No Children
As I sit to write each evening, there are times when I know what is on my mind, and there are other times that I cruise through my Bloglines account (blogs listed in the left hand column), taking a peek at new posts, to see what might be brought to mind.
That's what I did this evening, checking out the United Methodist Reporter Blog. Check out this article. It's a about a (non-United Methodist) church -- a larger one of about 3,400 attendees at worship each week, that has a sign outside the Sanctuary which reads, "No Children Under 2 Years of Age Allowed in the Sanctuary."
Hmmm. Leaving aside the obvious (they don't allow babies into the Sanctuary for worship? What?), and setting aside our (my) obvious judgement against such a practice, think about your own church for a moment. While there may not be signs like this, are there other ones? Ones that are not so obvious, but which still say to people, "You are not welcome here"?
Walk around your church like a visitor, and see what you think. Ask a friend, who does not attend your church to walk around with you, and look at the church through his/her eyes. I might like to try that exercise.
If I can keep my children quiet.
Labels: Church
posted by Kim at 8:50 PM
2 Comments:
My wife and I have two kids--one that is now three and a four month old. I used to serve a church while our three year old was between 1 and 2--generally she was quiet, but there were occasional noises, my wife did her best to keep her from being disruptive, and would take her out when it was a problem. There were no official rules, but besides the occasional baptism, there were no other children that young in the church service--so you might expect at this large church they were all in the nursery--but the nursery was often empty and rarely had more than two or three children in it--where were all the parents and kids this age??? They weren't welcome. That appointment lasted only one year because the issue of our children could not be worked out--we don't use daycare, so why would someone expect that we would use nursery care especially for a child that is still an infant? You are right--subtle or obvious many churches have become places where children and their parents who do not want to follow the nursery model are not welcome.
Wow. That is a little shocking.
We might want to take this even further--trying to adapt the eyes not just of a visitor, but of an unchurched visitor. Maybe we can find the sanctuary or the nursery, but are we clear on what's expected in worship? Can we explain what we're doing and what might happen after service?
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