This year we received a charge from our prophet, President
Russell M. Nelson to have our homes be more gospel based. The basis of this
charge came through a major change in how we should be worshipping. The leadership
of the Church of Jesus Christ provided the membership with an avenue to have a
home based/church supported gospel experience. As parents, Kristina and I felt
overwhelmed in our responsibility to teach our children the gospel. Despite the
feelings of inadequacy, we felt we had many conversations and shared our
thoughts on how to best teach our children the gospel. We won’t go into every
little detail of how we teach our family, but we will share with you what we
call, “The Breakfast Series.”
The Breakfast Series, or “are we gonna have church this morning
dad?” as Jared always asks is simple. Every Sunday morning, we have a nice big
family breakfast. The breakfast varies each week and has ranged from being pancakes
and bacon, French toast, cinnamon rolls and sometimes we even just let our kids
pick their favorite cereal. During this time at the breakfast table we have a gospel
discussion that includes a review of prior lessons taught throughout the week
and we emphasize the doctrine which we have felt is most important and pertinent
to our family at the time. Sometimes it is something that was in our home-based
lesson plan of the week and sometimes it isn’t. We have children of varying
ages and understandings but have found that each child participates and wants
to learn. We have felt the spirit with us through these lessons and are grateful
that we have started this family tradition.
Many will ask how we do it because of meetings and other church responsibilities.
My answer is simply this, we just do. Sometimes it requires us to be up a
little earlier and even to be flexible enough to change the day or time. I
would never suggest that what works for our family is the way every other family
should learn the gospel, but we have found great success and love that our
children now ask daily “are we having church today” and are excited to learn
the gospel.
