From FHE to national TV
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SANTA MONICA, CALIF.
Two popular television shows integrated into the Santa Monica 3rd Ward (YSA) family home evening program produced some hoped for, and unexpected, results.
Vintage sitcom "The Brady Bunch" was the clever basis for the opening of a video produced to promote family home evening among ward members. The body of the video was recorded during a home evening patterned after the hit television game show "Minute to Win It," which airs on NBC.
Young singles who watched the video saw how much fun home evening could be. Meanwhile, staff of "Minute to Win It" show caught the video on YouTube and were impressed.
So impressed, in fact, that they asked the ward, part of the Los Angeles California Santa Monica Stake, if they could bring their cameras to a reenactment of the family home evening to get footage to include in a future airing of the program.
After getting proper priesthood approval, the ward hosted the "Minute to Win It" crew, which taped footage that was shown during the Wednesday, July 28, episode, right after the first commercial break.
The inspiration behind the successful efforts came from Kimberly Webster and Andrew Tashjian and the members of the ward family home evening committee they headed.
During brainstorming, Kimberly came up with the idea of basing a home evening on "Minute to Win It," a show where contestants can win money by using common household items to complete a challenge in 60 seconds. Some used challenges were keeping a feather aloft by blowing it, stacking and unstacking plastic cups, and tossing empty plastic water bottles onto a table without them sliding off.
But, Kimberly, a convert of two years, said, even though a home evening activity might be fun, the goal was also to have a spiritual theme.
"We all have fun and try to grow spiritually together," Kimberly said.
She continued, "Although we like to present our FHE's with a physical gain to attract the large number of members in our ward, I do feel that there is a large amount of spiritual growth that is also received."
For the "Minute to Win It" night, Kimberly said the show brings to mind the probationary period of life. Just as contestants had to complete their challenge in a specific time in the games, "we are given limited time in this life to learn about our Heavenly Father and complete the desires that He has for us."
Having the "Minute to Win It" staff take interest in the ward's efforts was a bonus, according to Kimberly and Andrew.
"The people from the show learned a lot about the Church, its organization, family home evening and the spirit of the members," Andrew said, adding that the visitors expressed gratitude for being able to share in the event and said they were impressed and surprised by the enthusiasm of the participants.
"To me, at the end of the day, it was a missionary activity," he said. "I think members of the television crew left with a good taste in their mouths."
