Julie wrote: “I’m a convert.”

Julie, your conversion story post was one of my favorite reads ever in the ‘Nacle. I think I forgot to nominate it at some point on one of those “best posts of the year” lists – my bad. But I really loved it.

Thanks for breaking the ice, so to speak. I really like reading about what you’re doing with the flannel board.

By the way, I should add that a short time after reading that post, I came across a used for-sale copy of A Prayer for Owen Meany at the New York Public Library and read it because of what you had written about it. Not a bad book at all.

LOL, PDOE. I liked it. Owen Meany was a very interesting character.

I just like understatement too much sometimes. I need to go re-read it again, I think. It’s been awhile.

We are a father, mother and five children ranging in age from 11 years to four months. My aged father also lives with us, but is not involved with the family home evening. We do home evening on Mondays about seven weeks out of eight. On holidays or vacations, we spend enough hours together to call it good, and when a school event or such interferes, we skip it that week.

I am the main driver to have everyone ready for home evening. The young children, though, complain vocally if something interrupts home evening, especially if it’s their turn to handle one of the fun assignments. Assignments that rotate are prayer, song, lesson, game, and treat. Our big challenge is getting started and then finishing before it gets too late for the youngest. When I think on Sunday to tell the ones assigned the lesson and treat to prepare, getting started on Monday is smoother. It is also a challenge for me having one fewer night free to work on other things, but I’m a father, so that’s just how it is.

Family home evening was not done in my parents’ family. It’s been a valuable thing for us, more than I had anticipated a decade ago that it would be. It seems to be one of the elements of what it means for us to be the family that we are.

Our stake has two regularly scheduled and on-going Family Home Evening groups for singles over 30 at two different chapels in town. (The YSA branch, which is the single folks under 30, has their own thing going on on Mon nights.)

I’ve found that if any social group, such as these FHE groups, has a core of lifter-upper type people who can add energy to the group, then the FHE meetings are a positive experience. However, if the negative energy contributed by the “leaners” outweighs the positive energy contributed by the “lifters”, then the experience is negative, and/or the lifters get burned out.

I think the key is to get a core of regularly-attending, positive-energy people (the lifter-uppers) to go. Because without that core, anyone who is going there looking for a positive experience is either disappointed or gets drained of their spiritual/emotional energy. And then all that’s left are those who seem to thrive in the negative-energy environments.

A very astute comment I read in the bloggernacle, made by a convert who was asked to attend a singles function was “They’re broken to death.” I agree with that. But I’d like to add, that the gospel, the church, and church programs exist to heal those who are broken.

I’m willing to be a lifter-upper, and I’m willing to provide positive-energy to a group. But I also need to be around other positive-energy people.

There are many active and faithful positive-energy type single adults in the church, who shun the Single Adults programs because of being ganged-up on and “out-weighed and out-numbered” by the “broken to death” singles.

If priesthood and RS leaders could just rally those lifter-upper type singles and get them to the Single Adults events all at the same time, the positive would outnumber/outweigh the negative; the leaners and broken ones would find spiritual/emotional energy to be healed, and the lifters/healers would reap the blessings of being the instruments of Christ’s healing.

Keri, I like singles groups with “senior sisters”. They’re the best cooks.

(And yes, the dear, sweet FHE “mom” is a great cook.)

Just to add for myself and my wife:

1) Just us so far.
2) We tend to spend most of our evenings – when my wife isn’t on-call – together. Our problem is that we don’t have formalized FHE as much as we’d like. We tend to do fun things together and sometimes we’ll stamp the family home evening label on what we did. We probably should try to prepare more in advance for FHE.
3) In general, if either one of us initiated family home evening, the other would would be supportive. Right now there isn’t really one person who “makes it happen” so to speak.
4) The biggest obstacle to consistently having family home evening is that Diane is often on-call at the hospital. So we need to be prepared to be flexible with the FHE assigned evening when necessary.
5) see #4
6) When we prepare in advance, usually one of us will be in charge of the lesson. It’s not hyper-organized. We may read a chapter of scripture together or read a gospel-related article of some sort together. We could probably find a way to be more organized about how we approach lesson material.
7) No.
8) When we have FHE, it’s just something we do together. We don’t worry too much about “who is in charge.”
9) Diane is a convert to the church and her parents aren’t members – so she didn’t grow up with FHE. My parents are members and they tried very hard to have family home evening every Monday night. It was always a meeting that began and ended with prayer, included a hymn/song, a lesson, a game, a treat. Sometimes my parents experimented with including a “family counsel” in FHE.

Obviously that cute sunglasses character represents my 8-year-old son.

Margaret, I’m glad you included that quote/cliche “the only family fight that begins and ends with prayer.” I think I’ve seen that happen before – where good intentions mixed with family dynamics creates contention instead of a positive experience.

On the other hand, I have some wonderful memories of family home evenings, growing up.

We are a middle-aged couple and never had our own children. I’m a convert and never experienced anything like FHE growing up. DH’s father was not a member, so most of his FHE memories came from his BYU days. In a former ward we hosted a monthly FHE for singles, couples and families who needed or wanted extra fellowship. We began with a potluck dinner. The lesson portion of the evening included: an opening song from the Hymnal or the Children’s Songbook; an opening prayer; a brief lesson (usually based on a scripture and usually accompanied by an object lesson, story, or related game); a closing hymn or song; a closing prayer; and dessert.

When we had a teenage foster daughter who was a recent convert, our FHE lesson on weeks when the group wasn’t there were often based on questions she asked about the Gospel or the church, and were usually drawn from For the Strength of Youth, True to the Faith, Mormon Doctrine or Gospel Principles. She often invited a friend to come to dinner and FHE. Some FHEs she still remembers:

* One on relying on the Savior based on the pop-Christian song “Sometimes He Calms the Storm” (the chorus ends, “Sometimes He calms the storm, and other times he calms His child.”)
* A lesson on honesty that began with a huge black-yarn “web” woven all over the living room. Word’s from a Sir Walter Scott’s quote (“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”) were randomly attached. My husband and daughter unraveled the web, found the words, and assembled the quote.
*A lesson on recognizing promptings of the Holy Ghost where we blindfolded her and told her to listen to DH’s whispered directions while I followed them around with a child’s tape player with a microphone, and tried to interfere with amplified contradictory instructions.
*A lesson on repentance and the worth of souls centered around the poem, “The Touch of the Master’s Hand”

Now it’s the two of us, and we try to do FHE most weeks on Monday, but the form varies. We often pull a slip from a “Family Home Evening Jar” for our “lesson”–they include a discussion point, a song or hymn, and a scripture or two. Sometimes we watch a church video, a funny or spiritual movie from the Mormon cinema genre, or another family-friendly movie. Sometimes I print a lesson from Deseret Book’s site. Other times we will just sing a hymn or song from the Children’s Songbook before our usual family prayer and scripture reading. When he’s in the mood, I try to get my husband to play a board game or trivia game with me before he buries himself in something else. We usually have some kind of treat, but it’s not always dessert. We take turns planning FHE, but I usually end up taking care of the treat.

1. What is the nature of your “family”? Are you a single person, a couple without children, a couple with children? How does your family type influence (if at all) the manner in which you approach family home evening?

Family with husband, wife, 3 kids

2. Do you have family home evening on a regular basis? Always? Usually? Occasionally? Rarely? Never?

With the archtypical FHE structure, almost never. If you’re considering family evenings, frequently. Perhaps more than once a week.

3. If you have family home evenings on a consistent basis, what makes it happen? Is there someone in your family who demonstrates particular initiative or is it more of a group effort?

Group effort, although Mom and Dad initiate it more often.

4. If you rarely or never have family home evening – is it a conscious decision or does it just sort of happen that way? What obstacles make it most difficult to hold family home evening? Do you like having family home evening or is it a hassle?

Grad school or work commitments on Monday night have led us to improvise to other nights and schedules. Monday night is an extreme rarity.

5. Do you always have family home evening on Monday night? Do you ever have family home evening on another night?

See #2 and #4.

6. What do you do during family home evening? How structured is it? Do you lean towards spiritual lessons or fun activities? Both?

See #7. A little of both.

7. Do you use a family home evening manual of any kind?

Typically, ours revolve around the Cub Scout books, the Faith in God award for both boys and girls, or Share my Gospel.

8. Who “presides” at family home evening? Are different family members assigned to be in charge of different parts of family home evening or do family members tend to have the same roles from week to week?

Whichever adult is present. We are free-form.

9. If you grew up in the Church – is the family home evening you experienced as you grew up different than the family home evening you have today? How much do your experiences of the past influence the way you do family home evening now?

I was raised in the Church. Yes, mine are very different. I don’t believe in adhering to a certain structure “just because”. For FHE, you have to do what works for your family. Period. And that structure, content, and even the night you hold it need to reflect your family’s needs. We hold family counsels. We’re not particularly musical, so we don’t do songs. Food is always a big part.

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