Getting Ready for Come Follow Me 2027... the New Testament Year!

Am I the only Homeschool Mama who starts thinking about next year’s Come Follow Me before the leaves have even finished turning?!? It’s October, the 2026 manual still has a few months left in it, and yet the question of what to keep next year’s scripture notes in has a way of sneaking up on us.

If you’re new around here, hi! I’m Mindee; I taught Kindergarten for eight years before I came home to homeschool my three girls, and our family are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Come Follow Me in our home happens in fits and starts, depending on how busy things are. We use The Red Headed Hostess’s RHH Lifted app, and watch Line Upon Line and Thumb Follow Me on Living Scriptures+. (No affiliation with either. We just love using them.) I keep my personal inspiration in my Kept Year planner.

So, what are we actually studying in 2027, and what do you need to get ready?

The short answer: the New Testament. The longer answer is that you probably need a lot less than the shopping season will try to tell you.

What is Come Follow Me studying in 2027?

The Church announced in the Newsroom that the 2027 curriculum for Latter-day Saints is the New Testament. So next year we’ll be spending the whole year with the Savior’s life and ministry, the Apostles, and the letters to the early Saints.

The official resource is Come, Follow Me for Home and Church: New Testament 2027. That manual is the guide for the year; it lays out the weekly reading blocks and the outline for each week. You’ll find it (along with everything else for Come Follow Me) on the official Come Follow Me page and in the Gospel Library.

When do the 2027 manuals come out?

Here’s the timing:

• Printed manuals reach wards by November.
• If you want additional copies (one per kiddo, one for the car, one that doesn’t have juice on it…), you can order them from the Church store starting November 15, 2026.

That gives you a little window between now and January. You don’t have to fill it; but if you like to plan ahead, it’s a lovely time to decide how you want your paper to work before the first week of readings shows up.

The one thing to remember before you buy anything

The manual is the guide; everything else is a companion.

Journals, planners, printables, and study guides can be wonderful. None of them replace Come, Follow Me for Home and Church, and none of them need to. Their job is much smaller: to give the manual a place to land in your actual week.

So, take a deep breath.

You don’t need the prettiest setup on Instagram. You need something that does the few jobs that matter for your family.

What does your paper actually need to do?

When I think about any Come Follow Me setup, I ask it to do four jobs. Not every family needs all four!

1. Show this week’s readings. The reading block and maybe a line or two from the outline, somewhere you’ll actually see it.
2. Hold your own notes. Room to write down what stood out, a question, a verse you want to come back to.
3. Give the family something to share (optional). A spot for what you talked about together, or what one of your littles said that you don’t want to forget.
4. Keep teaching materials together (if you have a calling that needs them). Handouts, printables, lesson notes for Primary or Sunday School.

If you only need jobs one and two, you can keep things VERY light. If job four is part of your life right now, that changes things, and that’s okay too.

Three light ways to set up the New Testament year

These aren’t ranked. Each one wins for a different kind of family, and I’ve tried to be honest about when each one doesn’t fit.

Journal only

This is the simplest approach: one study journal that sits next to your scriptures and the manual. You open the manual, read the week’s block, and write in the journal.

There are a few different types out there. One type is the spiral study journal with wide lined margins, like Deseret Book’s 2027 Come Follow Me journal edition. Another type is a free printable journal, like the free printable New Testament study journal from Saving Talents, which is nice if you’d rather print a few pages at a time and see how it feels. There are also daily study guides, like the Jayta Designs 2027 daily Come Follow Me New Testament study guide, which is on preorder; that type breaks the week into smaller daily pieces if that rhythm suits you.

When it wins: your scripture study already has its own spot and its own time, and you love having one book that is only for the scriptures.

When it doesn’t: if the journal lives on a shelf and your life lives in a planner, it’s easy for the two to never meet.

Planner with Come Follow Me in it

This is the approach for the mama whose planner is already open on the kitchen counter all day. The week’s readings sit right on the same weekly spread as dance, co-op, grocery pickup, and everything else, so you see them every time you look at your week.

When it wins: you already live out of a paper planner, and a separate book would just be one more thing to keep track of.

When it doesn’t: if you write a LOT of study notes, a weekly spread may feel cramped, and you might want a journal alongside it.

This is where The Kept Year comes in, since my family makes it: you can build a made-to-order paper planner with Come Follow Me laid out week by week, matched to the year’s schedule, and the faith part is optional (Come Follow Me, the Old Testament, the New Testament, your own study, or none at all).

Binder or hybrid

A binder (or a folder) with printables, plus a slim week book for the readings. This one is more work to put together, but it earns its keep when you’re gathering handouts and lesson materials.

When it wins: you hold a calling where you teach, or you love printables and coloring pages for your kiddos, and you need somewhere for loose paper to live.

When it doesn’t: if you’re hoping for less to manage, a binder can grow fast.

[MINDEE: whether you’ve used a binder, a journal, or a planner for Come Follow Me in past years, and what you learned from it]

If you’re going back and forth on the binder question specifically, there’s more on that in [LINK: Come Follow Me without a separate binder (/articles/come-follow-me-without-a-separate-binder)].

So how do I pick?

You know your family best. Here are the questions I’d ask myself:

• Where do I already look every single day? Put the readings there.
• Do I teach a class? If yes, give the handouts a home (a folder or binder).
• Do my kids want their own pages? A free printable is a low-risk way to find out.
• How much do I actually write? A few lines a week fits in a planner; pages and pages want a journal.

And honestly, it might be a mix! A planner for the readings and a journal for your notes is a perfectly good answer. If you want to go deeper on that choice, there’s a whole article on it: [LINK: Scripture study journal vs. planner (/articles/scripture-study-journal-vs-planner)].

What if a week stays blank?

Then it stays blank.

Life with littles means some weeks are full of notes and some weeks are just the reading block and nothing else; and sometimes the page doesn’t get touched at all. A blank week isn’t a failure, and nobody is keeping score. The manual will still be there next week, and so will you.

If you need a softer way to pick things back up, try [LINK: A gentle Come Follow Me routine (/articles/a-gentle-come-follow-me-routine-when-youre-already-behind)].

[MINDEE: a short, honest line about a week or season when scripture study looked different for your family, only if you want to share one]

A simple plan for the next few weeks

Here’s what getting ready could look like between now and January, with no pressure attached:

• October: decide which of the three approaches sounds like your family.
• November: watch for the printed manuals in your ward; order extra copies from the Church store on or after November 15 if you want them.
• December: set up your journal, planner, or binder, and write in the first week’s readings.
• January: open the manual and begin.

That’s it! Pick the lightest thing that will actually get used, let the manual lead, and leave room for the weeks that don’t go to plan.

Here’s to a whole year in the New Testament with your family. And if you decide a planner with the readings already in it is your style, you can build one at The Kept Year whenever you’re ready.

Happy studying, Mamas.

-Mindee

A note from Mindee: my family makes The Kept Year, so take my enthusiasm for our planners with that in mind.