20 Meaningful Sabbath Day Activities for Adults

For many adults, Sunday arrives with a quiet question: what do I actually do today? Church fills part of the morning. But the rest of the Sabbath can stretch out as an open space — and it's easy to fill it with a nap, a scroll through your phone, and not much else. By evening, the day that was meant to feel set apart feels a little like it slipped away.

The Sabbath was never meant to be a list of things you can't do. It was meant to be a delight — a day to rest, to reconnect with God, and to step out of the ordinary rhythm of the week. The challenge for most adults isn't a lack of restrictions. It's a lack of ideas — meaningful things to do that are genuinely restful and genuinely uplifting at the same time.

Here are twenty of them, grouped so you can find what fits the mood of your day. Not all twenty every Sunday — just one or two, done with intention, is often enough to change how the whole day feels.

What Makes a Sabbath Activity Meaningful

Before the list, a simple filter. A meaningful Sabbath activity usually does at least one of these things: it draws you closer to Jesus Christ, it gives you genuine rest, it deepens your relationships, or it lets you serve someone else. When you're deciding whether something fits the spirit of the day, that's the question worth asking — not "is this allowed?" but "does this draw me toward what the Sabbath is for?"

With that in mind, here are the activities.

Worship & Gospel Study

1. Study Come Follow Me slowly, not just to check it off. Most people skim the week's lesson on Sunday morning. Instead, set aside real time to sit with it — read the scriptures it points to, look up a cross-reference, write down a question it raises. Studying to understand rather than to finish changes the entire experience.

2. Read the scriptures with a journal open beside you. Reading is good; reading while writing down what stands out is transformative. Keep a notebook next to your scriptures and jot the verse that catches you, the question it raises, or the impression it brings. Over time you build a personal record of what the scriptures have taught you.

3. Listen to a general conference talk. The entire archive of conference talks is available to revisit any Sunday. Pick a topic you're wrestling with — patience, forgiveness, faith — and listen to a talk on it. It's worship you can do while resting, and it meets you wherever you are that week.

4. Spend the day with the life of Christ. Choose one event from the Savior's life and study it deeply — read the accounts in the Gospels, look at how artists have depicted it, sit with what it teaches. A Sabbath spent drawing closer to Christ is the Sabbath at its most essential.

5. Memorize a scripture or a hymn. There's something grounding about carrying a verse or a hymn in your memory. Spend part of a Sunday committing one to heart. You'll find it returns to you during the week, exactly when you need it.

Reflection & Journaling

6. Write in a journal. The Sabbath is the natural day to record your life. Write about your week, your worries, what you're grateful for, what you felt during the sacrament. A consistent Sunday journaling habit becomes, over years, one of the most precious records you can leave.

7. Write your testimony. Set aside an hour to write down what you believe and why. Not for anyone else — for you. Putting your faith into words clarifies it, and reading it back in a hard season can be a lifeline.

8. Reflect on the week and set one spiritual goal. Look back at the week honestly — where you grew, where you struggled — and choose one small thing to focus on in the week ahead. The Sabbath is a natural hinge point for this kind of gentle, regular course-correction.

9. Record a memory for those who come after you. Write down a story from your life — a moment of faith, a lesson learned, a memory of someone you loved. These records become treasures to your family long after you're gone.

Connection & Family

10. Have a real conversation, with the screens away. Put the phones in another room and talk — actually talk — with the people you live with. Ask the questions you never get to during the busy week. Connection is one of the truest forms of Sabbath rest.

11. Call or visit extended family. Sunday is the day to reach the people you don't see enough. Call a grandparent, a sibling, a parent. A single phone call can mean more to someone than you'll ever know.

12. Write to a missionary. Missionaries live for letters from home. Writing one is a small act that lifts someone serving far away — and it pulls your own heart outward, which is exactly what the Sabbath is meant to do.

13. Host a simple Sunday dinner. Gathering people around a table is one of the oldest and warmest Sabbath traditions there is. It doesn't need to be elaborate. The point is the gathering, not the menu.

Service & Ministering

14. Minister to someone. Visit, call, or write to a person you minister to or simply someone who's been on your mind. Ask how they really are. The Sabbath is the ideal day to turn your attention to someone who could use it.

15. Write notes of gratitude or encouragement. Spend twenty minutes writing a couple of short notes — to someone who served you, someone who's struggling, someone you appreciate. Few things are as quietly powerful as an unexpected handwritten note.

16. Do family history work. Searching out your ancestors is meaningful Sabbath work that connects you to the generations before you. Even an hour spent on family history — finding a name, recording a story, attaching a photo — turns the day toward something eternal.

Rest & Restoration

17. Make something quiet and faith-centered. A peaceful, screen-free creative project is one of the most restorative ways to spend a Sabbath afternoon. Working with your hands on something beautiful slows your mind in a way that scrolling never will — and when the subject is faith-centered, the activity itself becomes a kind of meditation.

A paint-by-number kit featuring a temple or an image of the Savior is a natural fit for this. There's no skill required, nothing to plan, no screen involved — just a quiet hour with a brush, and at the end, a piece of art tied to your faith that you can hang on your wall. Many people find it becomes the part of Sunday they most look forward to. (This is what we make at Ponder and Paint, but the principle matters more than the source: a calm, creative, Christ-centered activity is deeply suited to the spirit of the Sabbath.)

18. Take a reflective walk outdoors. A slow walk with no destination — through a neighborhood, a park, anywhere green — is one of the simplest Sabbath restorations there is. Leave the headphones off. Let your mind wander toward gratitude.

19. Rest on purpose. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do on the Sabbath is genuinely rest. A nap, an hour of stillness, a slow morning. Rest isn't laziness on the Lord's day — it's part of the design. Don't feel guilty for it.

20. Listen to or make uplifting music. Fill part of your Sunday with music that lifts you — hymns, sacred music, anything that turns your heart upward. If you play an instrument, the Sabbath is a beautiful day to play quietly for yourself. Music has a way of reaching the parts of us that words can't.

How to Build Your Own Sabbath Rhythm

You don't need to do twenty things. The adults who find the Sabbath most meaningful usually settle into a small, repeatable rhythm — a couple of anchors they return to every week. Maybe it's scripture study in the morning, a creative project in the afternoon, and a phone call to family in the evening. The specific activities matter less than the intention behind them and the consistency of returning to them.

Start with one or two from this list. Let them become a habit. Add more as they fit. Over time, you'll find your Sundays stop feeling like empty space and start feeling like the most restorative day of your week.

Frequently Asked Questions

What can adults do on the Sabbath besides go to church? Meaningful Sabbath activities for adults include studying the scriptures and Come Follow Me, journaling and writing your testimony, calling or visiting family, ministering to others, writing to missionaries, doing family history work, taking reflective walks, resting intentionally, listening to uplifting music, and quiet faith-centered creative projects. The goal is to choose activities that draw you closer to Christ, give you genuine rest, deepen relationships, or let you serve.

What are some restful Sabbath activities? Restful Sabbath activities include intentional rest like a nap or quiet morning, reflective walks outdoors, listening to sacred music, journaling, and screen-free creative projects such as faith-centered painting. The Sabbath is meant to include genuine rest — it isn't laziness on the Lord's day, it's part of the design.

Is it okay to do hobbies on Sunday? Many people find that quiet, uplifting hobbies fit the spirit of the Sabbath well — especially creative, screen-free activities that draw the mind toward peace and faith. Rather than a strict list of allowed and forbidden activities, a helpful question is whether the activity draws you closer to Christ, gives you genuine rest, or honors the day as something set apart. Faith-centered creative projects, music, and reading tend to fit that spirit naturally.

What does it mean to keep the Sabbath day holy? Keeping the Sabbath holy means setting the day apart from the ordinary rhythm of the week to rest, worship, and reconnect with God. In practice this includes worship and the sacrament, gospel study, time with family, service to others, and rest. It's less about a list of prohibitions and more about deliberately turning the day toward Jesus Christ.

How can I make Sunday feel more meaningful? Build a small, repeatable Sabbath rhythm of one or two intentional activities you return to each week — such as deep scripture study, journaling, a creative project, ministering to someone, or a meaningful family conversation with screens away. Consistency and intention matter more than doing many different things. Over time, a simple rhythm transforms Sunday from empty space into the most restorative day of the week.

A Final Thought

The Sabbath is a gift, not an obligation — a day handed to us each week to step back from the noise and remember what matters most. The activities on this list are just doorways. What makes any of them meaningful is the intention you bring: the desire to rest, to draw closer to God, and to turn your heart toward the people around you.

Pick one this Sunday. See how it changes the day.

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At Ponder and Paint, we make LDS-themed paint-by-number kits — temples and images of the Savior designed to be painted slowly on a quiet Sunday afternoon and kept on your wall. If a calm, screen-free creative project sounds like the kind of Sabbath activity you've been missing, explore our collection.