There has been a lot of media cov­er­age about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In my opin­ion, most of the arti­cles have been writ­ten by non-Mormons, and I think if you really want to know what Mor­mons believe, you should ask a Mormon. 

We believe in the The Holy Bible as well as The Book of Mor­mon, which is a com­piled text assem­bled and edited by a man named Mor­mon. Most peo­ple refer to us as the Mor­mons because of our belief in that book. Mormon’s name is not the name of our church. We appre­ci­ate Mor­mon as an ancient prophet in the same way we appre­ci­ate peo­ple like Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The entire Book of Mor­mon focuses on Jesus Christ as the promised Mes­siah and Redeemer of the world. We do not rever Mor­mon. We rever Jesus Christ. We wor­ship Jesus Christ. We pray to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. It is through His grace that we are saved. That is why we go to church: to learn of Him, and try to become wor­thy of His great love that He has so benev­o­lently bestowed upon the entire fam­ily of man.

The fol­low­ing is an out­line of a typ­i­cal Sacra­ment Meet­ing, which is our wor­ship ser­vice. The biggest dif­fer­ence you are going to see is that the church is run by its mem­bers. There are no paid clergy, and every mem­ber of the con­gre­ga­tion has a job. In other words, we don’t come to church and just lis­ten. We actively par­tic­i­pate by teach­ing, lead­ing, play­ing the organ or piano, etc. The out­line below is the way we do things every Sun­day, with the excep­tion of the first Sun­day of the month. We call the first Sun­day, Fast Sun­day. On Fast Sun­day, we par­take of the Sacra­ment as usual, but there are no assigned speak­ers. Those in the con­gre­ga­tion who would like to offer their heart­felt spir­i­tual thoughts or per­sonal expe­ri­ences are invited to speak. This is called bear­ing testimony.

Wel­come to Church. This is the way a typ­i­cal Sacra­ment Meet­ing unfolds.

We start with an Open­ing Song: Here is a link to our hymn­book. As you can see, we sing many of the same songs as other Chris­t­ian churches. What a shocker.

Open­ing Prayer.

Fol­low­ing the prayer, a mem­ber of the bish­opric (unpaid pas­tor) stands up and gives the announce­ments. Fol­low­ing the announce­ments, we pre­pare for the Sacrament.

The Sacra­ment: This is the most sacred part of our wor­ship ser­vice, and it is held every Sun­day. The con­gre­ga­tion sings a Sacra­ment Hymn. These hymns are cho­sen between pages 169 — 196. Fol­low­ing the song, the priests bless the Sacra­ment. They begin by bless­ing the bread, and then the water. Here is a link to the prayers: Bread  Water. Both of these prayers are found in The Book of Mor­mon. Fol­low­ing the prayer, the dea­cons dis­trib­ute the bread and water to the con­gre­ga­tion. The Sacra­ment por­tion of the meet­ing usu­ally takes about fif­teen min­utes, depend­ing upon the size of the con­gre­ga­tion. Dur­ing this silent time, mem­bers are asked to focus on the aton­ing sac­ri­fice of Jesus Christ. We also con­sider this a time when we renew our covenant (promise) to fol­low Jesus Christ.

Fol­low­ing the Sacra­ment, we have two youth speak­ers rang­ing in age from twelve to eigh­teen. These “talks” usu­ally last less than five min­utes each.

A spe­cial musi­cal num­ber may fol­low the youth speakers.

Then we have “talks” from two adults, which last about fif­teen min­utes each. Those assigned to speak are usu­ally given a con­fer­ence talk to expound upon. Here is a link to the top­ics the entire Church is focus­ing on for the next six months. 

After the talks we sing a clos­ing hymn and have a clos­ing prayer. The whole meet­ing takes about an hour and twenty minutes.

After Sacra­ment Meet­ing, we have Sun­day School, Nurs­ery, Pri­mary, Young Mens & Young Wom­ens, Priest­hood Meet­ing, and Relief Soci­ety Meet­ing. All classes are taught by mem­bers of the con­gre­ga­tion. The entire church uses the same teacher’s man­u­als. Here is how it breaks out.

Nurs­ery: Chil­dren eigh­teen months to three years go to the Nurs­ery where they play with toys, have snacks, singing time, and a very short les­son, usu­ally about 2 min­utes in length.

Pri­mary: Chil­dren ages three to twelve go to Pri­mary, which is an hour and forty minute block. Pri­mary con­sists of class time, then Shar­ing and Singing Time, which is when all the chil­dren come together. Here is a link to the man­ual for class time. Here is a link to the things that are taught dur­ing Shar­ing Time 2011.  After Shar­ing Time, we have Singing Time. Here is a link to The Children’s Songbook.

Youth: Ages twelve to eigh­teen go to Sun­day School. Here is a link to the Sun­day School Teacher’s Man­ual for the youth. After Sun­day School, they go to either Young Mens or Young Wom­ens. Here is the link to the teach­ers man­ual for those classes. Young Men  Young Women.

Men and Women go to Sun­day School. Here is the link to the teacher’s man­ual for that class. Fol­low­ing Sun­days School, Men go to Priest­hood Meet­ing and women go to Relief Soce­ity. Here is the link to the teacher’s man­ual for those classes.

From Sacra­ment Meet­ing through Relief Soci­ety takes three hours. We call this our three hour block.

For more infor­ma­tion about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, go to their web­site. This is the same web­site church mem­bers use when they have to teach a lesson.

To read more about my faith, please see my pro­file on Mormon.org.