I am between a rock and a hard place. Rory and Trace are not church friendly right now. What I mean by that is...Early service is during breakfast time, 11:00 service is half lunch/half nap. Saturday night service doesn't provide nursery workers so either I end up in the nursery with them or I persuade a dancer who also happens to be a Methodist to go watch the kids. I hate doing this though because if a high school kid is actually at church, then they should be listening to the message!
I want to go to church.
I like my church. The pastor is nice and super passionate about the Lord. The secretary is fanastic. There are some very nice people that attend.
But.
There's virtually no outreach for families. There's no Moms group. No baby Sunday School class. Very little kids programming.
I'm at a cross roads. On one hand, I want to stay at our church because I like it. It's comfortable there. But I never get to actually GO to services. I'm a member and I tithe but actually walking in the door for service right now is darn near impossible. When we do make it to Saturday night service, it's not relaxing. It's not refreshing. It's HARD. I crave the hour of peace that church services should bring me, not the sress of keeping Rory and Trace quiet, occupied and happy.
On the other hand, I'm feeling it's necessary to branch out and try a new church. Here in the fores there aren't a lot of options for family oriented churches. This might get stressful.
6 comments:
Are there other families in the church? Maybe they are feeling the same way you are. Perhaps you could start some kind of moms outreach. Get the ball rolling on some kids' programming. If you have a good relationship with the pastor and the secretary, you should approach them. I would suspect they want you to continue attending their church, and maybe they would be willing to help you address your concerns.
I totally get what you're saying. It's almost not worth going if you're spending the whole time trying to shush and entertain the kids. I'd suggest venturing out to other churches--just in case there's one out there that fits your family.It's worth a shot!
That's always tough. I know we wouldn't have been able to go to a church that didn't have an good children's program.
I say you have three options...
1. Continue trying to go and continue to get frustrated.
2. Find a new church.
3. Find all the other families with young kids and get them involved in finding a solution to having at least the nursery staffed with volunteers during every service.
My guess is that there have probably been many others that have come and gone for the same reason and the church would do something about it if someone would step up and take charge. Maybe that person is you and maybe it's not. That's for you to decide.
But a mama definitely needs her church time! :)
What state are you in? I definitely understand your situation. If you are interested, my church airs the service online throughout the week, and live on Sundays. It's www.newspring.cc. Maybe if you can't get to church, church can come to you...and in your pjs! :) We watch it online when someone is sick or we are just having a hectic day.
O-emm-geee, you need to move to Alaska. There's nothing BUT kid-friendly everything here. I actually have the opposite problem, in that everyone I know has kids..but that's neither here nor there..
There has to be other families at your church with the same problem. Are there a lot of members at the services? I would talk to other moms who might be having the same problem.
As someone who is constantly trying new churches (it seems), I understand your frustration in not wanting to branch out. I know that God leads us to certain places, but sometimes it's so hard to see what He's doing!
I wish I could come babysit!
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