The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released a guide Thursday to prepare members for their new Sunday meeting schedule, which begins worldwide this fall.
Starting Sept. 6, members will attend one hour of sacrament meeting, as usual, but will then participate in two 25-minute blocks of class. The new schedule allows Sunday School classes, young women, adult women and members of priesthood quorums to meet each week.
This deviates from the previous Sunday School meeting schedule, which alternated weekly between combined classes and separate classes for women, young women, men and young men.
The implementation guide offers an overview of the new meeting schedule along with discussion questions to help members discuss making worship meaningful. The guide is available in over 20 languages.
“This is more than a schedule change,” the guide reads. “It is an invitation to joyful, Christ-centered worship — renewing our home-centered, Church-supported pattern and strengthening covenant belonging.”
The guide also explains the new youth curriculum, which is based on an updated “For the Strength of Youth: A Guide for Making Choices.” Youth will study one chapter of “For the Strength of Youth” each month, which the guide says “can help them become lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ.”
When the schedule change was first announced, one of the most common reactions among Latter-day Saints was concern that 25 minutes was not enough time for a full lesson.
The implementation guide, in turn, instructs class participants to “quickly begin discussing” each week’s lesson and invites members to discuss how to best use their time each week.
Additional resources to aid the transition will become available during the first week of August on sunday.ChurchofJesusChrist.org, according to a press release announcing the new guide.
On Sunday, Aug. 30, youth, parents and youth leaders will meet to discuss the new schedule and curriculum.
The following Sunday — Sept. 6 — youth and adults will begin the new schedule. In the two blocks, classes will watch several videos and then discuss sections from the implementation guide.
“There is additive strength that comes when we meet each week to counsel, learn and support one another,” Relief Society General President Camille N. Johnson said in the church’s initial announcement of the new schedule.
“When we gather in His name, the Spirit is there to teach us, testimonies are strengthened, and we lift each other in discipleship,” President Johnson said. “This weekly time for connection will help us draw closer to the Savior and each other. We find joy in walking the covenant path together.”