Yes, children can worship

This weekend Michael has been at drill for NY State Guard. When he is at drill, I bring the kids with me to my two churches, and usually drop them in the nursery, hit coffee hour briefly, put them in the car, and repeat. So their experience of church is: we play with toys and eat animal crackers. Even when Michael brings them, they only last so long because well, two toddlers sitting still for an hour is a lot, so they spend half the service playing.

Well my big girl has been so big and mature lately, I thought, "I bet she could do well in church for at least the beginning until the children's sermon." I asked a couple women to sit with her close to the front... but she wouldn't have it. She wanted to be with mommy. And so she held my hand through the confession, the procession/opening hymn, the Kyrie, and the Prayer of the Day. During confession, I whispered to her, "We're thinking about things we did this week that we shouldn't have done. Can you think of anything?" She began telling me in full voice about her boo-boos. I have been showing her how music notes show us what to sing, so I followed the notes with my finger, crouching down to her level and looking at the hymnal with her. She followed along. For the children's sermon, I had the sudden inspiration to do a tour of our stained glass windows, which depict several parts of the Passion story, so we walked around the church looking, and she was SO into it. Boy, could she identify the color purple, a crown, and Jesus!

In the car, she asked if we could sing some Jesus songs, so we did. "We go to other church," she said, and when we saw it from the road, she said, "Other church! Hi other church!"

At this church, I planned to leave her in the nursery, but she screamed and screamed, "I wanna stay with mommy!" My little daddy's girl hasn't seen her daddy in three days, so I gave in to the clinginess and said she could join me in worship. "You have to be quiet," I said. "Can you be good?" She insisted that she could. So with some trepidation that my newly potty-trained girl would announce to the congregation that she had to poop during the silence for confession, I took her hand and we went into the sanctuary.

My little cherub on the right

Friends, she was amazing. She stayed right by my side, making herself comfortable in the acolyte's chair next to mine (with apologies to the displaced acolyte!). She again stood by me during confession, telling me this time, "Daddy say I have Jesus." She processed with me for the opening hymn, holding my hand. During the Kyrie, she stood next to me and tried to sing along with me on the leader parts. At this church, I sang with the choir, and she joined me for that, too, bringing my bulletin with her to the choir loft, standing next to me, looking at the bulletin and singing along the best she could. My heart nearly burst.

For the children's sermon, again, we looked for all the purple we could find, and all the crosses we could find. Grace was so into it, she kept interrupting to announce she had found another cross. She mentioned her purple dress several times. She was right there, totally getting it. When we prayed at the end, I usually do a "repeat-after-me" prayer, and she did, repeating each part very carefully. I did finally have to send her to the nursery because she kept excitedly exclaiming when she found another cross, and I knew I couldn't preach effectively with her doing this. A member of the congregation came up and swept her away for me. Grace was devastated to leave. She had been so good, so quiet, or appropriately noisy. She followed directions and engaged exactly the right way.

When I fetched her from the nursery at the end, I said right away, "Grace, you were SO good in church! You did an amazing job!" She smiled and said, "I sing the songs." Yes, my sweet girl, you sure did! She was really proud of herself, telling me several times some version of, "I go to church. I sing the songs. Daddy say I have Jesus. My dress is purple." She loved it. Both congregations loved it (so many people gushed to me afterward about how great she was!).

My little girl, 2 1/2 years old, absolutely participated in worship today. She did it in the way she knows best - she sang songs, she looked for things she recognized, she spent time with someone who loves her, she prayed, she celebrated. I wouldn't want to get in the habit of confusing these two vocations (mom and pastor) every Sunday worship - my congregation needs me to be pastor to them, and while there are times to be mom and times to be pastor, Sunday morning is definitely a time I need to be pastor. But I also loved that I got to teach my own little girl how to be in church, how to follow along, how to engage and participate. This is such an important part of teaching kids about a life of faith, and although I can talk about it with families, I never get to demonstrate it.

The gift of this morning was that I wasn't even trying to do that. It just happened. I was completely myself - my pastor self and my mother self - trying to open a path to Jesus for everyone. I can't say I was successful in doing this for the congregation, but seeing Grace so delighted to be a part of it was among my best moments in ministry to date.