Little Ones in the Pew Part 1

I love my children.  I really love to hear their voices worshipping God with His people on Sunday mornings.  I like feeling them snuggle up to me while we listen to the pastor preach.  We have three children now that are old enough to sit with us in our church service.  Our church does a great job of being welcoming of families with little ones and providing a place for the more rambunctious ones.

Just this last week, our three-year-old joined us in the service for the first time.  She will be four in January, but the nursery moved her up a month early.  This is always a special time in our home, the first Sunday you sit with Mom and Dad in church.  This is our third child to experience this privilege, and it brought with it a new strategy for helping us to parent in the pew.

Let me back up a bit.  I had wonderful imagined thoughts of my son sitting patiently, snuggling up next to me, dutifully drawing pictures from the pastor’s sermon.  What really happened was lots of whispered reminders, wordless nudges, and several trips to the restroom for private talks.  I even tried the twisty crayons (so there would be no crayon wrappers to litter the pew) and Bible-themed coloring books when our second-born joined us.  Still, there were too many distractions for them and even for my husband and myself. 

 
This go around, I thought we needed a simpler, stream-lined approach.  Now we are out-numbered in the pew (often dramatically so, as our infant does not enjoy nursery all the time yet, so sometimes one parent is completely absent from the pew).  Our new four-year-olds each get a pocket Bible to bring with them.  We open it to the passage being read, and follow along in their Bibles, instead of our own.  Then when our children can read, we just give them a few prompts as they follow along on their own.  I also bought a few small spiral notebooks that would fit on their small laps.  To write in them, I decided a mechanical pencil would work best—no sharpening required, and no staining when the young ones use them (we had several nice dresses and shirts ruined by gel ink). 

Come back later this week to see what I came up with to replace their large church bags.