Home Centered, Church Supported

On March 11, 2020 the church announced that all gatherings worldwide were suspended until further notice, in an effort to limit, or at least slow the spread of the coronavirus.  That sent the lay-leadership of the church all the way down the hierarchy scrambling to figure out what that would look like in all the wards and branches around the world; how to continue to support all those members while not meeting with all those members. Where we live, gatherings of any kind are currently limited to no more than ten people.  So, yeah, that pretty much puts an end to regular church Sunday meetings for a while.  I got the job of putting up signs on each entry door of the church advising that no meetings or services would be held until further notice.

It's been interesting.  When I went on my mission my first area was a city that did not have a branch or ward in the city.  There were only two active families in the city.  One was a family with youth aged children and the other was an older, single sister.  We used to visit them regularly but to go to church they had to travel to the neighboring community to where the branch met.  As missionaries, we were only allowed to go if we had an investigator, since it was outside of our assigned work area.  Alas, we were never able to get an investigator to make the train trip, even though it was only 30 or 35 miles.  For us, it would have involved a walk to the bus stop, a bus ride to the train station, a train ride to the next town, another bus ride to the nearest bus stop, and a walk from the bus stop to the building.  And then all that again to get back home. Apparently that was too much for any of our investigators so we never made the trip. We got to the train station a few times but each time the investigator never showed.  So for about the first four or five months of my mission I did not attend church. A couple of weeks before I was transferred out of the city an American serviceman was transferred to a small listening post in our area.  He was a member and we were able to get permission to ride to church with him. That's when I began going to church again.  We even had a dinner appointment with the branch president's family, my first "DA" on my mission.

For those several months that we were unable to go, we missionaries would get together each Sunday.  There were two companionships in the city, we formed a district.  So we'd get together for district meeting and the sacrament, usually in the other brethren's apartment since my apartment was a room in our landlord's house; not quite enough space or privacy for our meeting.  Each week we'd get together, one of us would be assigned to have a short lesson ready so it was more than just the sacrament and district business.  I actually enjoyed those meetings.

Switching to the "Come Follow Me" curriculum of home centered, church supported learning last year has born out the inspiration of that change, in more ways than simply preparing families to be better prepared and situated for this "lock down" of society that we've entered into.  The greater emphasis in having families take on more responsibility for their own spiritual development has been great practice for our current situation.  In our own family, we have decided that each Sunday at 1:30 we will gather together for our own church services.  We are not trying to replicate sacrament meeting, but it reminded me today very much of all those times we met in my first city to teach each other and partake of the sacrament.  It is our desire to keep the structure of having church services even though we are not meeting together as a full congregation.  Perhaps it will make returning to church, when all this craziness ends, less of a systemic shock.

"Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings."  (Leviticus 23:3)