Scripture Calendar

To motivate our family to follow the Prophet’s counsel to read the scriptures daily, we developed a family reading calender.

The calendar is organized in a small spiral notebook which we keep posted on the family notice board. The first page of the notebook contains a list of fifty-two gospel topics, one for each week of the year. Most of our topics come from the manual Gospel Principles (you can order this manual through your priesthood leader). We choose other topics dealing with our own specific interests. The list includes such topics as apostasy, baptism, faith, fall of Adam, honesty, and temples. If the topic comes from Gospel Principles, we include the chapter number with the topic on this index.

Once a week, during family home evening, we plan our week’s scripture study around one of the topics in the index. We plan a different scripture related to that theme for each day of the week. (Topics from Gospel Principles have a list of suggested scriptures at the end of each chapter. This list contains the reference and a brief summary of the scripture.) Using Gospel Principles, the Topical Guide in the LDS edition of the Bible, or our own preferences, we choose the scriptures to be used and chart the week on another page in the notebook. At the top of the page, we put the theme for the week. Then down the page we list the day of the week, the scriptural reference, the topic of the scripture, and who will read it. One week’s plan on prayer would look like this in our notebook:

Week 30—Theme “Prayer”
Day of the Week	Topic	Read by
Sunday James 1:5–6	What to Pray For	Dad
Monday 2 Ne. 32:9	When to Pray	Mum
Tuesday Matt. 6:6	Where to Pray	Mary
Wednesday D&C 46:30	How to Pray	Billy
Thursday Alma 34:17–28	Pray Always	Brian
Friday D&C 88:63–65	How Prayers are Answered	Susan
Saturday Moro. 10:3–5	Promises in Prayer	Dad

We use this chart as the basis for our morning devotional. We meet together each morning to read the scheduled scripture and to discuss its application in our lives. Then we sing a hymn and have family prayer. Following the prophet’s counsel in this way has brought us closer as a family and helped us grow in gospel knowledge. Peter D. Cameron, Paisley, Scotland