this afternoon was our first time gathering in our new sunday space as threenails. it was also the first sunday of advent. a time of slowing down and preparation for christ's coming. as our time drew to a close, kaden thompson, one of the few children in the immediate pittsburgh three nails family came in from his toy trains to join us. he's five, which means his boundless energy trumps any understanding of social graces and self control a good portion of the time. dancing in front of the projector light and crawling under the bingo table we used as our alter, his father insisted he come sit down.
i pulled him onto my lap. as we sat there, i was frustrated, not by kaden but myself. i was holding him on my lap because i love him, but really i was doing it to quiet him. i want our kids to be in worship with their community. i don't want them shuffled off to sunday school in a mass exodus. but what i found myself doing was what every person in threenails who grew up in sunday morning church hated and gave every person who didn't grow up there a reason to hate it. sit quietly next to the grown ups and look reverent and attentive to something you don't understand a word of. where is the sweet middle ground in a community raising a child in worship together? i wondered. to provide them the space to worship among the body and their family, but not make them sit quietly through something they can't understand yet causing them to grow jaded and desensitized perceptions of what you instead hope to foster a deep running love for. this is what i thought of as i held kaden on my lap.
trevor started to play the guitar and megan started to sing "o come o come, emmanuel." looking at the basket of percussion instruments on the floor megan had brought kaden whispered "i want to get a kazoo!" i said okay and let him down. he came back and crawled onto my lap and blew hard with no result of course as kazoos aren't wind instruments. "you have to hum" i whispered to him. about two seconds later, a loud high pitched buzzing sound bellowed into the room and bounced off the walls (not bad acoustics, really). stifled laughs came from the circle and kaden giggled and went at it again with zeal. before getting into the second verse everyone was laughing as they sang and by the third verse people were wiping tears from their eyes with laughter and kris and megan had picked up kazoos to join kaden. it was without a doubt the first time i experienced "o come o come, emmanuel" bring people to tears and laughter and definitely the first rendition i've heard done with kazoos, and it was clear to me that Christ was glorified in this moment. in my worry and thought, God went about answering my question his way, through a kazoo playing five year old boy.
as we cleaned up, i heard phil, kaden's dad say, "alright, church is over. no more kazoos." and i thought, this is why i love my church.
1 comment:
I played my kazoo in church during a Hymn of celebration. After Church my Pastor shook her finger at me. Then she brought me into the kitchen and asked me to turn it over. She said she would return it on October 21st but hasn't return it yet. Are playing kazoos in church a sin, when the hymn is a Hymn of celebration? "We are the Church." Even if I am 54 years old?
Lee
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