Church Members Look to New Meeting Schedule

The members of the Safford, Arizona, Fourth Ward heard the news in a February sacrament meeting: the Church is adopting a consolidated meeting schedule. And their reaction? “Everybody is just thrilled.” This same response is being heard throughout the church.

The change consolidates Church meetings into a three-hour time block. Auxiliary meetings held on weekdays now are held on Sundays.

What does it mean to the members?

To Terry Larsen, elders quorum president in the Safford Fourth Ward, it means considerable savings in time and money—as well as some new challenges.

“I live out in the country a little ways,” Brother Larsen says, “and I used to drive a hundred miles a day on Sunday. This will make it twenty. Financially, it makes a lot of difference to us.”

His brother’s ward had been part of a pilot project in which selected stakes tested variations of the consolidation plan. In that test ward, activity levels shot up thirty and forty percent.

Reaction to the announcement was generally positive. “Everybody here is really excited about it,” Brother Larsen says. Even so, he realizes that some members who attended only one meeting a week—such as Primary or Mutual—may not want to come to a three-hour block of Sunday meetings.

“We expect these things,” Brother Larsen says—and like leaders throughout the Church, he will be looking for ways to help activate the inactive and make the new system beneficial.

Andrea Breinholt, a Mia Maid teacher in the Richfield, Utah, Seventh Ward, says the new schedule has the potential for raising attendance among the Mia Maids. “We have a hard time getting the girls to go to all three meetings—Mutual, Sunday School, and sacrament meeting. But with consolidation, if they come to one they’re more likely to come to the others.”

Positive reactions from the pilot stakes have been one factor in the acceptance of the consolidated meeting schedule.

“Nobody that I’ve heard of wants to go back to the old schedule,” says Arlene F. McCauley of the Eagle First Ward, Meridian Idaho East Stake. The biggest reason in their family is, “It gives Jim a chance to be home with us on Sundays,” something that has never happened before. He went from elders quorum assignments to being in the seventies and then serving in the bishopric while their four sons, all underage of nine, grew used to not seeing him on Sunday.

A former typical Sunday for him was to leave for his first meeting at 6:30 A.M. and return about 7 or 8 P.M. “I didn’t have any problems at all adjusting to the new schedule,” he laughs.

The Eagle First Ward meets on an afternoon schedule, so their mornings are “the very pleasant experience” of breakfast, family gospel discussion, games with religious content, and stories either from the scriptures or from uplifting literature. “We particularly enjoy the Friend on Sunday mornings.” After dinner and naps, the family goes off to choir practice and consolidated meetings.

“I miss Relief Society,” says Sister McCauley, chorister for the Senior Primary, “but the advantages of being able to teach in the home as parents far outweigh the inconvenience. In our ward we’ve talked about rotating assignments every year. Many of the staffing problems have already been reduced because we can use former junior Sunday School teachers, men, working sisters, or Special Interest sisters who have usually only been able to hold a position in the second session Relief Society.”

Husbands are cooperating—and developing a great appreciation for their wives—by taking the babies under eighteen months into priesthood meeting while their wives are teaching Primary and Young Women.

The nursery itself is “a fantastic program,” carefully organized and planned to teach the eighteen-months to three-year-olds skills. “The children are happy there and anxious to go, and we expect to see fewer discipline problems in the three-year-old class because they’ve been trained to sit and do things quietly.”

One of the initial obstacles to overcome was “the meeting habit,” says Brother McCauley. When a block of time became available, it was “almost a reflex” to fill it with meetings that seemed to be necessary—missionary training meetings, leadership meetings, prayer meetings, etc. The members gave the leaders some feedback, and the process of discussion “helped clarify the goals of the program.” Now the priesthood brethren can spend Sundays with their families and are learning how to solve problems in personal priesthood interviews rather than “in mass meetings.”

Brother McCauley adds, “Sometimes it’s easier to be an administrator than it is to be a father. Sometimes it’s easier to call a meeting and be off on Church business than it is to work on the business of being a husband and father. But this extra time with our family has made a wonderful difference in our home. Our time for family spiritual discussions, for only one example, has become so much more effective. Our sons come to it with an attitude of more reverence because it’s on Sunday and because they’re not tired and distracted from a day’s activities. The lessons carry through the whole week.”

Other families have found a similar new attitude toward the Sabbath as they’ve attended consolidated meetings.

“Peaceful and relaxing.” Those paired adjectives come up half a dozen times as Karla C. Erickson of the Bountiful, Utah, Forty-ninth Ward expresses what the “new Sundays” are like since her stake was chosen as one of the pilot stakes.

“We’d never choose to go back on the old schedule unless it were necessary,” comments Sister Erickson, a second counselor in her Primary. “On the old schedule, we’d get up early, Barry’d be off to priesthood, hurry back, we’d climb into the car and rush to Sunday School, scramble back for lunch (trying to keep the kids clean), and then be off to another meeting. We’d spend the whole Sunday coming and going, dressing and undressing.”

Now Sunday is a family day. It begins with laying out clothes and taking baths Saturday nights since their block of meetings begins at 8:30 A.M. “But the children love it. They always comment on how quickly it goes.” Even though sacrament meeting is last, their four children, ages ten to one, seem able to handle it. And “it ends the morning on a spiritual note.”

The afternoons are spent on “all the things we felt we should do that we just couldn’t find time to do. All of us sit down and write in our journals—even our seven-year-old, who needs a lot of help spelling.” There’s time to visit grandparents—and to be visited by them. “The phone hardly ever rings; and Barry and I have much more time for each other.”

Both Brother Erickson, adviser to the teachers quorum, and Sister Erickson miss not being able to attend elders quorum or Relief Society meetings but that’s the way it has always been for the brethren teaching priesthood classes. “We feel that we don’t know the other adults in the ward as well as we might, especially since we’re relatively new here. But we know that we won’t have these callings forever, and so we’re enjoying the good parts.”

When Sister Erickson’s Primary teachers were asked about missing Relief Society, about half of the teachers said that they missed attending but were willing to make the sacrifice. One woman compensated by reading the lessons on her own and looking up the scriptures cited. The Relief Society teachers make extra lesson handouts for the Primary teachers.

Sister Erickson found that, with a little extra planning, things went okay without prayer meetings. “Because it’s Sunday, the sisters come prepared for a spiritual meeting, so we don’t really need prayer meeting to invoke a spirit of reverence.”