Leaders Guide to Family History Added to Gospel Library

Screenshot of Gospel Library section on Temple and Family History

The Gospel Library is an App on both Android and Apple iOs devices. This includes smartphones and tablets. This week, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints added the long-awaited Family History Leadership Guide. Here is a screenshot of the Gospel Library web page on LDS.org.

https://www.lds.org/pages/mobileapps/gospellibrary?lang=eng

Many members are using the Gospel library to access the scriptures, lesson manuals, Conference talks and other important Church publications. But the Gospel Library also serves the function of providing leaders in the Church with important manuals and handbooks. Many of the handbooks, such as Handbook 2, Administering the Church, are found in the Gospel Library. Stake Presidents and Bishops including Stake and Ward Clerks and other leaders can also access reports and other information they need from the Gospel Library.

This points out the importance of leaders and all members utilizing the Church's websites and online resources. For those members involved in Family History, as I have been pointing out in quite a few posts lately, all of the training materials and descriptions of the duties of Temple and Family History Consultants are now online. Those who fail to take advantage of all of these resources will simply be lost and uninformed about their callings and in some cases about changes in Church procedures.

The benefit of the electronic dissemination of these previous paper-based materials is substantial. Many people around the world have access to smartphones and tablets who would not otherwise have access to paper editions of the documents because of the cost of printing and shipping. The Church also saves a huge amount of money formerly used for that same printing and shipping. How many of us received a paper copy of a class manual and never used it?

The challenge here lies with the leaders. Each leader in the Church will have to be proactive in seeking out and studying the online material. But the fact that all of this reference material is readily available at any time of the day or night is a great boon to the whole Church.

I have spent some time recently working my way through the Gospel Library and was pleasantly surprised at all of the resources available. If we all begin using those resources, especially the Family History resources, and mentioning them in classes and during meetings when appropriate, they will become integrated into the everyday operation of the Church.