Worship with Friends on Easter

The First Presidency directed the Church, “To allow additional time on Easter Sunday for worship with family and friends, we have asked all wards and branches to meet only for sacrament meeting.” Worshipping with our families at home is a familiar concept, but how should we go about worshipping with our friends on Easter with our additional hour that we will not be at church? The option that comes first to mind is to attend Easter services that are not associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Perhaps an interfaith sunrise service, or a worship service in one of our friends’ churches. My own ward’s sacrament meeting on Easter will begin at 11 AM, so it should be easy for me to find another church service before that.

Another option would be for me to arrange some private Easter worship with a friend. Invite him to my house or elsewhere to sing a hymn, pray, and share expressions with one another of our joy in Christ’s triumph. I’ve never done anything quite like that. What do you think the First Presidency is telling the Latter-day Saints to do on Easter with our additional time for worship with friends?

The last time Easter fell on the first Sunday in April was 2021, and many of the General Conference talks on that day were what one might prepare with Easter especially in mind, while others focused on other things, such as President Oaks on “Defending Our Divinely Inspired Constitution.” Easter and General Conference will next coincide on April 5, 2026. If the pattern of last year and next continues, I suppose the Sunday sessions of Conference that day will be limited to a single hour, or perhaps omitted altogether.