Mormon Church

On August 10, 2009, Sheri L. Dew, CEO of Deseret Book and a former General Relief Society President for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spoke before the World Congress of Families V in Amsterdam, Netherlands. She offered this warning to nations and their families:

“We all know that every nation is ultimately at the mercy of its families. If families are riddled with problems, society eventually collapses under the weight of problems too vast for any government to meet. If families are strong, society is strong.” (See Sheri L. Dew: The Power of Virtue.)

Laws can demonstrate a nation’s priorities and enforce behavior, but deep, lasting change happens on a more personal level. When we read biographies of famous people, they nearly always begin with a study of the person’s family history and demonstrate how that affected the person’s choices in life. Parents and other family members have the most opportunity to influence the thinking and behavior of their children. While each person has agency—the right to choose for themselves how to live—children are most likely to eventually emulate their parents.

A parent has access to a child’s mind at the ages in which a child is most easily influenced. A child who grows up doing service projects from his earliest moments will consider that a natural way of life, just the way people live. A child who lives in a home filled with books will feel uneasy being in one without them. A child who has gone to church with his family every Sunday of his life will feel an odd little urge at the appointed time if he grows up and tries to stop going, especially if it was a pleasant experience.

It’s when a child is small that we have the best chance of helping him become the right sort of person. Those people who spend the most time with the child each day have the most influence.

Once a child has his values in place, he goes into the world to live accordingly. As an adult, it is very likely his life will reflect the way he was raised. The details may be different, but the overall values will be the same. This is why nations are at the mercy of families. Citizenship classes are not the means for creating good citizens, although they might help. It’s the family nations depend on to train up a child in the way he should go.

If we want the hungry fed, we have to take our children to a food bank with a bag of groceries so they will continue the battle when they grow up. If we want an educated population, we need parents who read to their children, take them on educational outings, and arouse their curiosity about the world. If we want a generation that obeys the law, we first need parents who set the example by obeying the law themselves and who talk to their children about this.

Nations are at the mercy of families, and this is very good news. It gives families a good amount of control over the world in which they live. While setting the course for your own family may not seem like much of a change, each of your children can go on to influence hundreds more, and within a few generations, influence multitudes of family members, in addition to people in the outside world. The Mormons have a number of traditions and routines which can help to strengthen families of any faith, and are easily adaptable to the faith of any given family.

One is family home evening. Each Monday night, Mormon families gather together to pray, sing, learn the gospel as taught by their own family members, and play. This treasured tradition ensures parents have an opportunity to impart values to their children. It also helps them strengthen the bonds that will increase the chances the child will emulate his parents.

Another tradition is family prayer and family scripture study. Mormon families gather each morning for a brief devotional which includes a family prayer, scripture study and discussion. In a busy day it can be a challenge for parents to get everyone together for those fifteen to twenty minutes each morning, but they find the benefits far outweigh the challenges.

Mormon families also attend church together. From birth, children sit in the basic worship service, known as Sacrament Meeting, with their families. While this admittedly makes Mormon services a bit noisier and busier as toddlers escape their parents and babies whimper, these children never know a day when church has not been part of their Sabbath. They spend the meetings cuddling with a parent or playing quietly in their seat, and this time becomes a treasured memory and a critical routine. Only after this service do children go into classes meant just for them while their parents attend their own meetings. Mormons don’t drop their children off at church; they attend with them.

Small additions to the week can make a big difference in setting the stage for the future of our nations. As parents give children the values and the skills they will need to be good citizens and to fix the challenges our world faces, those children grow up to influence yet another generation. While it’s not an over-night cure for what ails our world, it is the most certain way to improve it for the long-term.

Gordon B. Hinckley, the previous Mormon prophet, said:

I am more concerned about the moral deficit in our nations than I am about their budget deficits, though that, too, is a most serious matter. Do societies need more policemen? I do not dispute it. Do societies need more prisons? I suppose so. But what they need, above all else, is a strengthening of the homes of the people. Every child is a product of a home. Societies are having terrible youth problems, but I am convinced that they have a greater parent problem. I am grateful that we of the Church have for a long time taught and are teaching and spending a substantial part of our resources to fortify the homes of our people….What can be done? We cannot effect a turnaround in a day or a month or a year. But I am satisfied that with enough effort we can begin a turnaround within a generation and accomplish wonders within two generations. That is not very long in the history of man. There is nothing any of us can do that will have greater longtime benefit than to rekindle wherever possible the spirit of the kind of homes in which goodness can flourish.

(See Gordon B. Hinckley, “Four Simple Things to Help Our Families and Our Nations,” Ensign, Sep 1996, 2.)

Tags: Family, Family Home Evening, family prayer, government, importance of families, strengthening families

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