My Eight-Year-Old Asked What a Temple Dedication Is For

Of everything about a temple, the dedication is the part I'm worst at explaining to a child. Nothing visible happens. The building has been finished for weeks and half the county has walked through it, and then a man prays and the place looks the same afterward.

Lily asked it with her mouth full on Friday, pizza night, somewhere between the first slice and the second. David had mentioned that Elder Bednar was going to Cleveland on Sunday, and she wanted to know what the dedication was for if everybody had already been allowed inside. I said it makes the building holy. She asked how you'd tell. Caleb, reaching past her for the last piece, asked if it was like cutting a ribbon, and I said no, and then couldn't say what the difference was.

That was Friday.

Today Elder David A. Bednar dedicated the Cleveland Ohio Temple, the Church's 221st operating temple, and I've had two days to come up with something better.

What does it actually mean to dedicate a building?

A dedication is giving the building away. People built it and paid for it and spent years on it, and then they hand it over and ask God to take it, which is a strange thing to do with a building you can still walk into and repaint.

The prayer at the Kirtland Temple in 1836 says this out loud, and it's in the Doctrine and Covenants if you want the wording in front of you.

"And now we ask thee, Holy Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of thy bosom, in whose name alone salvation can be administered to the children of men, we ask thee, O Lord, to accept of this house, the workmanship of the hands of us, thy servants, which thou didst command us to build."

Doctrine and Covenants 109:4

Look at the verbs. The prayer asks God to accept the house, and in verse 12 it says "which we now dedicate to thee, that it may be sanctified and consecrated to be holy". That's a request too. Telling a child the building flips from ordinary to holy at the word Amen promises something nobody can watch happen, and a child who's been promised a flip will go looking for it.

The building stays the same and what changes is who it belongs to and what it's for. Elder Bednar described temples as "a point of intersection between heaven and earth," which is a lot for an eight-year-old, but it makes more sense to a child who has the picture of a building handed over for one purpose.

Why does the dedication come after the open house?

It turns out to be the simplest piece of the whole subject. The Cleveland open house ran from June 18 to July 3, and about 200 young members volunteered during it. Anyone could come, members or not, and Ohio state officials and Cleveland's mayor sent proclamations of support. Once a temple is dedicated, the people who go in are members who hold a current temple recommend, so the open house is the only chance everybody else gets.

So the order is look first, then give. Small children already understand that, since you show somebody a thing before you hand it to them.

One of the youth volunteers, Janie Jensen, told the Church News, "The Lord placed the temple here because He knew that we'd be ready for it." You can read that to a second-grader exactly as it is. A lot of the getting ready was done by teenagers handing out shoe covers.

What is a cornerstone, and do kids need to know?

Children hear the word and want a stone to go with it, and the version most people give them is "the most important stone," which for a small child is close enough. A useful idea to add is that in a stone wall the corner stone is the one the others get lined up against. If it sits crooked then everything built from it sits crooked too. Whether it's physically the first one laid isn't worth arguing about.

The scripture picture is Christ, and Paul says so plainly.

"And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord."

Ephesians 2:20-21

Paul starts with a building and ends with people. Peter does the same. He quotes "I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious" in 1 Peter 2:6, and one verse earlier he has already turned to the reader: "Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house." Lively there means living.

For a child that means the temple is a picture of what God is building out of people, with Christ as the stone everyone gets lined up with, and each child is one of the stones.

Should I read a child the whole dedicatory prayer?

Doctrine and Covenants 109 runs eighty verses and a good share of them are about enemies, a mob in Missouri and judgments on cities. It was the prayer of people who had been driven from their homes. It's a real prayer and worth reading with a teenager who can set it in its history, but a young child doesn't need all of it.

For a young child, stop at verse 13. It asks "that all people who shall enter upon the threshold of the Lord's house may feel thy power". Verse 8 lists seven kinds of house (prayer, fasting, faith, learning, glory, order and God), which is the prayer repeating something the Lord had already told them to build.

Nobody outside the room knows yet what Elder Bednar's prayer said today, so it's worth waiting for the published text before telling a child anything about it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a dedicatory prayer, in a sentence a child can follow?

A leader of the Church prays out loud for everyone listening, and asks God to accept the building and bless the people who come to it. Today that leader was Elder Bednar. Leave the rest for when they ask.

Is a temple dedication the same as an open house?

No. The open house comes before and anyone can walk through it. The dedication is a worship service for members, and after it the doors open only to members with a current temple recommend. It's also not a ribbon-cutting, which is the comparison children reach for first.

Does the prayer make the building holy right away?

It asks for that, and I'd say it that way to a child too. Verse 12 reads "that it may be sanctified", a request and not a switch. Kids hear "holy" and translate it to "don't touch," so it helps to tell them what the building is for in plain terms. People make promises to God there and do work for their families who have died, and that's why the Church sets it apart.

Why does Ohio keep coming up?

The Kirtland Temple, dedicated in 1836, was the first temple of this Church, and it's in Ohio. The Columbus Ohio Temple was dedicated in 1999, and Cleveland is the state's second operating temple. If you're wondering how that relates to a temple you may never see, what to tell your kids about temples you'll never visit covers it, but for a child it's enough to say Ohio is where the first temple was built.

with love, Melissa