Jesus said "A little child shall lead them," and "Let the little children come unto me," and there are some iconic pictures of Jesus sitting on a big rock and lots of little kids are grouped around Him listening to Him teach them. Not a one of those kids is depicted picking his nose or trying to wiggle away. But they weren't trying to sit still on hard church pews, either.
There are lots of churches with wonderful programs called "Children's Church" where the teaching is geared to accommodate a child's short attention span and still get the message across. And there are snacks involved. During the time that our children were that age we never belonged to one of those churches, although Dennis worked in one. It was cool. They demonstrated baptism with a fish tank and a doll once. But we had moved by the time our kids got out of the nursery. They came into "Big Church" when they got to be four years old.
When our oldest son, Josh, graduated to Big Church he was very excited. That nursery stuff just wasn't cutting it for him any more. We talked ahead of time about being very still and you may color or do something quietly but you may not do anything to draw attention to yourself and away from the preacher, like talking out loud or standing on the pew and waving to someone in the choir. (When one of my nephews went into Big Church for the first time, he was shocked when the pastor stood up to speak. In a loud voice he said, "Mom! Did you know PawPaw's the preacher?") And we got a drink and went to the bathroom beforehand so there were no incidents like the one my friend had when she was trying to get her four year old to wait for the bathroom so she wouldn't have to walk out during the preaching and he shouted "Do you want me to poop in my pants???" Josh understood. He could hardly wait.
The big day came and he sat in his seat very quietly but when the hymn service started he was visibly upset. He was holding a hymnal, looking intently and almost crying. I found out later that somehow he had thought that when he graduated to Big Church he would magically be able to read the words in the hymnal. But does God care about little kids or what? The very next song was "Jesus Loves Me This I Know", a song that Josh knew by heart. I honestly didn't remember it ever being sung as a hymn in a worship service before but it was that day and it made all the difference for him.
Still, it is a very long time for a child to sit still. I was the mom with the bag big enough to hold a pup tent slung over her shoulders, the one full of colors and coloring books and little toys, hopefully, quiet things, for the boys to do during the preaching. The bag got fuller and fuller every week but there was never anything "good" in it. Match-box cars were not really encouraged but they don't make noise when they are run along a padded pew so I didn't forbid them. Not until after Jake, when he was about four, somehow let his red car loose on the slanted floor and we---along with the rest of the church---watched it roll down, down, down the aisle, across the front of the church and park itself right in front of the pulpit where it stayed until the closing hymn. The preacher was the only one who didn't see it and probably the only one who didn't stare at it the whole rest of the service.
In one church we were in, a family thought their kids were old enough to sit by themselves while the parents sang in the choir but the mom spent the whole service making faces and gestures at the kids when they weren't being still. She was the entertainment for the whole congregation that was watching her instead of listening to the preacher. I always wanted to tell her the kids were less of a distraction than she was but I never got up the nerve.
This is how you handle the choir thing: One of my strongest memories, when I was about eight or nine years old, is of my mom getting up from the choir loft in the middle of the sermon and walking down to sit by me in the pew because I had been talking during church. She never said a word to me. She just sat there in her choir robe getting the message across. No, really, you have to give up some things for awhile till your kids are old enough to sit by themselves. Of course, nine is old enough. I still remember.
I, of course, was always a perfect little angel when sitting in church. Well, there was that time when I was apparently making such a commotion, crawling under the seats or something--- I don't remember, but I have been told by reliable sources (my mom on her deathbed, who could doubt her?) and my older sister who was there---that my mom picked me up to carry me outside for a spanking. I wasn't the preacher's daughter for nothing, though. As she slung me over her shoulder and was walking up the aisle to the door I called out to the congregation. "Pray for me!"
They probably did. I really needed it after that.
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