Oh, and to those of you who have given up on church or don’t feel welcomed, if you are ever in London, I invite you to come to my church. You might be surprised at what you see! We’ve got folks from every corner of the globe, every color, gay, straight, multi-millionaires and homeless, mentally ill and government officials. Even a few celebrities on occasion (a couple have even helped serve at our soup kitchen). It’s not your momma’s church. (And we’ve got plenty of home-made treats at coffee hour)
Well, we made a lot of progress on this after some sparks flew during the past month. I had a great talk with the RE director and one of the parents. During the past couple of days the RE director and I both had a lightbulb go off: we realized that the kids who were causing the problem were in a special class that went from 9:30AM to almost 11AM, when the service ends. They were coming out without their teachers–that won’t happen again–AND they were starving. After all, at school, they have lunch by then. We agreed that there had to be some way to get these kids fed something more substantial, even if it means getting pizza. We’re working on that. (Actually, it just occurred to me that we could buy frozen pizzas, and they could cook them for themselves in the kitchen, which is downstairs where their class is held.)
Everyone also agreed that reinforcing some standard manners such as “take 1 or 2 and then wait until other people have had a chance” needed to happen. We also agreed that having the kids prepare the refreshments some Sunday might open their eyes to how much 150 or so people really need, if everyone is to have 2, and make them feel vested in it.
Thanks to everyone for their insights, they really helped.
Nice to hear you have figured something out. I think it is important to teach manners yet also important to not turn kids off to church.
I remember when my kids were younger and I got them to volunteer to serve for our harvest dinner, giving up a part of their Friday night as teens. But they were criticized by a few older church members for the way they were lounging when idle between serving. They sat on a side table that had nothing on it. I remember thinking…we’ll never mind what I was thinking. But luckily, my kids and I laughed about it.
Edit: never mind oops
.?? Oops what?