The three-hour block is getting shelved. Beginning in January 2019, Sunday meetings for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will only be two hours long. The change was announced during the Saturday morning session of general conference, but the Church has released more information since then. As Elder Quentin L. Cook described in his general conference address, we are shifting to a “home-centered” and “church-supported” approach.
So what will Sunday meetings look like next year? Elder Cook said (as transcribed by the Newsroom),
The Sunday Church meetings will consist of a 60-minute sacrament meeting each Sunday, focused on the Savior, the ordinance of the sacrament, and spiritual messages. After time for transition to classes, Church members will attend a 50-minute class that will alternate each Sunday. Sunday School will be held on the first and third Sundays. Priesthood quorums, Relief Society, and Young Women meetings will be held on the second and fourth Sundays. Meetings on the fifth Sunday will be under the direction of the bishop. Primary will be held each week during this same 50-minute period and will include singing time and classes.
The Newsroom reported that a First Presidency letter has already been distributed to local leaders, along with a helpful list of Frequently Asked Questions. This 5-page document is where we get the nitty gritty details of what to expect. (All quotes below are from the FAQ sheet.)
Home Study
As stated before, this is a home-centered approach. Families are encouraged to use the Come, Follow Me curriculum in their personal and family study.
A study of the scriptures, supported by the new resource Come, Follow Me—For Individuals and Families, is the suggested course of gospel study at home. This rich resource provides a variety of study options for individual and family adaptation and aligns Sunday School and Primary curriculum with home study.
Interestingly, Church leaders state that informal study groups are allowed.
Informally, and as organized by those who so desire, young single adults, single adults, single parents, part-member families, new members, and others can gather to enjoy sociality and to strengthen one another through gospel study.
Sacrament Meeting
Aside from getting shorter, sacrament meeting isn’t changing very much.
Allowing the ordinance of the sacrament to be the sacred center of members’ worship on the Sabbath requires careful planning, including minimal announcements and consideration of speakers, hymns, and musical numbers. Ward choirs may participate as local circumstances allow. Sacrament meetings begin and end with a hymn and prayer. A hymn also precedes the blessing of the sacrament.
Weekly Correspondence
Due to the potentially confusing alternating schedule, local leaders are encouraged to keep in frequent contact with ward members.
During the week, leaders are encouraged to invite members to worship together on Sunday. They can send an invitation via email, text, social media, or other means, reminding members of the meeting schedule for the next Sunday, including topics for discussion.
Sunday School
As mentioned before, Sunday School for youth and adults will be held on the first and third Sundays. Because the home-based program is based on weekly lessons, each Sunday School class will cover two weeks worth of lessons. The class will not begin with any sort of prayer, but will start out with any announcements from local priesthood quorum or auxiliary leaders. Then, “[a]fter a brief welcome and a reminder of the Come, Follow Me—For Individuals and Families home study materials for that day and the following week, the teacher should begin the gospel instruction and discussion.” The class will end with a prayer.
Also, apparently the name “Gospel Doctrine” is out. It’s just “Sunday School.” The Gospel Principles class will no longer meet the second hour, nor will any other optional Sunday School classes.
Other courses, such as those for strengthening marriage and family, temple preparation, missionary preparation, and family history, will not be held during the second hour. However, at the bishop’s discretion and based on local needs, these courses may be taught at other times for individuals, families, or groups.
Young Men and Elders Quorum
Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood quorums will no longer meet together for opening exercises. On the 2nd and 4th Sundays, they will go directly to their respect quorums. Lessons for the Young Men will still be based on the “monthly gospel topics found in Come, Follow Me—For Aaronic Priesthood.”
There will no longer be First-Sunday Council meetings for Elders Quorum. Lessons will be based on general conference addresses. No opening hymns or opening prayers, but the meeting will end with a prayer.
Young Women and Relief Society
Similarly, the Young Women and Relief Society organizations will not meet together for opening exercises (it was only an occasional occurrence in the wards I’ve been in, anyway). However, the young women will also not meet together for any sort of opening exercises, going instead directly to their respective classes. Now that’s a change. Lessons for the young women will still be based on the “monthly gospel topics found in Come, Follow Me—For Young Women.”
Just like with Elders Quorum, there are no longer any First-Sunday Council meetings for Relief Society and the lessons will be based on general conference addresses. Again, no opening hymns or opening prayers, but you’ll have a closing prayer. (Side note, permission is specifically granted to Relief Society sisters and young women that hymns may still be used to “enhance a lesson as appropriate.”)
Primary
Primary will be held every week, but sharing time is out. At the beginning will be 5 minutes for a prayer, scripture (or article of faith), and a talk. Then there will be 20 minutes of singing time using “music that supports the scriptures studied in class.” After a 5-minute break, the students will then have a 20-minute class period. The lesson will be taken from Come, Follow Me—For Primary which follows the weekly home study schedule. If there is a larger Primary that requires juniors and seniors to meet separately, the schedule will just be swapped like normal (one will have singing time first, the other will have class time first).
And finally…
We are supposed to use the term “teacher.”
…[W]e invite leaders and members to use the term teacher (and not discussion leader, facilitator, or moderator) when referring to those who have been called and set apart to teach in the priesthood and auxiliary organizations of the Church.
Discuss.
Lead image from the Church’s Newsroom.
Wheat & Tares 
I quite like the change generally. My only thought is for the youth. To build cohesion within the groups I would prefer that they either have just Sunday school for youth or YMs and YW. This means that the youth will have a different teacher each Sunday. I can just tell that our youth are going to exploit that inconsistency and it is going to be more difficult to keep everything sane. !!!! We will see how it goes.
I see problems if the Gospel Principles is not regular…..or every second Sunday….is this how others see it?
Scrapping the whole “Councils on the First Sunday” thing is bold. I’m impressed that they recognized this wasn’t working (at all) and just killed it. I would have been even more impressed if they had come right out and said it. “Wow, that Council on First Sunday thing just didn’t work at all. Dumb idea right out of the gate. Let’s not do that again.”
Scrapping Gospel Principles is going to leave some people very sad. But the overall idea of scrapping all the adult alternate-track Sunday School classes and focusing on making one single adult class successful is the right approach. More bodies in one class is a better approach for Sunday School. I hope there’s a secret memo to local leaders to call good teachers for the class.
Scrapping hymns and prayers at the beginning of Sunday School and PH/RS. I guess that’s a way to save five minutes. I have to say priesthood singing was always a chore.
So there’s a lot of scrapping going on here. Let’s see how it works out in practice.
There seems to have been no direction on the Teacher Councils — unless it was intended to include them in “other courses”. They are not mentioned there and I hadn’t thought of them as a “course”. Perhaps this means we just stop trying to do them.
There is direction on teacher councils; they will still meet. Sunday school teachers will meet during a second hour when they are not teaching, Priesthood and RS teachers will meet during a second hour when there is Sunday school.
E, Thanks. I hadn’t found that.
Keeping Teacher Council means that as a Sunday School teacher I will only get one Relief Society meeting a month. That will be an adjustment.
Kangaroo, the Gospel Principles class itself is completely gone. Here’s the explanation: “Beginning in January 2019, the Gospel Principles class will be discontinued. Ward and full-time missionaries teach individuals and families the lessons found in chapter 3 of Preach My Gospel: A Guide to Missionary Service in the home or at the meetinghouse, before and after baptism. On Sunday, all members and friends of the Church are invited to attend Sunday School classes and Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood quorums, Relief Society, or Young Women classes with other adults or youth in the ward.”
JR, E summarized it well, but here’s the full description:
Teachers attend teacher council meetings quarterly during the 50-minute class time. The council meetings are held according to the following schedule:
–Priesthood, Relief Society, and Young Women can attend on either a first or third Sunday, as determined by local leaders.
–Sunday School teachers can attend on either a second or fourth Sunday, as determined by local leaders.
–Primary teachers can attend on any Sunday, as determined by the ward Primary and Sunday School presidencies. If desired, Primary teachers may meet separately from other teachers to counsel about the unique needs of teaching children. More than one council may be held during a quarter for Primary teachers so not all miss Primary classes at the same time.
OftenPerplexed, looks like they will hold them quarterly, not every month.
I do not attend anymore but 2 hours is better than 3 for those who have to suffer through the boredom. Nice change.
Mary Ann, thanks for sharing the information!
Nothing says they can hold 2 Sunday school classes. Have a simplified version for those who need gospel principles or smaller setting.
I didn’t realize that I needed permission have “an informal study group.” I’m glad it’s now permitted. But I’m married, I hope it’s still okay.
This is huge sea change, you were seen as a wannabe polygamist or something if you had done one before:
“Informally, and as organized by those who so desire, young single adults, single adults, single parents, part-member families, new members, and others can gather to enjoy sociality and to strengthen one another through gospel study.”
See
https://wheatandtares.org/2018/05/22/the-underground-church/#comment-175845
Thank God for two hour church.
Maybe in April GC will only be 1 day!
OK. A day and a half. …depending on how many time they have to say Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints or followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints instead of Mormons.
The change to 2 hour church doesn’t feel like I’m standing in a blizzard of revelation. Perhaps it is because so many of my family members were part of various test-drives of the change and because the curriculum was announced in July. They were even told it would facilitate temple building if the tests worked out. I’m excited that it is happening, but I guess I was expecting something different with the hype coming directly from our leaders. Notwithstanding a slight let down from the hype and my strong feelings about last night’s meeting, there were several powerful talks that I look forward to rereading from this conference.
What’s the deal with the term “teacher”? I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of those other terms used, so it’s not like I was about to slip up and accidentally make mention of the “Gospel Doctrine Moderator.” I guess “Primary Worker” is out, though.
Left Field, in our ward the preferred term for the RS teacher was “facilitator.” It was a mouthful. I also used “discussion leader” in the RS weekly emails, but I was under the impression I was supposed to avoid using the word “teacher.” It wasn’t a big deal for Sunday School, though.
Mary Ann, I really enjoyed being a mid-level manager for a mid-size Gospel Doctrine class a few years back. Really great position and had great people working under me. But, oh, those TPS reports!
If I remember correctly, Elder Cook limited study group content to Come Follow Me. No announcement that Race and the Priesthood essay will be discussed Wednesday night at Jones’ residence.
Thanks Mary Ann
“No announcement that Race and the Priesthood essay will be discussed Wednesday night at Jones’ residence.”
Study groups can be privately organized on any topic or materials — no church leader permission and no announcement needed. The mistake made by some in the past was asking permission. Even President Marion G. Romney (like many others) famously said it is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
Long overdue change!
From a practical, logistical perspective, I want to suggest that bishoprics carefully think through how to schedule the Sunday meetings for 2019–since my ward’s bishopric has shown a distinct tendency to be very poor at such details.
If, as in my building, there are 3 wards in yours ALREADY using an overlapping schedule of 9:00/11:00/1:00, the best new schedule would be 9:00/10:30/12:00.
If the bishopric tries to eliminate the overlap, but still start meetings on the hour, you would end up with 9/12/3…which would be disastrous for the last ward in the building. Even if they were to allow only 30 min between non-overlapping wards the schedule would be 9/11:30/2…still worse than currently for the last ward.
The sensible solution is an overlapping schedule of 9/10:30/12…a win for both the last two wards in the building!
Pass along this idea to your bishopric now so they can be ready for when the discussion comes up (probably early in December given my assumption about how poor bishoprics are at planning details) 😉
So no more council meetings on first Sunday. That makes sense, as there will only be two PH/RS meetings per month. The challenge is that apparently we’ll be sticking to the current 2nd and 3rd Sunday curriculum of taking turns reading from a general conference talk. It’s too hard for me to muster up any enthusiasm for that.