month. It's free, limited to one subscription per household, and the Church encourages young women, young men, parents and leaders to sign up. If anyone in your house is a year or two from twelve, I'd subscribe now so the first issue isn't a surprise.

Put August 30 and September 6 on the calendar. Nobody has sat through a 25-minute class under the new schedule yet, me included, so anything you hear about how it goes this week is somebody's guess.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does the new Sunday schedule start?

September 6. Wards will watch the instructional videos together on August 30 and again on September 6, so you get one Sunday of talking about it before you live it.

Does Primary get shorter too?

No. Primary stays at 55 minutes and begins after a five-minute transition from sacrament meeting.

How long will church be now?

By my arithmetic, two hours if sacrament meeting runs its full hour. That's 60 minutes, a five-minute walk, a 25-minute class, another five-minute walk and a second 25-minute class. Children in Primary come out at the same moment, since 60 plus five plus 55 lands on the same number.

What changes for teenagers?

Their class also becomes 25 minutes and uses the updated For the Strength of Youth guide, with the magazine as backup material.

Do I have to buy anything for home study?

No, because Come, Follow Me is in the Gospel Library and the youth magazine is free. If a ward or a person tells you that you need a curriculum kit, ask where it's written down.

I can't find fault with the aim, but I don't like what I can already see it turning into. "Strengthen gospel learning at home" will land on mothers, mostly, and I'd bet most of them will feel graded on it by the second month. The Church News piece doesn't say anything about the household where nobody has twenty free minutes on a Sunday. Leaders are told to support families, and I'd like somebody to say out loud what that looks like in a ward full of tired people. I also don't think 25 minutes is long enough for the thing a class sometimes does, which is give a woman a room where she can say something hard for the first time to people she trusts. I think we'll lose some of that, and no one has told me where it goes.

with love, Melissa