Worshiping with children.

Our "perfect" children with some of their cousins.

I was reminded this past Sunday of a song by Victoria Williams about a family getting ready for church and the background chorus repeats “and...us kids are fighting."

            I have always found it interesting that the older my siblings and I got my mother's memory of us changed.  If we were by a screaming child in a supermarket she would say "You guys never did that."  Siblings wrestling in a parking lot, play ground...you pick the place, "You guys never did that."  When I first started hearing these statements my initial reaction was to believe her but then I would think "Yeah, I am pretty sure we did, as a matter of fact I know we did."

            The funny thing is that now that my children are older I find myself saying the same thing "You guys never did that."  Whatever "that" is.  How funny is it that the further away from our children's younger years we get the memories of noise, and bickering and running and crying seem to fade and what remains is the best of times?

            This brings me to children/youth in church, considering the age of most congregations, we know there are a handful of people saying or thinking each Sunday "My kids never did that."  Well...yeah they probably did or at least something like it.

            I can remember my own daughter and her friend while in middle school being told by a pastor on his last Sunday, literally one of the last statements he made leaving the sanctuary was "Girls sit up in church." They had taken to lounging in the front pew during the service. 

            Susan Bock wrote-"The only thing worse than all the racket in church (from children) is a church without children."

            The tornado in Oklahoma this week had a few of us anxiously waiting for news of the safety of a couple from our home church.  Dot and Don are now in their 90's and a friend and I wept as we received the good news they were fine.  The slow hours before the news had me remembering many things about them and many included our children.  When we first arrived at our church with three small children, 6, 4 and 3 years old, Dot and Don greeted us and promptly invited our whole family to a camp event.  They became a constant presence in our life; they taught our children to line dance, to belly laugh and were a reliable source for school papers about earlier times. I imagine that when asked today about how the children behaved in their church 20 years ago, Don and Dot might say "They were perfect."

            Children are noisy and squirmy in church; it is hard work learning to sit while surrounded by so many people you don't know.  Adults in church are sometimes noisy and squirmy as well, it is hard to sit surrounded by so many people you don't know while planning your shopping list or balancing the checkbook.  We have more in common than we think!  And because we share so much in common, church is the perfect place for children to learn not only about God but about being part of a community.

            I laugh to myself as I think that the children in our congregation are, through our memories, literally on their way to perfection!  

Matthew 19:14--But Jesus intervened: "Let the children alone, don't prevent them from coming to me.  God's kingdom is made up of people like these. (The Message)