Katie Asked What You Even Do With Twenty-Five Minutes

Katie texted me Monday night, a few hours after the Church put the instructional videos online. "Twenty-five minutes," it said. "What does anyone actually do with twenty-five minutes?" She teaches the eleven-year-olds in Primary and she'd been timing last spring's lesson on her stove clock, and it kept coming out at forty. She asked me because I used to teach third grade, which in her mind means I own a secret.

I don't. What I have is one number I've carried since the schedule was announced in March, and I gave it to her. In a classroom, getting children from wherever they were to where the lesson starts takes about five minutes, every time, no matter how good you are. So a twenty-five minute class is a twenty minute lesson, and I'd rather plan for that than be surprised by it.

What actually changes on September 6

Sacrament meeting stays an hour and the classes after it run 25 minutes, with Primary at 20 from what I've read. The Church has said the updates are meant to help members do three things:

Focus more on the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Strengthen gospel learning at home.
Increase fellowship, belonging and community at church.

That's from the Church Newsroom, and I'm quoting it because the second line is the one that lands on parents.

The videos went up Monday, August 3, in the Gospel Library app under Handbooks and Callings and on ChurchofJesusChrist.org. Four of them are meant for wards to watch together on two Sundays. August 30 gets a 23-minute video with the Young Men and Young Women general presidents about the youth curriculum. September 6 gets three shorter ones: eleven minutes with Elder Bednar and Elder Kearon called "The Sabbath and Sacrament Meeting," four minutes on Sunday School and six for Relief Society and elders quorums. I've watched exactly none of them all the way through. We're at the cabin and the connection gives out whenever somebody starts a movie, so I've read the titles and run times and I'm waiting for home. I'll save my opinions on what's in them.

What twenty-five minutes holds, if you've sat in a room with children

The beginning and the end of a lesson stay the same size. A teacher who opens with a song or a question and closes with a minute of quiet still needs the same few minutes for each, which means the middle is what gets squeezed. Somebody who used to cover three ideas will cover one, and the one that survives usually isn't the one on the handout. I think that's fine, and it's closer to how children actually take things in.

Lily is eight, and she'll sit for a read-aloud for about ten minutes before she's on the floor with her feet up the wall, and that's with a book she picked. Caleb is eleven and will go the whole twenty-five if somebody asks him a question he's allowed to get wrong. Neither of them has ever once needed more time than that to hear a story, only more room to say something back. I think a lot of the time we spend on children at church is time spent asking them to be quiet, and I wrote about that in When Your Kid Says Church Is Boring, Believe Them. A shorter class doesn't fix that on its own. A teacher who plans one real question instead of four forgettable ones probably does.

So what I told Katie, since she asked, was to write out the lesson she'd normally give, then cross out everything except the one question she most wants an eleven-year-old to chew on, and to say it out loud to the empty kitchen to see how long the silence after it feels. If it feels too long, that's about right. Children need that gap more than a teacher thinks. Then she can add one story and one thing to do with hands, and stop there with five minutes in the pocket for the stragglers.

I don't know that a shorter class is easier to teach, or that children will behave better in it, and nobody does yet because no ward has tried it. Twenty-five minutes is still a long time to hold a room.

What I'm doing with the kids before then

Not much, and that surprised me a little. Lily doesn't need a speech, since her class will be shorter and she'll notice that exactly as much as she notices the weather. I'd tell a child under ten something like "church is the same, the classes after sacrament meeting are a little shorter" and leave it there.

Caleb is different, and I only realized it when I reread the Church News piece on the fifth-Sunday meeting. On August 30 it invites all youth, Primary children turning twelve in 2027, their parents and youth leaders to a special instruction gathering. Caleb turns twelve on February 2. So that's him and David and me, a week before the new schedule starts, sitting down together for a 23-minute video about a curriculum he'll be inside of by next year. I'm going to tell him ahead of time so it isn't a surprise on the day.

With no teenager at home this year (Emma is twenty-one and in Provo), anything I say to the parent of a fourteen-year-old is secondhand, but I'd point out that the August 30 video is about as long as one new class period, and your teen is invited to it too, so you could watch it yourselves first if you think they'll have questions in the car afterward.

And then the afternoon

I'll say the least about the afternoon, because I know the least. The Church says it wants gospel learning to be stronger at home, and I take that at its word, but nobody has told me what that looks like at our house on the second Sunday in September, and I'm not going to invent a program. We already have a Sunday roast and we call my parents and David's. My plan for the first month is to leave the new time empty and see what the kids do with it.

If you want something small to try, I'd take the one question your child's teacher asked and ask it again at the table. Mine are used to that. And if home learning feels like an assignment you've just been handed, the eleven-minute lesson I wrote about in My Family Home Evening Lesson Lasted Eleven Minutes might lower the bar in a useful way. It lowered mine.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does the new Sunday schedule start?

September 6, 2026. Sacrament meeting stays an hour and the classes after it are shorter, 25 minutes for most and 20 for Primary according to what I've read. Your ward will tell you the order of the classes.

Do my kids have to do anything before then?

Only if you have a youth or a child turning twelve in 2027. On August 30 they're invited with their parents and leaders to a special meeting where the ward watches the youth video together. Everyone else can wait for September 6.

Where are the videos?

On ChurchofJesusChrist.org, in the Gospel Library app under Handbooks and Callings, and linked from Sunday.ChurchofJesusChrist.org. If a video isn't in your language yet, the implementation guide is there and units can use that instead.

Is twenty-five minutes enough to teach anything?

For one idea, yes. For four, no, and that's the whole adjustment. I'd rather a teacher leave out three good things than rush through all of them. It's what I'd have told a new teacher down the hall.

If you're teaching in September, plan for twenty minutes and cut from the middle. If you're the parent, ask your child on Sunday afternoon what the one question was, and if they can't remember it, tell the teacher so she can make the question better.

with love, Melissa