Purpose: as a special focus on the 11th article of faith, to learn with the family about the first amendment of the United States, and how our consciences are a divine gift from God that help us recognize His hand.
Possible scriptures: Psalm 95:6-7; John 17:3; Romans 14:12-13 (the whole chapter); 1 Corinthians 10:23-33 (or just 29 or 32); 2 Corinthians 4:6; Alma 21:22 Moroni 7:15-19; Doctrine and Covenants 84:45-47; Doctrine and Covenants 134:2-4 (the whole chapter is good);
Possible Songs: I Believe in Christ, Hymn 134; Praise God, From Whom All Blessings Flow, Hymn 242; Faith, Children’s Songbook page 96; The Eleventh Article of Faith, Children’s Songbook page 130; Book of Mormon Stories, Children’s Songbook page 118; children All Over the World, Children’s Songbook page 16; Jesus Said Love Everyone, Children’s Songbook page 61; I’ll Walk With You, Children’s Songbook page 140; Every Star is Different, Children’s Songbook page 142; We are Different, Children’s Songbook page 263
Possible Materials: Paper and coloring devices, a photograph of “Dad,” A picture of the persecutions of the early Saints
Preparation: Begin with prayer. Read the suggested scriptures, the Wentworth Letter (particularly the 11th Article of Faith), the first amendment of the constitution, and the Joseph Smith papers on Religious Freedom, Mosiah 26, 27:1-5 and Alma 1. Read through the lesson, including any links, and carefully select the most relevant material for your family. Children: Watch the video about Alma and Nehor. If you have access to the Scripture Scouts, listen to the part about the 11th Article of Faith.
Lesson:
Discuss how last week’s challenge went.
Introduction: (Disclaimer: this idea is inspired by the Scripture Scouts. If you don’t have them, check them out!) Hand each member of your family a piece of paper and ask them to draw a picture of “Dad” (it can be any person if you need to adapt this lesson, but “Dad,” is a good symbolic figurehead). When they are done, have them explain their picture and how they would describe him to someone who has never met or seen him before. Do people’s pictures look the same? Did everyone describe him the same way? What is similar? What is different? Next, hold up a photograph of “Dad.” Is it easier for someone who has never met him to know who he is after they’ve seen the photo instead of any of the drawings? All of these images are of “Dad,” right? Why are they so different? Why isn’t anyone’s picture exactly like one another? Explain to your family that we are all influenced by our own experiences and our own abilities.
Now, if “Dad,” is present, point to him. Isn’t knowing him in person better than seeing or having a picture? Even if he isn’t present, remind your family that we don’t have to rely on our pictures to know him, we can all know “Dad,” personally, but we will learn different things about him because of our different time spent with him. We will also have different ways of showing our love, even if we all love the same person. We will know some of the same things about him, but wont all have the same experiences all the time.
Draw the connection between, “Dad,” and Heavenly Father. There are lots of different ideas about Heavenly Father. We can’t decide if someone else’s idea of Heavenly Father is “wrong,” because we haven’t lived their experiences. Even throughout our lives, we will learn different things about Him, and our “pictures” of him, will get better as we learn more about Him. We want everyone to know Heavenly Father for themselves, because knowing Him is better than seeing a picture of Him.
Read Article of Faith 11 with your family. Explain to your family that “privilege,” means a gift from Heavenly Father. “Worship” means showing love to Heavenly Father. We worship when we pray, attend church, read the scriptures, or doing anything with love in our hearts for Heavenly Father. “Dictates of our own conscience,” means the things our conscience, or that quiet voice inside, tells us is right or wrong. Sometimes people in the church call it the light of Christ. That means that this Article of Faith means “We declare that Heavenly Father gave us the ability to love and honor and know Him in our own way. We feel that this ability is important and we will respect the way you choose to love and honor Him, too.”
From the Scriptures: Ask family members to read the following scriptures: Mosiah 26:1-12; Mosiah 27:1-5; Alma 1:17; Alma 1:21; Alma 30:7-11; What was it like in the time of the Judges? Were people happy? Were they nice to one another? Tell your family that Mosiah, the last king, had made it a law that people could believe according to their conscience, but that their beliefs couldn’t hurt anyone. Alma had only been Chief Judge for a short time when people began to fight about their beliefs. A man named Nehor was telling people that they didn’t need to believe in Heavenly Father. He had the right to say that. But then, when a man named Gideon told him he was wrong he killed Gideon. He killed Gideon for saying what he believed! Nehor was punished because killing was against the law. Why are people allowed to say what they want? Nehor did a lot of harm to the church! Should he have been allowed to say what he said? What would happen if we all had to say and believe the same things? Mosiah taught that it wouldn’t be fair if we all had to do things we didn’t believe in. He taught we need to be nice to one another even if we believe different things. Sometimes this feels unfair, because the believers of Heavenly Father get teased or hurt for their beliefs and know better than to tease or hurt back, but if you read Alma 1:28-31, we get to read the rest of the story! They had peace, even though they were being teased. They grew as a church. They took care of each other and those around them. When we stop focusing on what others say about us and just focus on how we are supposed to act and do our best, we will grow and be strong and it wont matter who tries to hurt us.
From Church History: Hold up a picture of persecution of early saints. Tell your family that people tried to hurt the early saints, too. They didn’t like that the members of the church believed that we should be good people because they didn’t want to be good people. For older families, read this section of the Wentworth Letter (where the 13 Articles of Faith were first published). For younger families, summarize by saying that people in Missouri burned down houses, covered people in sticky tar and lots of feathers, stole from and hurt or killed the members of the church. Even the government, which should have protected the people, made it hard for the saints to worship in peace! When Joseph Smith wrote that we claimed the privilege to worship according to our conscience, he meant it, and had experienced the opposition firsthand.
From World History: As a family, read the First Amendment to the Constitution. Ask your family if they know what the constitution is. If your family is young, explain that the constitution and its amendments are like Articles of Faith for the United States. It’s the ideas we believe for our country and the rules that we use to decide what is right or wrong. America had just fought to become its own country and one of the main reasons they wanted independence was a strong belief to follow one’s own conscience. We can and should feel grateful for the founders of America who wrote down this desire and made it a rule.
Further Discussion:
As a family, read some or all of the Joseph Smith papers of Religious Freedom. How did Joseph Smith feel about following his own conscience? Did he think only he had all the answers? How did his own search for truth shape his opinion of religious freedom? Does our belief allow for segregation and division?
Read Preserving Agency, Protecting Religious Freedom, by Robert D Hales. Discuss what Elder Hales claims are the 4 principles of religious freedom.
Recent Conference talks to consider in your discussion: To Heal the World, by Ronald A Rasband; Our Relationship with God, by D Todd Christofferson; But We Heeded them Not, by David A Bednar; The Need for a Church, by Dallin H Oaks; Becoming More in Christ: the Parable of the Slope, by Clark G Gilbert; Personal Peace for Challenging Times, by Quentin L Cook;
Challenge:
Challenge your family to memorize the 11th Article of Faith. If your family has already memorized this scripture, have them memorize the 1st Amendment of the constitution.
Giving due credit: as usual, I read and learned from Gospel Principles Chapter 8, and the Family Home Evening Resource Manual Lesson 8, lesson 24, and the “agency” heading, and Gospel Topics from Gospel Library on Conscience and Worship, and True to the Faith on Conscience and Worship. Other church materials I found helpful: The Articles of Faith and Joseph Smith, December 2013 Ensign; In Honor of the First Amendment, Church Newsroom, December 2016. I don’t often direct to other sources, but I also suggest reading King Men and Freedom of Speech by bookofmormonstudynotes.blog. It helped me put all my thoughts in one place while thinking about Nehor (and korihor, and amlici, and all of those that tried to disrupt for power).
