President Eyring’s address

Modern prophets have continually warned that in the latter-days, the adversary will attack marriage and family.  More than thirty years ago, President Harold B. Lee stated, “Satan’s greatest threat today, is to destroy the family and make a mockery of the law of chastity and the sanctity of the marriage covenant” (Church News, August 19. 1972, 3). Our current leaders continue to emphasise the importance of strengthening families in faith in Jesus Christ.

So building faith in Jesus Christ is the beginning of reversing spiritual decline in your family and in your home. That faith is more likely to bring repentance than your preaching against each symptom of spiritual decline.

What is President Eyring teaching us here?

How can building faith in Christ be a ‘key’ to unlocking some of the problems we can experience in families?

What are some of the ways that President Eyring suggests we can build faith in Christ in our families?

Possible answers:

• praying
• teaching early repentance
• cultivating the missionary spirit
• visiting the temple

Do you have any success stories of how any of these things have helped build faith in Jesus Christ in your family?

Even when family members are not living in the home, prayer can build bonds of love. Prayer in the family can reach across the world. More than once I have learned that a family member far away was praying at the same moment for the same thing as I was. For me, the old saying “The family that prays together stays together” could be expanded to “The family that prays together is together, even when they are far apart.”

Have you had experiences where family prayer has brought your family together even though separated by miles?

What did you learn from that experience?

What are some obstacles to consistent family prayer? How can family members work together to overcome these obstacles?

You will find some of your greatest joys in your efforts to make your home a place of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and a place that is permeated with love, the pure love of Christ. The Restoration of the gospel started with a humble question pondered in a humble home, and it can continue in each of our homes as we continue to establish and practice gospel principles there. 

How does this link with the emphasis on a home-centred, church-supported approach to gospel learning?

“…May I ask this important question: How many families in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have regular nightly and morning family prayer? Those who neglect to do so are displeasing the Lord and are entitled to the same rebuke which the Lord gave some of the leading elders of the Church in the early days. No parent should depend solely on the organizations of the Church for the training of the children. They should be taught to pray regularly, secretly as well as in the family circle. The counsel that Alma and Amulek gave to the straying Zoramites is just as essential to the Latter-day Saints today as it was two thousand years ago.” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 5:48)

What principles from President Eyring’s address do you feel inspired to implement on your family?

(Excerpts from President Eyring’s address are in italics)