Church strategy

Our new church doesn't have a nursery for children to attend while their parents attend church. When Sam was littler, I always wanted to keep him with us for church, although our old church had a nursery. I just didn't want to part with the kid and he was so well behaved at that time. All it took to keep him occupied during church were snacks and something to drink. Life was simpler then. Fast forward 6 months or so, and Sam is an all-out toddler, with the short attention span and antsy-ness that goes with his age. Sitting still for 5 minutes is a challenge, let alone a church service that is an hour or more.

So we have tried a number of things to make church successful. Our definition of success involves 1) Jason and I can worship with some focus, 2) Sam is relatively quiet and 3) Sam is somewhat occupied. Matthew really isn't much of a problem, although he has started talking a lot more lately. He also just gets excited and smiles and laughs at the people behind him. It's quite cute, so we generally don't try to contain his excitement too much.

So how do we negotiate a successful church outing? Well, we bring some books and a drink for Sam. We brought cars once, but that was a mistake. They are much too noisy on the wooden pews. I also tried to bring little animal toys, but Sam wasn't really interested in them. I tried loading up my bag with novel items (floss, chap stick, random junk from Jason's junk drawer, etc.) but he wasn't really interested in that either. We tried crayons and paper but that worked for about 1 minute, then he was on to the next thing. So we stick to books. Books with lots to look at. Books that Sam likes and have a lot of pages.

Jason does a really good job of listening to the sermon but keeping Sam occupied with the books. He turns pages slowly and points to various items on the page. Today was an especially effective. Sam didn't have to be taken to the lobby and he was pretty quiet. He didn't even say, "All done now" until an hour into the service. A few weeks ago, Sam said "All done now and started walking to the aisle 10 minutes into the church service. That was not a good day. However, today he waited until after communion. He really did show a lot of patience for a two-year old in waiting until an hour into church. Other than a short attention span, Sam loves Sunday school, so he is very excited for church to end so he can go to Sunday school. He loves Sunday school. He runs to Sunday school after worship is done. At least he enjoys part of the experience at church, and the worship for adults part is developing his self-denial and patience. Good virtues for a growing little man.