Open Thread: It’s Sunday Morning…What’s A Family To Do?
December 3, 2008 by iMonk
UPDATE: This thread is sitting an IM record for posts in a short period of time. And some very interesting responses.
One of the commenters in a previous discussion raised a very interesting, practical situation facing young families that would make for a good open thread topic.
“Going to church” is very difficult for families with young children. The stress of getting everyone up, dressed, fed, in the car and on the road is difficult, even for two parents and especially if they have more than one child. The result can be both comic and tragic.
Depending on the church and on the family’s own values, a family may take advantage of a nursery and children’s ministries, or they may decide that all the family should be together in worship. This may be further stress, may necessitate almost complete inattention to what is going on in worship and may stress out more than a few other worshipers.
All of this is, of course, even more of a problem for single parent families.
Is it any surprise that many families with small children simply say that “traditional” church is impossible for them to navigate?
How can families with young children have a continuing participation in church life? Is it impossible? Should they worship as a family? Should one parent go with older children?
How can churches make this time more manageable for families with young children? Is the answer more nurseries and children’s programs? Or is the answer a different experience of the church altogether?
What’s your experience, both as a family and as a church? And what’s your advice?
When we arrive at church the pastor’s husband is usually at the front passing out tambourines and drums to the kids. So I guess the don’t have much problem with them making a noise. My youngest usually makes a bee-line for the space at the front so she can dance. Pretty much since she was born she’s had the idea that Church = the place I go to dance. I have no intention of ever trying to change her mind on this. I think this surprised the congregation at this rural Anglican church the first time we visited, but no one complained. Some of the kids go to Sunday school during the sermon, but the pastor makes it very clear each week that they’re welcome to stay, and they all come back to take communion at the end.
And as to ‘taking our kids to church’, it was my kids, 4 and 8, that finally talked me back into attending after having avoided it for a year. I think they’re probably teaching me more about worship than I’m teaching them.
I remember standing beside a railroad track in Kibeira slum, Nairobi. I remember the smell – Refuse, human waste, unwashed bodies. I remember the sounds – a small radio and microphone barely clinging to life while a preacher yelled to the crowd to be heard above the bedlam. Kids were screaming. The radio emitted nothing but amplified distortion. I remember the sights – men an women with their eyes locked onto the preacher, hungry for the Word. Later that week, the kids sang Mambo Sawa Sawa – roughly translated: “Things are getting better. Things are getting better. With Jesus on His throne, things are getting better. Things are getting better.”
I have a 3-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son. Do I teach them to sit quietly in church – sure. Do I send them to the nursery when it’s apparent they need to burn off some energy – sure. Will I let noise or stench or ugliness keep me from devouring the Word – not when I remember Kibeira.
I’m sure the memory has become more idealized with time. I’m certainly still too often too into myself in worship. I guess the point is we are sooo fortunate that we can bring “order” into our worship experience. Let’s not make it a precondition.
JMJ,
I think is you read my description of why I think kids should be included as much as possible, you’ll see that what I am getting at is not having them be part of an “institution”, but a part of a community.
It’s not forcing them to listen to a 45 minute exegesis, but learning how to greet/pass the peace with the elderly, the other children and grown-ups. Teaching them that their voices are needed to round out the singing. Letting them hear the needs of the community and prayer requests of the congregation. Hoping they see the heart of the people and of God through consistent exposure to other people, besides their parents, who want to follow Jesus.
It’s a tall order and hope…I want it for myself and for my children.
i meant “if”.
J. Michael Jones:
While I really appreciate the choice you’ve made, I think it’s safe to say that many, even most, Christian families won’t make that same choice, and for reasons I assume you would respect.
Obviously, rethink the church is an option. But most of us are still working with the traditional church in some way as an important aspect of our experience of community, and the thread really operates in that area.
But you have articulated well a different way of approaching the issue, and one that engages many related questions.
peace
MS
No problem, Mr. Kyle. I have a couple friends with Asperger’s kids. It’s an interesting condition to say the least.
My kids are 11 and 9. We “dropped out of church” about 4 years ago and only recently have gone back (3 months ago). But honestly, I don’t know whether they’ll go to church when they’re grown or not. They’ve had a mix of evangelical/seeker church, home church, and liturgical church and have been taught to embrace the strengths of each. I wonder what sort of spirituality I’m building into them…
Just one more comment about how to make the worship service (not the “church”) more manageable for families with young children…
Our small (about 50) church encourages young and old to share prayer requests, Scripture insights, praises, etc. during the worship service. My 9-year-old grandson reminded people for 2 weeks of his upcoming birthday. Another child was thankful for cookies brought to their house that week. Children have also shared verses they have memorized.
It’s not ALL crying children.
Kat (2)
Our church has multiple identical services. We go to the early service as a whole family. Have ever since the kids were out of the nursery. Then during the 2nd service, I teach an adult class and the kids attend their “age appropriate” classes. The we are out by 11:15.
Woohoo!
AFTER A QUICK SCAN OF THESE RECORD BREAKING COMMENTS THE ONLY ONE THAT REGISTERED WITH ME WAS BOB MYERS …I MUST BE “OLD SCHOOL”……
“..the only one?”
Wow.
Wow. Lots of interesting comments. I remember speaking with my priest a few years ago and lamenting how I felt that sometimes it was so hard to get to church with three kids under five and I never heard the sermon and I didn’t feel anything and blah, blah, blah. And he very gently reminded me that there is grace in “just showing up.” Yeah I missed the sermons. And granted, my priest is an amazing teacher (even with his sermons being only about 20 minutes long). BUT, what I’m at church to do is, for one thing, to offer a sacrifice of praise. And sometimes it really is a sacrifice. But what I’m also there to do is to receive the Body and Blood of Christ and to be a part of His community through the Eucharist. And I was doing that. This gave me a lot of peace and helped me to relax and I was able to enjoy church more.
I guess my advice is first of all to be training children at home. Children who don’t know how to be quiet at home can’t be expected to magically be quiet at church. We played the “quiet game” when my kids were little – they competed to see who could be quiet the longest. The winner got a mint or a tic-tac. To go along with that, the more kids are able to participate, the better they pay attention. Teaching them prayers, songs, whatever actions are practiced (sign of the cross, bowing, kneeling, raising hands, etc.) helps them be more involved.
I would agree that doing as much as possible the night before helps amazingly. My husband and I would spend a half-hour before we went to bed Sat. nights packing the baby bag with quiet toys, crayons, diapers, bottles (LOTS of bottles – in the fridge in a soft cooler, ready to be grabbed and carried to the car), etc. I’d even write a list and tape it to the back door. On the knob, where I couldn’t miss it. I still do usually lay out the kids’ clothes, as the older two can get dressed on their own now.
One last thing I would suggest is that once or twice a year, each parent attend church alone. Even that rarely can be such a balm to the soul. And I agree very much that the attitude of the pastor has a huge impact on the congregation’s reaction to children, but that’s not really advice for how to handle church. It’s more advice on what to look for in a church, I suppose.
And just for the record, I’m Eastern Orthodox, so I know a thing or two about long, quiet services.
iMonk,
When I said, “We are beyond that in our personal lives” I was speaking about the fact that our kids are beyond on the age that we have to deal with these interesting issues that you’ve raised not that we were somehow “beyond” traditional church. I’m still as much part of the traditional church as anyone else on this blog and I’m sorry that I gave a different impression. We attend just about every service when the church doors are open. So I was certainly not being critical of those who do. Good heavens no. I simply saying that Scripture must limit us, but not tradition.
Our kids attended Sunday morning church for their entire lives. But in some ways I regret that now. I think there could have been a better way and their image of God would have been even healthier.
You’re right, the body functioning outside the traditional Sunday-morning –service-centered model has questions of its own.
How a larger church handles it. 1500 to 2500 over 3 services over the last 15 years.
Nursery is there. Staff by volunteers. Not required. And if mom starts in service and things get tense she can stop in. If lots of babies show up, someone walks the halls and recruits (dragoons) adults for duty.
Large lobby outside of sanctuary. PA carried service for years. Now on TV screens. If you need to be there with a baby, toddler, whoever you can be there.
No rules but some noise is just a part of life with kids. Out of control kids were expected to move to the lobby.
One pastor mentioned that for years his kids got a bag of Skittles each to eat during services. Worked for him.
I worked the parking lot for years. (Our church building was once a hotel so it really wasn’t designed to park cars the way we needed them.) Every space next to the building that wasn’t designated handicapped was reserved for parents with kids. And if those were full we’d work hard to help them out. No questions asked. I think it helped a lot of harried parents.
j. Michael Jones,
Your faith tradition is different from mine – and after reflection I can understand your point of view if your service consists of an hour of sermon.
My memories of Church when I was younger was that of a place of holyness and sacredness. Don’t get me wrong – I was bored and as I got into my teens I didn’t want to go – in fact I was agnostic for a time. But I never lost that sense of awe and wonder when I walked into Church. For me it was more than a building – symbols and images and smells that from my childhood are in my head and continue to this day. Those memories, and my reading and studying and finally opening my heart is what brought me back. I hope my children will remember the same.
One opinion: I’ve always thought that children who are old enough to go to school and sit still for extended periods of time should be able to sit still for an hour at church.
One recommendation: A book called “Parenting in the Pew” by Robbie Castleman. She came to our church several years ago and did a seminar on helping parents train their children to worship in the “big service,” and she has many wonderful insights.
One observation: When I was a child, I loved being in the “big service” with my folks. I’m sure I squirmed and tried their patience, but in our traditional Methodist church, there was so much mystery, and color, and drama in the sanctuary. Stained glass windows, banners, colored robes, choirs, candles, wonderful architectural details, so many things led to a sense of seriousness and mystery that piqued a child’s imagination. Not much of that for a lot of kids today in “big box” churches. A lack of a sense of the “sacred” may be hurting our kids.
I cheat. My dear husband is not a Christian, so while he likes to come to Mass (he does believe in family), when we have a child under two he stays at home while I take the older children to Mass.
Really this is a venerable Catholic approach: the obligation to attend Mass has always been considered not to apply to a parent needing to care for a young child, and families with babies often have one parent stay home: the other parent goes to Mass the next week, or sometimes to a Mass later in the day.
If my husband is out of town on a weekend, like everyone else I just do my best, and take cranky baby or toddler to the vestibule or outside, following along in my missal and making a spiritual Communion.
Daily Mass is a great way to introduce tiny people to church: the businessman’s noon Mass at our downtown parish runs 45 minutes, with a 5-minute homily. Just right for preschooler attention spans.
Justin:
If you’d like to respond with some kindness and mature perspective, you’re welcome. But you’re going to have to do better than that post.
MS
MS, you’re right. Sorry.
… but this is all more than just a little frustrating. One more thing we don’t do correctly or to the expectations of the brethren, who can now sit in sanctimonious judgment of our parenting and spiritual formation skills, or at least our motivations for the decisions we make. You’d think being already acutely aware of our own failings as parents would be enough without the pile-on of admitting a struggle such as this. Apparently not.
One additional observation. Evangelicalism has not done a very good job in general at teaching ADULTS what worship is and how to participate in it. Many churches have little more than a stage show with a long sermon. Parents will naturally have a hard time helping their children appreciate that. What if worship were truly “liturgy”–the work of the people–in our churches? Couldn’t we find ways of including these little ones in the people’s work?
I think the burden lies not only on parents, but on church leaders to actually practice and train our congregations to worship…as a verb (thank you, Robert Webber).
As I would expect, a complete spectrum of opinions and experiences in each of about 10 simultaneous dimensions. We have 3 energetic boys, 7, 3 & 1. Sunday is very difficult for us. When possible, we put them in SS and try to sit together in the service. When possible. Our church mushroomed from 60 to 600 in our 13 years as a church, with two increases in building size. Our new sanctuary is a few years old.
Before, we had two overflowing services. Tandem sunday school classrooms with closed-circuit TV handled the overflow (crying room, too) until our building was complete. But that turned into a haven for families with small children. We had a great time of showing grace to each other, and it turned into a training time and acceptance of other families and their children. Kind of like a community, like church should be! The day our new building opened? All that community was gone in one week. Somehow the new building just had a weird anti-child feel to it, and everybody stopped bringing their children.
I think a re-thinking of church is needed. It needs to be a community in its meeting instead of adults sitting silently. I can see why young families stop going.
I’m not sure I understand the issue… I go to a small church that has Sunday School before the service. (Otherwise a fair amount of the congregation would be “in back”.) I tell young parents that if they think their baby will cry – to sit next to me. I don’t mind the crying at all. (We don’t have a “crying room”.) We have quiet activity bags for some kids, with picture books and quiet toys, and I’ve seen some Jr. High aged kids with hand-held games that they brought from home.
From what I’ve seen, most of the “burden” seems to be self-imposed. Where genuine difficulties arise – people seem happy to help out if they are told what help the parents want (like having a child sit with them while Mom or Dad sing in the choir…).
Church IS a verb – an inclusive verb. We NEED to have everyone share in “Churching” for the experience to be complete for the rest of us. Church happens on a number of levels. If we say it HAS to be such and such, we’re missing out on participating in the whole message. That’s is worse than not hearing part of a sermon.
Wow. 72 responses. I know this will be lost in those 72 responses, as I didn’t read them, just because there were 72 of them.
However I think step one is redifine church.
I find it interesting that some want to change church to suit their view/lifestyle/convenience. Church to me is a time to worship God. That i am fed is a by product not a goal. Kind of like self-esteem sould be a by-product, not a goal. My bias is showing…
From everything I studied Jesus meant us to worship as a community. The Jews worshipped in this way in their Temple and Synogogues. Paul did not just proclaim the Gospel to individuals, he also formed churches. Christianity is not an individual effort. And that includes our kids – and the need to teach them and show them that we keep holy the Sabbath day.
Redefining church, in my opinion is like recreating God in our own image. If there is something we don’t like we just change it until the next person with an opinion comes along, then we change it again, and again, and again…
Just my opinion…
We (including my wife and 4 kids) walked away from the Sunday morning “show” 8 months ago and feel more free and less stressed than ever. We realize the need for Jesus led community and we are engaging in it differently until the Spirit leads us otherwise.
Read Viola/Barna’s “Pagan Christianity” and Viola’s follow up book “Reimagining Church”.
Where the Spirit is, there is freedom!
Mmm – very interesting accounts on here of how the other half lives.
I can see that if your normal service runs well over an hour, with a very long sermon, then it might indeed be better to hive the small kids off to Sunday School or a children’s service or the like.
Regarding getting there on time, my mother operated on the venerable rule that, as long as you made it for the start of the Gospel, you were there in time (no ducking out early at Communion, though). Irish people are (in)famous for liking short Masses; there was a comment in the Peter de Rosa “Bless Me, Father” books to the effect that Irish people were perfectly willing to go to the stake for their religion, but they wouldn’t sit through a long Mass
Funny. If the reason for the long Mass is because the priest keeps making his point over and over again during the homily (or is just rambling) then my three year old usually gets fidgety enough to distract him
When I’m trying to be a mature adult in regard to church and the things of God, I often find kids more a distraction. When I remember there is a way I am called to “become as a child” (vs. childish), I realize how much I benefit from having them around. Dallas Willard once said “God is childlike” so it must be part of our imago Dei (so adolescents in some mysterious way:)). Yes we are to grow up and put away childish things but when the real and living Jesus present, children are welcome. Obviously, we should not make kids being “in” or “out” a law. They need a break from us as much as we may from them. But I confess most of my annoyance with kids in certain settings is because I have forgotten to remain childlike.
terri,
I understand why you used those words. I’ve actually received some of those eye rolls/stares and even at church. It’s usually from some “holy” older lady that carries her rosary and never misses daily mass; but has nobody to come visit her during the holidays because of the way she has treated people her whole life (sorry for stereotyping people). But what’s a guy to do? You can either slap the old coot senseless or forgive them (it’s not always an easy choice). Thankfully the majority of folks I see at church comment on how sweet and cute the young whipper snappers are.
I do hope that more parents take teaching kids to “behave”, act “respectfully”, and “not be bratty” seriously; but my 3 youngest are healthy active boys so I’m well aware that perfection is not an option. I’m afraid teaching kids these things gets lost sometimes between soccer, travel soccer, birthday parties, baseball, fall ball, travel team, bowling parties, basketball, wii, piano lessons, dance recitals, Nintendo dx, build-a-bear parties, and flag??? football.
Ps – If any “adult” tries to organize a fantasy football league for kids I may seriously lose faith in my fellow Americans.
For context – our relatively small church has one service(after Sunday school) with about 100-125 people. There is a nursery option for babies and toddlers. Pre-K and Kindergarten stay in until the sermon starts. 1st grade and up stay in the whole time. It works pretty well most of the time and most adults realize the kids are not robots that can be programmed. We also have some rocking chairs in the back row for use with the wee ones who remain in the service or for those who need to nurse.
One of my favorite things is that I simply get to sit with the two oldest(9 & 7 – both girls) – something that rarely happens during the week. They will rest their head on my shoulder or even in my lap at times and that’s just fine by me. I don’t expect them to follow a sermon that even I have a hard time tracking with(a whole other issue, *sigh*). They do sing and do the recitations with us so don’t think they check out the whole time.
BTW, I completely get JMJones point and think that we unconsciously(or consciously even) put on our Sunday-happy-Christian faces and that’s a shame. iMonk has talked about this kind of thing here before so it shouldn’t really be a surprise when someone else says it. There is a certain Christian facade that we are under pressure to maintain – and that happens on Sunday morning as often as it does anywhere else.
I’ve seen it done most of the different ways that American christians have come up with in the last century. Immediately after being saved I spend a number of years in the “Plymouth Brethren” assemblies. As a general rule the PB groups that I was associated with had the children in the communion service – PB tends to have a separate communion only service. I can’t recall any occasion where the children were in any way truly distracting from the service, that’s not to say that at the time people weren’t occasionally annoyed. The PB attitude to much of church life is an as the Spirit Leads approach.
In my current congregation, a conservativish United Methodist church. Most of us enjoy the spontaneous contributions of the babies. We do run a Sunday school program that meets during the worship service, but on Communion Sunday everyone is in the sanctuary the whole time.
A lot of our kids come from the neighborhood, unaccompanied by either parent. We have since I have been attending had kids who are autistic, have ADHD, etc. We have found that for most of them the key is to meet them at their need(s) as best we can. We also encourage everyone to come to church regularly. As Heb. 10:24 – 25 urges.
* 24. And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
We have been blessed to find a home church that meets Saturday evenings. Just about everyone has young children. We’re trying to figure out as a group how to address these issues.
Currently we do a meal and lots of fellowshipping. Then we all sit down as a group for singing and a tale of a “God experience.” Then, two of the wives (rotates depending on whose house we’re at) takes most of the children off for working on a curriculum we’ve agreed on, modified as desired to make it better. The littlest kids can play among the olders while they do the lesson. Babies are usually in parents’ laps.
We’re being pressured to let our daughter stay over at the in-laws’ every Saturday night so she can go to traditional church with them on Sunday morning. That way she can get into a ‘real’ Sunday school class.
thinking back to the original post: “The stress of getting everyone up, dressed, fed, in the car and on the road is difficult”
I do have the additional blessing of living 1 block away from a Catholic church and 2 blocks from the public school my kids attend. So that does make for a quick and easy walk to church.
I’m not saying that people should move to be closer to their church; but there is something to be said for worshiping at the local church (closest to your house) no matter whether you like the pastor or not. We are raising 4 kids in an average 40yr old 3 bedroom house, so we are forced to share things and bump into each other once in a while (not to mention the beauty of discovering why God created backyards with trees to climb). It was just my wife and I when we bought the house, and we didn’t even go to any church at the time. But we aren’t moving anywhere, and having a priest celebrating mass across the street everyday is one big reason.
IIRC the Old Testament has something about the maximum distance that should be traveled on the Sabbath. Looks like the radius is about 1 kilometer (.6 mile). OTOH it is easy to make shibboleths out of almost anything.
I just have a couple of additional comments, and I will give a prolog with “in my humble opinion:”
Regarding defining “Church”; Church is attached to human culture. That is not a bad thing but a natural thing. Human culture is dynamic and constantly changing. The first century Church looked radically different than its “redefinition” after 312 AD. The Medieval Church was redefined (over time) especially after the Schism. The Renaissance Church was redefined both on the Catholic side and of course more radically on the Protestant side. The American Church after the first and second great awakenings was redefined. So if we should not be open to a redefinition now, then which of the old definitions do we adhere to as the ideal? There are people on this blog who define church very differently from each other.
Now the foundation of the Church, which is not open to redefinition, is simply the Scriptural mandates. I really believe that if you were to borrow one of those memory erasing lights that the Men in Black used, and erase you personal and cultural memory, then pick up a New Testament, you would find that the mandates for Church form as being extremely simple. Those, of course, are not open to redefinition.
One of those, as someone has shared, from Hebrews, in my paraphrase, is that Christian isolation is not an option, and I totally agree. However, I will add a caveat, and again I’m just trying to be brutally honest, that isolation can easily occur within the walls of a traditional church, not just among those go-it-alone Christians. The real solution is, in the second half of that mandate, is ‘encouraging one another.” This did not take place in most of the traditional churches I’ve attended. The best I’ve seen it was in a “parachurch” experience in college and in a small group that I led for seven years, which was part of a large Evangelical church.
But Christians should be just as alarmed by seeing the absence of this part of the mandate within the traditional Church as they are alarmed at the “freelance’ Christians go it alone.
Now back to Michael’s original question, all that I am saying, is that we are loosing 80% of our youth . . . so something isn’t working. We need to look at what we are doing wrong, and I suspect . . . again in my humble opinion . . . that forcing small children to attend services that they don’t understand may be one of the issues.
Misty, if your church was on our island, I would be tempted to jump ship to it. But now we are part of a very traditional, Dutch-reformed Church. I will add that the best church experience that our children ever had was when we were part of a house-church community. The kids learned more and actually loved church. It was the highlight of their week. Yet, ironically, many of our Evangelical friends and certainly my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law (Lutheran minister) were deeply disturbed that we had “taken them out of the Church.”
And read good critiques of Viola as well, esp Ben Witherington.
Grew up catholic and my mom informs my I was a rotten little bastard at church,,, though I don’t remember any of that. Spent 12 years as an evangelical/charismatic and raised 2 daughters in that time. It was especially hard for my wife who breastfed our first child… not really any place in a small church to go. Returned to the catholic church and while my children are fairly well behaved they do find church at times boring. My take is that It’s probably a good idea to have a place to take children for breastfeeding and if they get loud so your not interupting the service… that’s just common sense. for older children I do think they should be a part of the service and behave themselves. If that requires discipline then that’s what it takes. I don’t get offended by children who are a little restless… but if they are acting like chimps well sorry but it’s time for the parents to act like parents. As for little babies that cry during the sevice… I actually don’t mind that at all, as it always seems to remind me of the incarnation.
mike
Douglasah
“I’m not sure I understand the issue… I go to a small church that has Sunday School before the service. (Otherwise a fair amount of the congregation would be “in back”.) I tell young parents that if they think their baby will cry – to sit next to me. I don’t mind the crying at all. (We don’t have a “crying room”.)”
I suspect the larger the church the more likely that one or more of the crying kids will be those who have 2 settings. Quiet and loosen fillings of anyone within 100′. And there are diaper incidents which just require attention that pews and chairs are not designed to be used for.
Note to new parents. Never ever ever leave the house without a complete change of clothes for anyone in diapers. Period.
I am not sure if changing Church, or at least radically changing Church will solve the youth flight issue. Along with that issue is the parent flight and I believe its occuring not because we are not entertaining enough, or biblical enough, or charismatic enough. I believe that we are too prosperous and God to many is just a side note. Where do we have true church growth? Africa – where Catholic and Evangelical alike are seeing an increase in the faithful. Here in the states if we have Church growth it is because we are seeing movement from one pot to another. Many more though are just worshiping a secular God. Why God? They’re not suffering or poor or struggling – in fact they have every gadget they want. Yes – I am over the top in genralizing and, to be honest I just like the traditional liturgical Mass/Divine Liturgy – so I’m biased.
I just believe that the fragmentation we already have in Chritianity will increase ten-fold if we throw out communal worship.
As for isolation – I can’t speak for the evangelical crowd. Catholic parishioners can sometimes seem cold and unwelcoming – but then once we dig beneath the surface there are mens and womens groups that help to build up the faithful on a more personal level. I do understand though that there can be isolation in a church community and even, as I have read here, some shunning – I just have not experienced it.
In a pew-less Orthodox Church, it is easier to manage toddlers and babies because you can walk around a little and even leave without disrupting all the people in your row. You can pass babies to grandparents, godparents, etc. much more easily. A lot of modern churches are like lecture halls and the slightest commotion is noticed by everyone. Also, sermon-based churches require a more perfect silence than liturgical churches.
This is not to say that it’s permissible for children to run around yelling, but there a little more wiggle room in an EO church.
I think there is a difference between a church being tolerant of crying babies and the sheer lack of a sense of a sacredness that most evangelicals have grown up with in worship. Not a Sunday goes by that even adults (not just teens!) are not openly talking during church, texting, or leaving their cell phone ringers on. If the same people did that in a movie theater, they would be kicked out or yelled at. If one truly believes that God is present in the worship service, then I would think that should occupy ones attention. Young children may not be able to grasp that yet, but if they see their parents distracted by conversations and electronic gadgets, they are going to assume that nothing important is really going on. If they see their parents captured by the presence of God, then they will want to experience it, too. Try teaching by example before breaking out the rod.
Oh, and let kids doodle on the bulletin. I did when I was a kid, and I heard every word being preached. Now my kids are the same way. The sermon-centric service can be hard on visual-tactile children…and adults.
I probably have a different image of “community” than some of the commenters. Don’t get me wrong because I’m all for adult community, it’s just not my top priority. Given my preference I suppose I’d rather be “fellowshipping” with the guys from work down at the local pub on Monday nights catching the game, instead of teaching a catechism class to smart-mouth junior high kids at the parish. My family and I enjoy “fellowshipping” with neighbors, families from school, or whoever we happen to bump into at McDonalds, Wal-mart, or the ball park. Heck, we even let the Baptist kids across the street come over and have dinner or cookies at least once or twice a week.
Misty sounds like a wonderful lady and I hope for the continued success of her house group; but sitting around her living room singing songs and talking about my feelings wouldn’t be my top choice for fellowship. And theologically speaking it doesn’t fit my image of Christocentric worship.
Sitting quietly and listening to the Word of God is the best way for me to hear what he wants to tell me. And it’s the only way I can peacefully go out and fellowship with this wonderful, crazy world he has created.
1) I’m a father of two little girls, 4 and 1. My church responsibilities put me at the church at 6 AM on Sundays. It happens that I live close to the church, and walk home after our early service to get the family, and we walk to church together. I normally get home just in time to help my wife finish dressing the girls. She does most of the morning prep by herself. On the whole, I think she would say that it isn’t stressful most of the time (my wife is a GREAT mom, very organized).
…I like the previous poster’s suggestion that living close to one’s church is very beneficial. Driving 30 miles to the Mega is probably not helping the stress of Sunday morning. Not to mention the fact that your church experience becomes disjointed from your community life.
2) At our church, we have a nursery in both services, a “nursing mother’s” room at the side of the sanctuary, and children’s church that the kids ages 4 to 8 go to after they participate in the early part of our second service. We have TV in every room in the church, and the service can to watched from anywhere. So, all in all, I think we do a decent job. One concern for us is that if we are going to send the kids away, then they need to be sent to a place where they are being taught well. That is a big priority for our church. Veggie Tales, while great fun, are not appropriate teaching materials for the spiritual formation of children. (IMHO)
3) I minister among the young families in our church. Child care is ALWAYS an issue. For whatever reason, our parents don’t like to get baby sitters. There seems to be some sort of guilt associated with leaving them with someone else. I wonder if part of the issue is that so many parents are working long hours that they don’t want to be unnecessarily separated from their children. This perhaps speaks to a whole other issue in our society.
4) Some of the families that come in 15 minutes late and rather frazzled for 9:30 Sunday School or 11 AM service, are the same families that weren’t late for the 8 AM soccer game on Saturday, and they won’t be late for school on Monday. Priorities and be part of the problem.
5) Do we need to redefine “church”. Maybe. We certainly need to do many things better, and there are several valid reasons why a family could choose to leave their church. However, my experience with people is that there will always be a new excuse as to why its just too hard to be at church. In the end, the family that is dedicated on worship, fellowship, and spiritual growth within their local Body will make church attendance (somewhere, someplace) a priority. Those that aren’t, won’t.
We adopted our son at 17 1/2 months. It took nine months before he would go to Sunday School or Children’s Church without crying hard enough to make himself throw up. As a new, stay-at-home parent, I was refused even this small break. (Although I had wonderful friends who took him (crying and all) while I went to class twice a week.) To have him with us even now (he’s seven) means I just have to accept I probably won’t be listening to the message too much.
I remember sitting through church as a kid. I remember singing, communion, Gramma’s cough drops, drawing on the bulletin, and being told a million and a half times to be quiet and sit still.
I guess from my point of view, it would depend on what you want out of a church service. If you want to use it as an exercise in teaching your kids how to be still and quiet and stand and actually sing the songs and stop crawling under the chairs and don’t tap the pencil on your head and no you can’t go get a donut, then that’s all well and good. If you, for some reason, wanted to listen to the preacher? Let’s give it up for Children’s Church leaders. I love and adore them forever.
If you want to use it as an exercise in teaching your kids how to be still and quiet and stand and actually sing the songs and stop crawling under the chairs and don’t tap the pencil on your head and no you can’t go get a donut, then that’s all well and good.
And I think it’s doing that that is the problem.
That training needs to be done at home, and enforced/continued at church. And it’s part of the general training and teaching that we all need, as people–that being part of a family–God’s family–and serving others often requires doing things that aren’t our first choice.
Some situations are harder than others. Each child can be different too. Some of my children when they were young were content to draw in the pew. My youngest right now tends to get restless and sometimes I take him out to the vestibule to stretch his legs. That means I miss a couple of the readings, but I can catch up on that later in the day.
The 10:00 AM Mass has a children’s liturgy of the word where kids between the ages of four and six can go to another room in the church and hear the readings at a children’s level. They are invited out before the readings begin and are brought back in after the homily so they can bring up the gifts, which they are really excited about. Although this does not happen at all the Masses it gives everyone a chance to focus on the Word at the appropriate level.
Eric R. I like your fifth point and seem to run into it constantly when trying to encourage the kids I teach to go to Church. I guess I’d have more luck if they were old enough to drive themselves…
Hats off to all parents that bring little fidgety, crying kids to church – for this cross your reward will be great. Parents are often exhausted, sick and stressed so much, they should never have to endure a sneer from someone sitting in front of them who’s kids were, no doubt, much better behaved.
In contrast, the TV preachers always have a quiet arena.
I really don’t have much to say, as I’m not married and/or have children. I do have to say it depends on the child sometimes. I’m very introverted, so my mom could always scoop me up at her long Pentecostal services, and I will be mum the whole time (except when I was forced to pray. That was when it got loud). I was too mature for most of my Sunday school classes. Imagine being 7 with a teacher going “A is for Adam, B is for Bethlehem”. Sounds weird, but there are quiet, still children in the world.
I have met quite a few.
I am a mom of 7 children ages 11 and under.
We make it to 8:00 am Mass every Sunday.
We have one bathroom.
This is simply to encourage others that it CAN be done!
One, my husband gets up first, gets breakfast started and wakes everyone else up (he’s such a morning person!)
We go over the readings while they eat breakfast, so they will pay attention better during Mass.
Everyone wears the nice clothes they picked out the night before (or what Mommy picks out for them that morning! *grin*)
Assembly-line style, everyone brushes hair and teeth while I try to look over their heads to put on make up.
Thanks to my husband (again), we are out the door by 7:40 am.
At Mass, the key for us has been to sit up front, NOT bring any toys, and teach them from day one that they don’t leave our laps (or the pew) until Mass is over.
It’s been a struggle… and the first few years I wondered if we’d EVER make it out of the cry room… but it’s paid off. Right now our youngest (13 months) is in “training,” which means one of us gets the joy of taking her out and holding her in the back.
Our kids are not perfect by a long shot, but I think the training has been worth it, and it’s been wonderful seeing them respond at Mass and picking up on things said.