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This chapter contains ideas about moving forward with home-centered religious life in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. We provide some findings from research we did in 2020 about how individuals, couples, and families adjusted toward more home-centered religious life because of the shutdowns resulting from the pandemic. We hope the ideas and participant quotes herein will give you food for thought as you and your loved ones move forward.

We strive to be what Elder Neal A. Maxwell called “disciple-scholars”[1] and treasure both our membership in the Church of Jesus Christ (and all the gospel entails) and our opportunity to study family and faith using the tools of the social sciences. With both realities noted, we value our religious identity far more than our scholarly identity. We strive to be disciples of Jesus Christ before, while, and after we are family scholars. We have been blessed to have a largely shared professional career that has allowed us to study the principles and processes upon which strong and faithful families are founded. We are grateful that our work at BYU has allowed us to spend our days learning and teaching about both prophetic teachings and social science research regarding how to build happy and successful marriages and families.

In his book The Spirit of Revelation, David A. Bednar emphasized that revelation is “scattered among us” and that as we listen to one another we can learn important truths regarding how the Spirit has worked with our sisters and brothers in God’s family.[2] We have been blessed to listen to, read, and analyze the spoken and written words (more than two million of them) of many hundreds of people of faith from various religious communities,[3] and we have learned much from them. As we have carefully studied the ways that God has worked with and through good people from many diverse racial and religious backgrounds, we have been enriched. We hope that it has been a blessing for you to have read the words of fellow Saints and of inspiring friends from other faiths.

Prescient Prophets and Post-Pandemic Progress

Whatever the long-term effects of COVID-19 in our society, President Nelson’s prophetic vision for moving toward a home-centered, Church-supported approach to gospel learning has been shown to be prescient. The Come, Follow Me initiative was presented to the Church in October 2018, more than a year before the various shutdowns—including those associated with religious gatherings—were in place. These home-centered changes served as a preparation for and protection against some of the challenges of COVID, including dramatic changes such as the extended closure of community faith worship and the loss of support many draw from sacred gatherings spiritually, emotionally, socially, and relationally. It is certain that we have entered a period in Church history in which home-centered religious life and the need for personal and interpersonal revelatory experiences will be as important as—if not more important than—any prior time in world or Church history.

Family Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic

In an essay on family relationships during COVID-19, family psychologist Jay Lebow quoted Dickens’s famous opening line from A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” as he discussed the “intense period for family life” experienced on a global scale that made for “powerful shared processes.”[4] During and after the pandemic, we were deeply interested to learn how families, especially religious families, were navigating their faith life and practices. With generous support from the Wheatley Institution and BYU’s School of Family Life, we surveyed a diverse array of 1,510 people around the United States to gather insight regarding what families from a variety of faiths, races, and regions were finding helpful.

We have subsequently published five scholarly articles[5] on five different family-related aspects of COVID. These include (1) family financial stress, (2) spiritual practices, (3) religious practices, (4) family communication, and (5) shared family meals. At thirty-five pages each, the articles would (and may) comprise an additional book, but in this chapter, we share a few high points and key findings that shed additional light on home-based worship and family relationships, drawn from the latter three articles: the articles on religious practices, family communication, and shared family meals.

Religious Practices during COVID-19

Families from a variety of faiths shared much with us regarding religious practices, including and especially family prayer, scripture study, shared sacred rituals, and home-based worship. Perhaps the most striking single finding from our COVID-19 survey of religious families in the United States was that 60 percent of people reported that because of their increased engagement in religious practices in their homes during the pandemic, they believed these changes would have a lasting positive effect on their family. One Protestant parent said:

[During COVID] we started praying together at meals more consistently. . . . This is a practice that has given us comfort and peace during these unpredictable times. I believe that we will continue to pray together more often as we move forward.

Another Protestant parent said:

[After COVID-19 hit,] we learned how to make better use of our time to make more time for our faith. We learned that it was not that we did not have enough time to read the Bible [and do] devotions. . . . It was that we were spending our time on the wrong things. This [change] will have a lasting positive influence in our lives, because our lives . . . have been much more positive.

In addition to family prayer and scripture study, several participants explained that they found meaning and strength in sacred rituals. Some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mentioned ordinances. One mother reported the following about her eight-year-old daughter’s baptism:

Our middle child was baptized during the [COVID] shutdown. It was an amazing spiritual experience, since only us and our bishop were in attendance. We did a Zoom call with family members, but there were just us five and the bishop. Instead of worrying [about] who would be there, who would bring what to the luncheon, where we would hold the luncheon, what we would eat, . . . our focus was on the ordinance itself. I think it made it so much more meaningful. . . . I’ve never been so focused on an ordinance . . . before.

Continuing the theme of sacred ordinances and rituals, one Jewish parent reported that

this year we made a point of participating in a Passover seder via Zoom with the extended family. It felt right and important to do this at this questionable time of human existence. We also are planning to stay in the area through the fall, because there will be a family bat mitzvah in October and a bar mitzvah in December. . . . In a time of questioning our life span and possible mortality, it definitely seems more important to be at family events and life-cycle events such as these.

Sacred rituals were frequently changed as a result of the COVID-19 shutdown but still retained their meaning—and in many cases the meaning and sacred nature were deepened.

Similarly, during the COVID shutdown many families replaced their faith community worship with additional home-based worship. One Muslim parent said:

My view of the importance of home-centered worship has made every aspect of my relationship better because we were able to connect to God and each other in a positive way. We were able to work out our differences as well.

A mother from the Church of Jesus Christ said:

[Before COVID hit,] we weren’t very good at doing the home-centered church study . . . but with COVID we began doing it weekly, because if we didn’t, we wouldn’t receive any type of religious practice within our home. My husband has also been recently struggling with his faith, and . . . COVID . . . has helped recenter him. He is using his [faith] in the home and seeing how important it is. It hasn’t solved all of our faith-based struggles, but it has helped.

Pauline Boss, a leading researcher of family stress, has noted that a crisis is an opportunity to rise up and do better and be more than we were before the event hit us.[6] Some families accepted that opportunity as an invitation.

Family prayer, scripture study, sacred rituals, and home-based worship are four powerful religious practices that our participants repeatedly referenced, but there is another home-based practice that may be the most influential of all—sharing family meals.

Shared Family Meals during COVID-19

A wealth of previous social science research has identified the connections between regular family dinners and stronger parent-child relationships and improved child outcomes.[7] Family dinners seem to be especially positive for adolescents, with benefits ranging from buffering against family conflict[8] to promoting healthier eating habits and lowering risk of obesity[9] to reducing the incidence of risk-taking behaviors.[10] Further, the leading scholar on shared family meals, Professor Barbara Fiese, has also documented the power of family routines and rituals to benefit adults and children during times of stress and change. This reality seems to indicate that shared meals are an especially important concern during the COVID era.[11]

In our survey research with hundreds of diverse American parents, we found that families that reported engaging in regular family dinner reported significantly higher levels of family emotional closeness[12] than those who did not. We gained several additional insights from 130 open-ended comments from parents addressing shared family meals, including the three recurring themes discussed below.

First, many parents reported that COVID stimulated an increase in shared family meals. One said, “W�� enjoyed having dinner together every night. Normally, we would be rushing to make it to practices or getting home late from practice and games, so dinner was rushed and we got to spend very little time together. Since COVID-19 [closures], we have had more quality time spen[t] together.”

Some readers might question why we are spending time addressing shared family meals in a book that is focused on home-centered religious life and sharing revelatory experiences. In our research on families during COVID, we learned that for many parents and families, family meals and family prayers were a package deal. We were struck by the frequency of combined references to the two practices. However, there was something else that captured our attention. In the following “prayer at dinner” reports from a diverse array of parents, we use italics to draw special attention to the centrality of the first-person plural pronoun “we” and the accompanying togetherness that participants conveyed as they discussed family coping during COVID.

“We pray over meals and with our kids each night.”

“We as a family stayed together during this time. We eat together. We are doing prayer together. This is giving strength to [the] entire family [to] cope with any fear.”

“[To cope], we . . . spend more time together [and] eat together and pray together.”

“We normalize praying together, eating [together,] and having exercise [together,] and this really helped us. Also, praying helped us with our mental and emotional health. We get to free our minds and share bothering things.”

“We talk a lot at dinner, and we call things to our blessing and prayers.”

“[To help us get through], we . . . eat dinner as a family and pray [together]. I think having dinner together strengthen[s] our relationship.”

Most of the above comments (from Catholic, Protestant, Latter-day Saint, and religiously unaffiliated parents) were stimulated by a question related to family coping. Several other “prayer at dinner” responses came from participants who reported changes in family practices that were stimulated by COVID:

“[Since COVID hit, we do] more family prayers at the dinner table and at bedtime.”

“[Since COVID,] we pray more at the dinner table.”

“[The pandemic] made us all [stop and get] together, praying almost on each meal. We are together hoping that [God] will lift this pandemic and make us peaceful.”

Another related report came from a Protestant parent who responded, “A lasting positive way [we have changed from COVID] is more regular prayer with each other. [We now pray] at mealtimes, in the morning, and also before bed. . . . And that will be a lasting positive effect.”

For another parent, a Catholic, a shift to increased home-centered worship was not only hoped for but realized—and “graces before meals” served as an important context for familial and religious unity. The parent reported:

The lasting positive effects of the COVID-19 shutdown [are] that my children see that [we] continue to practice our religious practices such as hearing Mass on Sundays as well as saying the rosary and graces before meals. . . . The COVID-19 shutdown made our family closer, since we are together more often. It has reinforced the practice of turning to God and to religion when there is fear and uncertainty, especially when there are things that we cannot solve by ourselves.

To this point, we have summarized key findings from our recent social science articles on religious practices and shared family meals. As we now turn to the third and final topic, family communication, we will summarize the related article’s findings that address important considerations for families and home-centered worship during the COVID era.

Family Communication during COVID-19

Of our 1,510 US survey participants in the COVID study, 624 also chose to respond to some open-ended questions. One participant captured an encouraging change:

[COVID] offered us the opportunity to connect more often with relatives living farther away who were feeling socially isolated without their peer groups. We established a new normal for communicating with loved ones more frequently.

Indeed, in the open-ended responses, there were repeated mentions of what we call “the Zoom boom” that spanned through generations and extended families. Next, we list three excerpts from 142 Zoom-related reports:

“I have been on Zoom together with several of my cousins that I have not been in touch with for over ten years.”

“W�� . . . focused on building relationships with our kids/grandkids/relatives who live out of state by setting weekly Zoom calls where we all got together and shared. We also had family Zoom dance parties. . . . [All of this] has actually built our relationships, as everyone had more time to be together that way.”

“One thing that my family did was . . . do family game nights over Zoom to stay in contact with one another and to not be so lonely. This made all of us happier and . . . feel close to one another, even though we live in different states. This was something different to do and really helped deal with the stress of quarantine.”

Again, some may wonder what families connecting through Zoom might have to do with this book’s theme of building eternal families through home-centered worship and revelatory experiences. Consider the next two responses, which both indicate that the respondents’ family Zoom gatherings occurred on the Sabbath. One person said, “[Our family] began having Zoom Sundays where we shared our thoughts and frustrations with each other.” Another reported, “I have nine brothers and sisters. Just about every week we Zoom together on Sunday evenings. We did not do this before COVID-19.” Such reports are not limited to participants in our research; we have had some significant personal experiences that we share later in this chapter.

Takeaways from Our COVID-19 Studies

The effects of the pandemic include economic, financial, political, educational, occupational, cultural, religious, and relational changes, stresses, and losses. The nature of these effects, including the effects of religious-service shutdowns, range from devastatingly negative to surprisingly positive. As many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have dealt with the many changes and challenges brought by the pandemic, they have felt blessed by (a) the “head start” on home-centered worship and study provided by the 2018–19 announcements and implementation of Come, Follow Me, (b) the lay nature of the priesthood that allowed many to receive the sacrament in their own homes, and (c) the ongoing guidance and comfort provided by living prophets, seers, and revelators.

The opportunity to spend more time at home with family members, the opportunity to practice the skills learned and patterns established from the Come, Follow Me curriculum, and the increased sense of gratitude for a living prophet have likely strengthened the faith of many Saints, even as they are aware that others—including some loved ones and dear friends—are experiencing increasing doubts around religious beliefs and involvement.

The fact that the pandemic seems to have encouraged more attention to family meals is an encouraging counter to the trend toward less regular family meals that has existed for decades. The additional fact that, for many families, regular prayer is deeply associated with regular meals is another positive by-product of the pandemic. And if the pandemic Zoom boom has allowed and encouraged more families to connect with one another across distances—including for religious reasons—then that too is something to celebrate.

Global Pandemics and Growth Possibilities

During 2020–22 (and likely beyond), the world faced the COVID-19 global pandemic that has infected hundreds of millions, killed more than six million, and significantly affected almost everyone’s life.[13] Given all the challenges and fears associated with the pandemic, it is typical to think of the negative effects: loss of life, decreased personal security, increased unemployment, loss of income, threats to businesses and livelihoods, and major disruptions in personal and family routines.

A crisis, however, is also an opportunity for growth. The existential crisis that any one of us could be infected with a life-threatening illness has led many people to question certain aspects of their lives, such as their priorities, schedules, and relationships. Indeed, the pandemic has also been an invitation for individuals, couples, and families to reconsider what is most meaningful, essential, and important. Because of the societal shutdowns and increased time spent at home, away from their normal routines and responsibilities, many also have envisioned or reenvisioned what they desire for their personal, spiritual, marital, and family lives. COVID-19 has allowed people to reprioritize their lives in ways that give greater importance to home life and relationships. We hope and pray that once life fully returns to normal—or more likely to a “new normal”—we will not lapse back into old patterns that place faith and family somewhere other than priority number one.

In an April 2020 Church News article about the COVID-19 crisis, Elder Quentin L. Cook placed the Come, Follow Me initiative and the home-centered, Church-supported approach in a broader context of revelation about several other issues. He said, “Each of us, in our current circumstances, can have a home that is a sanctuary of faith,” and he offered the hope that “we will look back on [the COVID crisis] as a foundational time of preparation, and not just something we had to endure.” Elder Cook also said:

Perhaps recent events can be a spiritual alarm clock focusing us on those things that matter most. If so, it will be a great blessing in this period to concentrate on things that we can perfect in our lives and how we can bless the lives of others as we awaken to God and move along the covenant path.[14]

Elder Cook’s encouragement “to concentrate on things that we can perfect in our lives” and then to consider “how we can bless the lives of others as we awaken to God and move along the covenant path” bears remarkable similarity to Jesus’s aforementioned charge to Peter: “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Luke 22:32). Personal revelation is a personal blessing, but when our commitment to the Savior and the covenant path deepens, interpersonal revelation—revelation about “how we can bless the lives of others”—opens blessings to many souls beyond our own.

Effects of Home-Centered Gospel Living

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are an interesting group to consider in terms of their collective responses to crises and the associated economic, social, recreational, and religious shutdowns. Because of the lay ministry and the precedent of generations of home- and family-centered religious practice, it is probably easier for Latter-day Saint families to hold religious gatherings comfortably and confidently at home than it is for many of our friends of other faiths (excepting our Jewish friends, who perhaps have an even more home-centered religion). The abundance of available blessings that flow through priesthood and prophets should elicit our profound gratitude.

Thankfully, many Latter-day Saints were authorized by Church leaders to receive the sacrament at home from a family member or ministering brother. Indeed, the number of administrations of the sacrament throughout the world during the COVID-19 shutdowns far exceeded the previous high. To contextualize, there are currently about 31,315 Latter-day Saint wards and branches globally.[15] During COVID-19 restrictions, it is probable that far more than 31,315 weekly administrations of the sacrament and related home-centered worship took place in Salt Lake City alone. Again, how grateful we should be for the literal blessings to which we have immediate access. What an opportunity to jump-start, deepen, and emphasize a home-centered approach to gospel living and learning that was introduced over a year before the pandemic.

Latter-day Saints experienced the same kinds of disruptions, challenges, and concerns as those around them, but hopefully many faithful Latter-day Saints were prepared with additional resources and were willing to share those resources with others. After all, ancient and modern prophets have taught that the last days would involve a number of major challenges, such as widespread wickedness and unbelief, societal upheavals, natural disasters, wars and rumors of wars, and a desolating scourge (see Doctrine and Covenants 5:19; 45:19–42; 88:89–91). Again, crises provide significant challenges as well as opportunities to refocus—and to serve others.

Prophets have also taught that in the last days the Lord will continually restore precious truths, gather scattered Israel, pour out the Spirit of revelation, cause His people to stand in holy places, and prepare a people to welcome the Savior when He returns to reign as Lord of Lords.

In times of significant changes and challenges, the path to joy and peace lies in profound personal conversion to Christ and His gospel and in continual revelatory experiences in communion with Heavenly Father through the Holy Spirit. These sanctifying processes can be facilitated by home-centered gospel learning and living. Home-centered religious life and meaningful revelatory experiences can be encouraged and supported by healthy family relationships and regular, meaningful family religious practices such as family prayer, scripture study, and home evening.

The Father’s work and glory are to build eternal families through Christ (see Moses 1:39). Home and family worship are vital. Personal and interpersonal revelatory experiences illuminate our walk with others along the covenant path. Even so, worship and revelation are the pathway, not the ultimate destination. Our destination and eternal destiny are to be with our heavenly parents and emulate the family life that they have.

Our Experiences with and Reflections on “Home Church”

As we mentioned in chapter 1, our own families, like all families, have imperfections, challenges, foibles, dysfunctions, and disappointments. We are all sinners. Walking toward the light is the goal. As we do so, our own sins and imperfections become illuminated and are clearer to us. We increasingly realize our need for our loving Father, for our Savior, and for eternal family support.

We profoundly appreciate the insights, experiences, and ideas we have heard from our fellow Saints who completed the Come, Follow Me surveys without any reward for doing so. We are impressed with their efforts, their honesty, and their optimism. Based on our experience in reading what they wrote, we believe the families who taught us would be quick to say that they are not perfect and should not be held up as paragons of Come, Follow Me worship. Neither are we, but here is a peek behind the doors of our homes anyway.

Dave’s Family Experience

When our children were at home, we strove to have daily family prayer, daily scripture reading (at the dinner table between dinner and dessert), and weekly home evening. We were not perfect but were quite consistent and believe our family members and family relationships were blessed because of these religious gatherings. My wife, Mary, and I were empty nesters when President Nelson presented the Come, Follow Me invitation. To follow the invitation, we have both been reading the scriptures on our own and then, periodically, have spent some time together reading (or listening to) the scriptures, watching religious videos, and discussing what we read and watched, particularly on Sundays.

We loved having home church and family sacrament for the months when our ward did not meet together. We enjoyed gathering as an extended family to sing hymns, pray, read and discuss scriptures, watch Book of Mormon videos, and, especially, receive the sacrament (which one of our sons blessed and one of our grandsons passed). We loved having our oldest daughter, her husband, and their four children with us for those months and enjoyed an expanded home church experience with them. For us, there was good that resulted from the trial.

Loren’s Family Experience

Earlier in the book, I shared my frustrated version of the “I Have a Dream” speech that included a vision in which, one blessed day, all five of my children willingly, eagerly, and unitedly would come to family scripture study and prayer the first time they were called. Alas, that misty-eyed vision has not yet become a reality.

Maybe there is a better vision, though, and COVID has provided a peek into much loftier possibilities than my “cranky dad” self sometimes sees. Two of our young single adult–aged children were sensitive to those in their circle that might benefit from joining us for Come, Follow Me in person—and those guests brought added light to the experience. Has everyone in our family been arriving on time? No. Have all the kids (or adults) been cheery at the outset? An even stronger “no.” Were pretty dresses and dress flats sometimes juxtaposed with pajama bottoms and fuzzy slippers? Yes. But it has still been its own kind of beautiful.

There has been another blessing, a more profound one. My wife’s mother, Maryann, an adult convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had not consistently attended Sunday worship services for many, many years before the COVID-19 pandemic. Even so, my wife, Sandra, her mother, Maryann, and our children presented me with the request to do “home church” over Zoom with Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa, who were seven hundred miles away. As the weeks and months went by, we prayed and aimed for home church meetings that focused repeatedly on testimony and core doctrines. Our home church was dialogue rich and included both implicit and direct invitations to Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa and to Maryann to share their insights and experiences, including Great-Grandma’s conversion story. As these experiences were shared, dormant coals seemed to be coaxed again into a fire of faith. With Great-Grandpa’s passing in November 2021, those four-generation family services are something we will cherish, but not only because of the memories expressed and the Spirit that was present. You see, once COVID-19 restrictions lightened and ward services resumed, Maryann returned to “ward church.” However, she did not return to church alone. She brought her adult daughter Nicole with her (again and again). The day before Great-Grandpa Howald’s memorial, I was able to step into the baptismal font with my wife’s dear sister Nicole. Nicole’s husband, Chris, one of my dearest friends, chose to be baptized three months later, and they are now preparing for the temple together. This sacred series of events can be traced to a loving request from a family member or two to do home church and Come, Follow Me over Zoom with extended family.

Now, when this sometimes-cranky dad reflects back on the fact that all his children got to hear their great-grandfather share his conversion from a drinking sailor to a “dry bishop” and offer his burning testimony that not even dementia could steal—and when I think that my children got to hear how their mother attended church on her own for nine years before she could be baptized at eighteen—and when I think of how one of the kids pointed out that in some ways, Great-Grandpa and Mom are faithful like Abinadi was, well, then even this cranky dad has to admit that this reality of multigenerational sharing of faith was better than my original dream of militant obedience. To paraphrase a New Testament question, “Can anything good come out of corona?” Our family might well respond, “Yes, good has come.”

Conclusions regarding the COVID-19 Pandemic and Families

At the outset of this chapter, we stated that perhaps the most striking finding from our related studies was that 60 percent of people we interviewed reported that because of their increased engagement in religious practices in their homes during the pandemic, they believed these changes would have a lasting positive effect on their family. We shared several positive influences our participants reported, including increases in quantity and quality of family prayers, family religious activities, family meals, and family communication—and participants’ hopes that they could hold on to, retain, and continue to benefit from their reprioritization of God and family as preeminent.

Our families, like many, were infected with COVID and suffered the short- and long-term symptoms but gratefully did not lose any family members to death. It is not our intent to in any way minimize the pain, suffering, and loss experienced by so many during the life-altering pandemic. Even so, based on the reports of scores of families (including our own), many learned precious lessons about the strength available through home- and family-centered worship. The blessing of the prophet Lehi to his son Jacob during their “days of . . . tribulation in the wilderness” seems applicable:

Thou hast suffered afflictions and much sorrow. . . .

Nevertheless, Jacob, my firstborn in the wilderness, thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain. (2 Nephi 2:1–2)

More than two years into the tribulation of COVID, it is our prayer that as you and your family remember the greatness of God and draw nearer unto Him, your afflictions will be consecrated for your gain.

Questions to Encourage Contemplation and Conversation

1. As you reflect on your own home-centered gospel learning during the pandemic, what do you think the pandemic has taught you and your family?
2. What have you learned during the pandemic that you would want to keep as the world and the Church return to “normal”?

Creating Opportunities for Revelatory Experiences (CORE)

1. What intentions do you have to enjoy personal revelatory experiences?
2. How can you and your loved ones encourage each other’s revelatory experiences?
3. What personal and relational activities might encourage your own revelatory experiences?

Notes

[1] See Neal A. Maxwell, “The Disciple-Scholar,” in On Becoming a Disciple-Scholar, ed. Henry B. Eyring (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1995), 7.

[2] David A. Bednar, The Spirit of Revelation (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 57–60.

[3] This includes nearly seven hundred people in our American Families of Faith database, the five hundred Latter-day Saints we surveyed, and more than six hundred Americans who shared open-ended responses to our COVID-19 survey in 2020.

[4] Jay L. Lebow, “Family in the Age of COVID-19,” Family Process 59, no. 2 (June 2020): 1.

[5] See David C. Dollahite et al., “Changes in Home-Centered Religious Practices and Relational Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Marriage & Family Review (forthcoming); Heather H. Kelley et al., “Change in Financial Stress and Relational Wellbeing during COVID-19: Exacerbating and Alleviating Influences,” Journal of Family and Economic Issues, published ahead of print, February 9, 2022, ; Heather H. Kelley et al., “Changes in Spiritual Practices and Relational Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Marriage & Family Review, published ahead of print, February 27, 2022, ; Loren D. Marks et al., “Exploring COVID-19’s Influence on Family Communication: Negative, Positive, or Both?,” Marriage & Family Review (forthcoming); and Loren D. Marks et al., “Family Dinners and Family Relationships following the Initial Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Marriage & Family Review (forthcoming).

[6] See Pauline Boss, Family Stress Management: A Contextual Approach (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2002).

[7] See Amber J. Hammons and Barbara H. Fiese, “Is Frequency of Shared Family Meals Related to the Nutritional Health of Children and Adolescents?,” Pediatrics 127, no. 6 (2011): 1565–74.

[8] See Emma Armstrong-Carter and Eva H. Telzer, “Family Meals Buffer the Daily Emotional Risk Associated with Family Conflict,” Developmental Psychology 56, no. 11 (2020): 2110–20.

[9] See Ellie Lee et al., Parenting Culture Studies (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

[10] See Nancy Eisenberg et al., “The Relations of Effortful Control and Impulsivity to Children’s Resiliency and Adjustment,” Child Development 75, no. 1 (2004): 25–46.

[11] See Barbara H. Fiese et al., “A Review of 50 Years of Research on Naturally Occurring Family Routines and Rituals: Cause for Celebration?,” Journal of Family Psychology 16, no. 4 (2002): 381–90; Barbara H. Fiese, Kimberly P. Foley, and Mary Spagnola, “Routine and Ritual Elements in Family Mealtimes: Contexts for Child Well-Being and Family Identity,” New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, no. 111 (Spring 2006): 67–89; and Barbara H. Fiese, Blake L. Jones, and Jaclyn A. Saltzman, “Systems Unify Family Psychology,” in APA Handbook of Contemporary Family Psychology, ed. Barbara H. Fiese, vol. 1, Foundations, Methods, and Contemporary Issues across the Lifespan (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2019).

[12] See Marks et al., “Family Dinners.”

[13] For global COVID-19 rates of infections and deaths, see “Template:COVID-19 Pandemic Data,” Wikipedia, updated May 2, 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:COVID-19_pandemic_data.

[14] Quoted in Sarah Jane Weaver, “Revelation Guided ‘an Interlocking Pattern of Strength’ That Now Sustains the Church during COVID-19, Elder Cook Says,” Church News, updated April 29, 2020, .

[15] “Facts and Statistics,” accessed May 2, 2022, .