A while back, a friend of mine suggested my church (which he had been visiting at the time) incorporate some sort of childcare during the service. (We have a nursery for babies and toddlers, but not for older children.) He said he had sat behind a family with somewhat restless children and thought both the parents and children would appreciate a childcare program during the service. At the time, I resisted the idea, but could not put into words why. After some reflection, I decided it had a lot to do with my own upbringing in the church. I grew up going to “big church” and looking back, my friend is right; I would have preferred something geared toward my age to keep me entertained. Church was boring. However, I am ultimately glad that my parents and my church never bothered much with keeping me entertained because it taught me that at the same time that church is for me, it should not be about me.
I think some of my earliest memories are of church, but they’re not necessarily fond ones. Mostly, they are of sitting in old, creaky, wooden pews with red velvet cushions, on my Daddy’s lap, playing with his watch. “How long till it’s over?” I would whisper a minimum of two times per sermon. He’d hold up five or ten fingers, or mouth back to me “a long time.” I hated that answer. My stomach would rumble, and I would wonder where we were going to eat for lunch. I would people watch sometimes, but it wasn’t very interesting. Sometimes I colored. I did a lot of things to pass the time, but I rarely listened to the sermon.
I remember one time, however, when I was very little. During the song portion of the service, my mom was holding me, and when we finished one line of the words, she whispered the next line in my ear. I distinctly remember that moment because I realized that not only could I participate in the worship experience, but my mom expected me to. Similarly, when I was a bit older and beginning to learn how to read, I remember my brother holding the hymnal and pointing to the words to help me track along.
When I was probably about 10 or 11 my church did something we called “24/7 Prayer.” We had a sign-up sheet in the back with a time slot for every hour in the week. People signed up for an hour on the sheet, and for one week our church was praying around the clock. I thought it was a pretty neat idea, and I signed up. It never crossed my mind that as an 11 year old I shouldn’t or didn’t need to do this. I assumed that I, like the other members of the congregation, was expected to.
Growing up, I never thought of church as my parents' thing. For as long as I could remember, I had sat side by side with people of all ages, worshipping together. When we separate the parents and the children, maybe we’re giving the children the idea that church is for the grown-ups. Could it be that my generation’s tendency to rebel against their parent’s religion is something they learned from church itself? Maybe we aren’t rejecting the church, maybe we were never taught to be a part of it at all. Because I was “forced” to sit through the sermon every Sunday, I grew up thinking church should be just as much a part of my life as it should be my parents’, but I know this is not the case for a lot of my peers who were sent off to different parts of the building only to be reunited with their families when it was time to go home.
And now, when I go to church and see the rows of families with young children, I am glad those parents have chosen to sacrifice a bit of self-comfort in order to include their children in the worship experience. I think there’s something beautiful in the squirming children, fidgeting to fight boredom in church. In their struggle against boredom, they too are in their own way seeking Christ, though they don’t realize it, and in the process they are being formed to believe that they can and should partake of this ceremony too.
Furthermore, sitting through church even when I didn’t like it taught me to maintain a certain constancy in my spiritual life. All Christians have been through spiritual highs and lows. We have felt the struggle of trying to remain faithful even when we don’t feel like it. There are times when I love spending time in the Word, when I can’t wait to wake up an hour early to pray. But unfortunately, there are so many times when I really don’t want to do these things—when sleep is more important than spending time with the Lord and Facebook is more interesting than the New Testament. This isn’t good, but it’s part of being human. If I’m honest, I still get bored in church. Some Sundays it’s about all I can do to keep my eyes open during the sermon. There are days when I don’t want to go to church. Because I grew up going to church regardless of whether I wanted to or not, however, I learned to have consistency in this aspect of life. Whether I want to go or not—whether I enjoy it or not—doesn’t matter; it is something I do.
I see a growing trend to make church attractive. We put in roller-skating rinks and coffee shops and have cool kids programs in order to make church something people want. But on the contrary, church is first and foremost something we need. We have to learn that the reason we go to church is not because we want to, but because we need to, desperately. Church should never first be about keeping us entertained. Roller-skating rinks and coffee shops aren’t bad in and of themselves, but I think there’s something to be said for the simple, yet constant presentation of God’s truth without flashy “kids korners.” We have to teach our children (and learn it ourselves) the constancy of God. Church must be something I learn to need regardless of whether it is something I want. (Once we have learned to think about it this way, then those other things follow. Once I realize my need for church, it becomes something I want.)
I am glad I was bored during church. As my mom whispered the next line of words in my ear, and my brother’s steady finger pointed out the lyrics in the hymnal, I was being formed. These things shaped my view of church and my part in it. Everyone’s testimony is different. I’ve heard some amazing stories of God’s grace in how he pulled people who had never even heard of Him into a church building. Mine isn’t like that. I used to be disappointed in the “boringness” of my testimony, but I have come to realize that it is beautiful because God’s hand is just as evident in my story as it is in any other. I am thankful I grew up going to church. I think it is okay if children don’t eagerly await Sundays. It’s okay if they don’t catch every word of the sermon and take it to heart. They will come to. And maybe those times spent staring up at a stained glass window out of boredom forms the child more than we realize. I know that for myself, it shaped and molded me in ways plastic toys in the nursery never could have.
