Have You Ever Held a Family Conference? We Just Did

Every six months we attend General Conference. Every six months we have Stake Conference. Every year we have a Ward Conference. But have you ever thought about having a Family Conference?

To be honest, I’ve had the thought to do this a few times over the course of the last year, but I finally decided to make it happened after being reminded of the idea through an impression I had while attending Stake Conference recently.

Home-Centered, Church Supported

In his opening remarks of the October 2018 General Conference, President Russell M. Nelson said:

As Latter-day Saints, we have become accustomed to thinking of “church” as something that happens in our meetinghouses, supported by what happens at home. We need an adjustment to this pattern. It is time for a home-centered Church, supported by what takes place inside our branch, ward, and stake buildings.

With this in mind, I’ve been thinking about ways to be more intentional in our home. Having a Family Conference was one way for us to do this.

What is a Family Conference?

It’s what you might think, and is patterned after the other conferences of the Church. The date we chose for the Family Conference was my birthday, so the only present I asked of my family was that they would each prepare a 3-4 minute message to share with the family.

We all gathered together on Sunday and everyone shared their messages. Here is a very brief recap:

• My wife Gina talked about gratitude.
• I shared a few quotes that I love about God, Jesus, the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and heaven.
• My oldest daughter, Sara, who lives in Ferron sent us a video message and spoke on leaning on God through trials.
• My oldest son, Evan, spoke about a few titles of Jesus, including Lord of Glory and the Lamb of God and the juxtaposition of those two titles. 
• My now 18-year old daughter Kamri spoke on choosing Christ every day.
• 15-year old Miles spoke on covenants and how they bless us.
• Asia, my 13-year old daughter taught how the Lord loves effort.
• 11-year old Jessa spoke on the peace we can find from Christ in times of turmoil.
• Callie, our youngest, shared her primary talk that she had given the same day on the power of the priesthood.

We FaceTime’d Sara and her husband in so they could listen to the talks remotely.

How Was Our Family Conference?

To be honest, the kids weren’t exactly jumping up and down at the prospect of prepare messages, however, they did it. Hearing them share their talks was much more enjoyable than preparing them. The presence of the Holy Ghost was very thick in our family room and it was definitely a powerful experience that we plan on repeating each year. It was everything I hoped it would be.

Being able to hear you children bear powerful testimony to you is an incredible experience, and reminds me of the scripture in 3 John 1: 4 which says: I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

How about you? Does your family do something similar? Our readers would love to hear your ideas and traditions in the comments below.