The Chaos Of Church Service With A Toddler

Our little family always attends a Christmas Eve candle light service as a part of our Christmas traditions. Usually, we travel to Stephen's parents' house and go to their home church, but this year, we spent Christmas Eve at home, just the four of us. We decided to try a larger church near our house for the first time and also chose to keep our two boys with us for the service. Well, we made it through about the opening prayer before Ryan, our littlest, needed to step out into the lobby.

Thankfully, the church we visited had several TVs that streamed the service and plenty of fold-out seats set up in the lobby for overflow visitors. We watched, we walked around, we pointed at wreaths and other holiday decorations, and we braved the lighting of candles for about two minutes before Ryan got curious about the flame and then got mad because I instantly blew it out when he tried to grab it.

Going to church with a toddler is quite a task- especially when your toddler is a wild little extrovert like this guy. I remember a time when I was a mom to only one and I asked myself what the point of even coming to church was when I had to constantly step out because the baby was loud/fussy/hungry. Was I getting anything out of the sermon? Was my baby? It felt like I had put so much effort into making church happen seamlessly and still, most of my time was spent occupying a little one.

The truth is y'all, they see it! They get so much out of going to church with us, even if most of the time is spent in the lobby. They see the effort put in to seeking time with Jesus. They learn simple words like "prayer hands" and "amen!" These are little seeds that become HUGE fruit! They may not fully understand right now, but they'll grow up having the consistency of walking the halls in the church building, of being asked to be still and quiet during times of prayer, and of feeling the importance of being present in a Spirit-filled community. Then one day, they'll look at you and randomly blurt out, "Mama! Jesus is God!" And you heart will melt into a million pieces and you'll feel the incredible satisfaction of knowing that all that dedication and hard work is paying off.

Our hope for the service was that we'd get to celebrate Jesus' birth together as a family, and we did. It just wasn't in the sanctuary. And that's okay, that's just what our family needs right now. Let's find peace in knowing that church doesn't just happen in sancuarties and Jesus doesn't just speak to those who are in the pews. Our little ones find Him in the small moments of life together.