Babies in Worship

More than anything in the world, I want my 18 month old daughter to worship Jesus, and I am doing everything I know how to give her opportunities to feel his love, to learn to interpret his voice, to hear his call.  When my daughter was first born, we lived in a part of the country that was really welcoming to babies, church included.  When my baby was born, the church was ecstatic, and they were more than willing to welcome her into the worship service.  When she made little noises, the congregation members were focused upon loving and supporting both me and her.  They recognized that as a new mom I felt in over my head, I was figuring out what it meant to be a mom and how God was calling me to raise this precious little person, I had a lot to learn, and when things went wrong - when she started crying uncontrollably or wanted to breastfeed when we were out or whatever the case may be - both she and I needed a blanket of grace.  This congregation wrapped us in that blanket and held us in its warmth - or rather I should say that God did this through these sensitive people.  

When my daughter was 9 months old, we moved to another part of the state.  We were only a little over an hour away from where we had lived before, but the culture - particularly regarding babies - could not have been more different.  So warm was I from the grace I had experienced when the baby was born, it took months for me to realize just how different this place was.  And, very sadly, church was the worst of all.  My husband was now the associate pastor at this church, and so, if I wanted to go to church with him, we had to go to this church.  But the people at this church have strong opinions about the importance of worship being an adult thing.  In fact, children are not welcomed into the sanctuary until they are 12 years old.  Now, if these kids were turning out to be great Christians, I would happily learn from them.  But as it is, that's not happening.  And so my husband and I have decided to welcome our daughter into the worship service, which was the decision we came to within the safe exploratory space for thinking about raising Christian children provided at our last church.  

And so week after week I bring my daughter to worship.  I feed her cheerios and give her a quiet toy to keep her quiet during the silent periods of the worship service, and very slowly I am teaching her what to do when in the service.  She is really quite good... but there is no grace when she does make a noise.  If someone sneezes or laughs at something their neighbor said to them, this is apparently no big deal.  But if the baby coos, that is just unacceptable.  It has become a big deal for some people.  I've been snubbed, yelled out, publicly rebuked, and several families have called threatened to leave the church.

I get so mad at all this sometimes.  She really is not a problem for anyone but me!  I'm the one who struggles to keep her quiet.  I'm the one relearning what it means to worship with a little one.  That is hard enough.  But to do that within the context of condemnation is painful.  My heart is very heavy. 

Through all of this, I see potential for a lot of growth on my part.  I am having to learn how to respectfully disagree while getting death-stares.  I am having reach deep into my heart to discover the means God gives me to resist the anxiety of this congregation lest I communicate that to my daughter.   This morning I realized that I had abandoned my own personal goals for bringing her to worship - that she might know she is welcomed, whatever her skills or ability to comprehend, by God into his sanctuary; that she might see others worshipping; that, insofar as children learn what they live, she might know that worshipping God is as basic to existence as is eating and sleeping, which we do long before we know why.  Instead of these things being my focus, I had shifted my focus to what the goal of one of these congregations members would be - to teach her to be quiet and sit still in the sanctuary.  And that is not a sufficiently deep or loving enough goal to keep me from exploding in anger internally when she gets difficult.  And so now, having realized that, I hope to return my focus to those things that led to our decision in the first place.  Oh God, help.