Church and Children
When my daughter was about four years old, she still had a hard time grasping the concept of marriage. But anyway, I got out our wedding album, thinking visual images would help, and explained the entire service to her. Once finished, I asked if she had any questions, and she replied, "Oh. I see. Is that when Mommy came to work for us?"
A mother took her three-year-old daughter to church for the first time. The church lights were lowered, and then the choir came down the aisle, carrying lighted candles. All was quiet until the little one started to sing in a loud voice, "Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you......"
After listening restlessly to a long and tedious sermon, a 6-year-old boy asked his father what the preacher did the rest of the week. "Oh, he's a very busy man," the father replied. "He takes care of church business, visits the sick, ministers to the poor.... And then he has to have time to rest up. Talking in public isn't an easy job, you know. "The boy thought about that, then said, "Well, listening ain't easy, either."
At the beginning of a children's sermon, one girl came up to the altar wearing a beautiful dress. As the children are sitting down around the pastor, the pastor leans over and says to the girl, "That is a very pretty dress. Is it your Easter dress?" The girl replies almost directly into the pastor's clip-on mike, "Yes.... and my Mom says it's a bear to iron."
A mother was watching her four-year-old child playing outside in a small plastic pool half filled with water. He was happily walking back and forth across the pool, making big splashes. Suddenly, he stopped, stepped out of the pool, and began to scoop water out of the pool with a pail. "Why are you pouring the water out, Johnny?" the mother asked. "'Cause my teacher said Jesus walked on water, and this water won't work." The boy replied.
FMC member Pastor Stan Holdeman of Garden Baptist Church in Indiana went to an informal church gathering, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. A little girl from a newly religious family; who had seen him only in his Sunday morning suits loudly proclaimed: "Hey, preacher, you sure look different with clothes on!"
After church one Sunday morning, a mother commented: "The choir was awful this morning." The father commented: "The sermon was too long." Their 7-yr. old daughter added: "You've got to admit it was a pretty good show for a dime."
Originally published November 14, 2002.
