Isaiah Ulberg Matina, 9, recently conducted a children’s devotional for the Salt Lake Utah Central Stake (Tongan).
He was part of a group of children who, under the direction of the stake president and stake Primary president, counseled together to select the theme, songs, speakers, prayers and refreshments.
“First, our Primary stake president told us, go around the table and tell us your name,” Isaiah said in a video on the Primary Worldwide social media accounts. “Then we knew all each other’s names, and then we started planning and then we made the theme like Jesus Christ. And then we, like, got here.”
They held the devotional on a Sunday evening. They filled the meetinghouse, and many people who hadn’t been to church in a long time came.
“And it was nervous from the start,” Isaiah said. “But we came from there to coming to being grateful that God taught us how to teach and preach and love each other.”
The Primary general presidency has taught that children are capable and willing to serve in the Lord’s Church. Baptized and confirmed Primary children are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and as such, bishops, stake presidents and Primary presidencies can invite these children to more fully participate in their meetings.
Section 29.6 of the General Handbook says any baptized Church member may offer an opening or closing prayer in a Church meeting. This includes newly baptized 8-year-old children.
“Children bring a special and tender spirit with them when they offer a sincere, heartfelt prayer,” explains a post on the Primary Worldwide account.
Baptized children can also be invited to give a talk in sacrament meeting.
General Handbook Section 29.2.1.4 makes this more clear, saying: “The bishopric selects speakers for sacrament meeting. Most often they invite ward members, including youth and children.”
Choirs of Primary children can sing in meetings, and Christ-centered Primary songs can also be sung by the congregation.
In a June 2024 Church News article, Primary General President Susan H. Porter said that as more wards and stakes invite baptized children to participate, children will recognize that it isn’t just their parents’ meeting — the meeting is also for them.
Wyatt Clinger, 10, from the West Jordan Utah Cobble Creek Stake, was asked to say the opening prayer in the general session of his stake conference.
“I almost immediately said yes,” Wyatt said. “I was really, really nervous because there’s a ton of people in front of me, but I said yes anyway.”
After the prayer, he felt happy and peaceful, and he said he enjoyed the experience.
“I learned that it doesn’t matter how many people are in front of you, it only matters that you’re speaking to Heavenly Father,” Wyatt said in a video on Primary Worldwide.
Children from eight stakes in the Santa Rosa, California, area gathered this month for a children’s devotional. Valiant-age children played and conducted the music, gave the opening and closing prayers and introduced the speakers.
Danny Wells, the communication director for the Church’s Santa Rosa Coordinating Council, said as he watched a 10-year-old Primary child conduct the meeting, he thought of Ammaron looking at Mormon when he was 10 years old and saying, “I perceive that thou art a sober child, and art quick to observe” (Mormon 1:2).
“We have these 10-year-olds throughout the Church that are ‘sober’ children,” Wells said, “and if we give them the opportunity to engage themselves, they can perform. There wasn’t any shadowing up there; there wasn’t anyone in the background saying, ‘This is how you lead the music’ — they held their own.”
Bishop Christian V. Taylor of the Gailey Park Ward, Kaysville Utah Central Stake, said this about children’s participation in Church meetings: “We need them. … We just can’t get enough of the Primary children and the feeling that they are involved in this work with us.”
In a video on Primary Worldwide, Bishop Taylor talked about what it has meant for his ward to have baptized children speak in sacrament meeting.
“When they step up and unfold their paper and put it on the podium, and you can see their handwritten notes giving a talk, there’s just something sweet about it, and there’s an increased reverence and a joy in their faces and a growing confidence that we’ve seen in each of them.”
His ward has invited baptized children to pray. He said he can’t describe the feeling that comes into the chapel as a child steps up to pray to open the meeting.
“It reminds me of what President [Jeffrey R.] Holland recently shared. He said, ‘Is there anything sweeter, more pure, or more humble than a child at prayer? It’s as if heaven is in the room.’ And we agree with President Holland,” said Bishop Taylor of the acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
