Ideas for having Come Follow Me daily in your home

Having Come Follow Me daily (or almost daily) has made a big difference for our family. I think not knowing where to start was one of the hurdles that kept us from having Come Follow Me as part of our daily life. If you don't know where to start, here are some ideas that have worked for us.

Our Come Follow Me is not fun. I think we have in our heads that Come Follow Me should be a daily Family Home Evening with fun activities, etc. Come Follow Me is essentially studying the scriptures with your family. I don't know about you but I don't plan fun activities for my own personal scripture study. I study my scriptures because I need it, because it makes my life better, not because it's a super fun part of my day. Sometimes Come Follow Me is fun, but when we helped our kids see that the POINT of Come Follow Me is not TO have fun, it's to bring Jesus into our day, it helped it become a more normal part of our lives.

Our Come Follow Me is no prep. In order for Come Follow Me to become a daily thing at our house, it had to be a no-prep activity. Every night I pull up the Come Follow Me Primary manual and read one of the sections. I read it to myself beforehand, then we discuss it as a family (sometimes there is a short suggested activity or video we do. If there's any prep involved, printing coloring pages or something that might take too long like having the kids draw something, we rarely do it). If you don't serve in Primary it might not have occurred to you, but Primary teachers only have 20 minutes to teach your kids each week. 20 minutes! There is probably an hour's worth of material in the Come Follow Me Primary lesson each week. There's no way your kids are going to get all of that during Primary, and there is some really great stuff in there. Also, if you are worried about your kids knowing all the lessons before they get to church, don't forget that repetition is how we learn. Also, the kids have a lot more time to think about their answers and discuss it with their parents that will ultimately help Primary teachers in their classes. Come Follow Me is FAMILY led, church supported. These manuals are for you to use!

Our Come Follow Me is coupled with evening family prayer and then bed. It has been proven that coupling habits is a very effective way to start a new habit. If you are looking to add Come Follow Me into your day, figure out something you do every day that you can make it a part of. After you clean up dinner as a family, in the car on the way to school, during breakfast, etc. You don't have to have the whole family there. You don't have to have every kid there. Whole family is awesome, but making it a daily habit will bless your family immeasurably, so figure out a time that you can be sure it will happen rather than trying to figure out a "great" time when everyone is available. If you are a stay-at-home mom and your husband can't be there, what a blessing that your kids have a stay-at-home mom! That means they can STILL get spiritual stuff even when both parents aren't there. You don't have to wait for your husband to be home, it's a gift to your kids that you are there and can teach them things that both you and your husband want them to learn.

Our Come Follow Me is no longer than 5-10 minutes. In order to ensure that Come Follow Me is daily, our lessons are never very long. Ben and I switch off days. Sometimes, we ask one of the girls to teach. On days when we might have skipped, Ben will sometimes do even just a spiritual thought from the scripture block, just one verse. Satan is really good at convincing you that your life is too busy, or it will take too much time. I am always always surprised by how much adding Come Follow Me did not "mess up" bedtime or make our lives hectic. Your kids going to bed 5-10 minutes later is not that big of a deal! It's time you probably would've wasted anyway.

Starting a new habit means growing pains. One hurdle for us was that any time we started it was just so hard. The kids were so poorly behaved, Ben and I were both tired, and it just always ended up being a disaster. Starting is the hardest part of any habit! Inconsistency is what is hard for kids. Try having Come Follow Me everyday for 2 weeks. Just set that goal, you and your spouse, and no matter what, have it every day. Once your kids know you are serious, you get way less pushback and it just becomes a routine part of your day.

Your personal study makes your family's Come Follow Me better. When I've studied and pondered on the scripture block by listening to some of my favorite Come Follow Me podcasts, it helps me to give background to the scriptures we are reading, or relay a lesson I learned, or point out the tenderness of a verse we might have missed.

Our Come Follow Me is not the same as Family Home Evening, or scripture reading, or family time. The promises of Come Follow Me that we were given just four years ago are unique to Come Follow Me! President Nelson didn't say FHE or family scripture study, he said Come Follow Me. I promise these promises are not things you want to miss out on. Don't decide your once or twice a week Come Follow Me are adequate and keep you from the daily blessings you could be receiving. Your kids need this. You need this. Don't let yourself think something else "counts" because you are missing some awesome, awesome blessings by having Come Follow Me daily as a family. It really, truly has changed our family's lives to have Come Follow Me everyday in addition to reading scriptures and having home evenings. You can add this small thing to your lives, I promise you can. And the blessings will be ten fold the small sacrifice of time you give.

The other thing I would love to tell myself before I started is that the blessings are not what I think they are. I thought having Come Follow Me everyday our kids would get along better, or our lives would be more organized. We are still ourselves ;). But we have a greater capacity, an incredible spirit in our home, and a deeper understanding of our Savior that will help my children for years and years to come. Multiple times a week I get to bare my testimony to my children of Jesus Christ. Just imagine if there was one thing that you wish you could give your children as they enter adulthood, and it's a deep personal relationship with our Savior. You get that by learning and talking of Him everyday. Guess what? Daily Come Follow Me makes that happen. The thing that is most important to me that my kids learn in my home, Jesus, is the thing we get to talk about every. single. day in Come Follow Me. The answer is Come Follow Me.

“Come Follow Me has the potential to unleash the power of families and transform their home into a sanctuary of faith. I promise that as you diligently work to remodel your home into a center of gospel learning, over time your Sabbath days will truly be a delight. Your children will be excited to learn and to live the Savior’s teachings, and the influence of the adversary in your life and in your home will decrease. Changes in your family will be dramatic and sustaining.” -President Nelson