Eight Improper Things to Do in Sacrament Meetings

OK, some courtesies and guidelines of conduct for use in church meetings just aren't taught today, like they should be.

Here are 8 guidelines I have for Sacrament meeting conduct:
1. Don't let your children keep and play with the sacrament cups. Besides the noise, there's the principle of sacred usage.
2. If you walk out of the chapel during the sacrament services, don't return while it is still going on. Likewise, don't try to enter a chapel while the actual passing of the sacrament is underway. It is distracting to others and is simply common sense not to intrude on such a sacred rite.
3. Don't let the door slam, if you do leave the chapel. Help it slowly shut, quietly.
4. Don't go in and out multiple times in a sacrament meeting, or let your children do that. Again, it is distracting and disturbs reverence. Better to stay in the foyer, if you have to leave/return more than twice. (I counted one man and his child leave and come back in the chapel 11 different times during one recent sacrament meeting.)
5. Do not, I repeat do not, ask the congregation to turn to a scripture during your sacrament meeting talk! The brethren have often said not to do that and yet some must think they are an exception to that, despite that it is a noisy and disrupting practice.
6. Take care not to let your young children mangle the hymn books.
7. Strive to teach your children to take the sacrament with their right hand. Parents should be the ones to ideally teach that, not others.
8. Don't let children play with nor eat out of noisy paper or plastic wrapped containers -- and clean up after your kids after they eat in the chapel. (I've seen too many bishops in a ward, or the ward that meets afterward, who have to vacuum the chapel after a service, with a little hand vac...)

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are the author's conclusions and opinions only.