Come, Follow Me

What Come, Follow Me is

Come, Follow Me is the official home-centered, church-supported study curriculum of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Introduced in its current form in 2019 as "Come, Follow Me—For Individuals and Families," it sets one weekly block of scripture for the entire Church and provides a manual to guide study of that block in three settings: personal study, family study at home, and the Sunday class. Across a four-year rotation it moves through the standard works one year at a time — the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants studied alongside Church history.

It is a study guide rather than a scripture or a commentary. The manual gives each week a heading with the assigned chapters, a short framing, ideas for studying the block on your own and with family, and helps for the person teaching the Sunday discussion. The reading itself happens in the scriptures; the manual frames and prompts it. There are parallel editions for Primary (children) and for youth so that every age group in a household and a congregation is working through the same weekly block in age-appropriate form. The whole thing is published by the Church and delivered free in Gospel Library and on its website.

Why Latter-day Saints study with Come, Follow Me

The single biggest practical difference between Come, Follow Me and an ordinary reading plan is that the whole Church is on the same page in the same week. A private reading plan is something you do alone. Come, Follow Me is something millions of members do together — the chapters you read for personal study on Tuesday are the chapters your family discusses Wednesday night and the chapters your ward’s Sunday class works through that weekend. The home-centered design introduced in 2019 made this explicit: study happens at home first, and the Sunday class becomes a place to discuss and deepen what was already read rather than to encounter it cold.

That synchronization is what the materials are built to serve. The manual is deliberately spare because it is not trying to be the last word on a passage — it is trying to get a family talking and a class discussing around a shared block of scripture. The prompts are open-ended, the framing is brief, and the assumption is that members will bring their own study, the official videos and audio, and often a third-party companion or podcast to fill out the week. For an engaged Latter-day Saint, the curriculum is less a book to finish than a shared rhythm to keep.

The weekly schedule: one block for the whole Church

The backbone of Come, Follow Me is its weekly schedule. The year is divided into weeks, each assigned a block of scripture — a span of chapters with a heading, a short framing, and a date. Open the Gospel Library app on any week and the current block is there: the assigned reading at the top, a brief introduction to the section, and the study ideas beneath it. Because the schedule is published for the entire Church, every congregation, family, and individual following the curriculum is reading the same block in the same week, which is what turns a reading plan into a shared experience.

This sounds like a small thing. In practice it is the feature everything else hangs on. It means a parent and a teenager studying separately are still studying together; it means a Sunday class can assume the room has read the chapters; it means a member who travels can walk into any ward in the world and find the same lesson. The schedule also drives the supporting ecosystem — official audio and video are produced against it, and third-party companions and podcasts release their weekly material to match it, so the whole field of resources stays aligned to one calendar.

The four-year rotation through the standard works

Come, Follow Me cycles through the entire Latter-day Saint canon on a rotating annual schedule. One year is devoted to the Old Testament, the next to the New Testament, the next to the Book of Mormon, and the next to the Doctrine and Covenants, which is studied alongside Church history. Over the full cycle a member who keeps pace reads through all four of the standard works in their canonical editions. The rotation is the same for every member of the Church at once, so the year you join, you join wherever the whole Church happens to be in the cycle.

The rotation is both a strength and a constraint, and it is worth understanding which is which. Its strength is comprehensiveness — stay with it and you will move through the whole canon rather than circling the same favorite books. Its constraint is pace: covering an entire volume of scripture in a year means some weeks carry many chapters and move quickly through dense material. That brisk pace is the most common reason families reach for a companion or a podcast — not to replace the curriculum, but to add depth to weeks the schedule has to cover briskly.

Home-centered, church-supported: study in three settings

The defining idea of the 2019 redesign is in the subtitle: home-centered and church-supported. The curriculum is built to be used in three settings that reinforce one another. Personal study comes first — the manual’s "ideas for studying" help an individual work through the block alone. Family study comes next — there are prompts written to get a household, including children, talking about the same chapters at home. And the Sunday class comes last — teacher helps frame a discussion that assumes the class has already read. The weight sits at home; the church meeting supports and extends it.

The parallel editions are what make the three-setting design work across a whole household. Alongside the main home-and-church manual there are Primary materials for children and youth materials for teenagers, all keyed to the same weekly block. A family can have a parent reading the adult manual, a teen working the youth edition, and a child following the Primary version — all on the same chapters in the same week. It is an unusual amount of coordination for a free curriculum, and it is the practical reason Come, Follow Me functions as the study spine of both the LDS home and the LDS Sunday meeting.

Pricing

Where Come, Follow Me falls behind

Brisk weekly pace. Because a full volume of scripture is covered in a year, some weeks assign many chapters and the schedule keeps moving. A reader who wants to dwell on a single passage for a while will feel the calendar pulling forward, which is the most common reason families add a companion or podcast for the heavier weeks.

Presumes the LDS canon and framework. The manual is written for members reading the standard works in their canonical editions and assumes familiarity with Latter-day Saint terms and structure. It is not built to be a neutral or introductory survey of the Bible for a general reader, and it does not try to be.

Spare by design, not exhaustive. The helps are prompts and brief framings rather than verse-by-verse commentary. That is the right call for a curriculum meant to start conversations across home and church, but it means depth on a given passage comes from the reader’s own study or from a supplement, not from the manual.

No built-in tracking. The manual sets the schedule but does not, by itself, track progress or supply accountability — keeping pace is left to the individual or family. Members who want streaks, reminders, or a checklist generally get them from the Gospel Library app’s broader features or from a third-party companion.

Coverage is uneven by necessity. A four-year cycle through the whole canon means the weight per week varies — some weeks sit on a few chapters and others sweep through many. That unevenness is a structural consequence of the rotation rather than a flaw, but it is real and worth planning around.

Come, Follow Me vs. Gospel Library vs. Come Follow Me Companion

These three are easy to confuse, and engaged Latter-day Saints typically use all three together. They are different things doing different jobs. Come, Follow Me is the curriculum itself — the official weekly schedule and the manual published by the Church. Gospel Library is the official app the curriculum is delivered in, alongside the scriptures, the General Conference archive, and the rest of the Church’s published library. Come Follow Me Companion is a separately reviewed third-party app that wraps the same weekly schedule with extra curated videos, talks, and prompts.

Different strengths. Come, Follow Me is the schedule and the framing — the thing that tells the whole Church what to read this week and how to discuss it at home and at church. Gospel Library is the official container — it holds the manual, the canonical scripture text the manual points to, and the official audio and video keyed to the reading. The first is the curriculum; the second is where you read it. For any question of what the Church is officially studying and what the manual actually says, these two together are the source.

Come Follow Me Companion is the optional curation layer on top. It is not official and not published by the Church; it follows the same weekly schedule and pre-assembles supplemental material — related talks, videos, and journaling prompts — for members who want more than the spare official manual provides. The relationship is straightforward: Come, Follow Me sets the schedule, Gospel Library delivers the official curriculum and scripture, and a companion like Come Follow Me Companion is an extra layer some members add for depth and convenience.

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