Good Morning!
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Anyone have a QoD?
Wandering Views
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If that picture were taken in Australia, those would be kangaroos in that field.
Morning all.
Another hard day with a crying boy. I did get to briefly speak to his mother, so we will see.
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He/she just wanted mmomma.
Good evening Jo.
Good morning everyone else.
Every week has to have a Monday.
Jo already knows that.
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Nice to see Bob popped in this weekend. Sure hope his recovery is speedy and total.
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Happy belated anniversary to Linda and Steve too. 🙂
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I will be traveling later this week for Liz’s 17th birthday, so things will be off schedule the end of the week.
Yes, she’s getting old, and so am I. 🙂
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Wow! Seventeen is around the corner from being an adult. Age happens, AJ. And it is still difficult to think that Wesley is thirty, and he has spent his whole life in school. Are y’all looking at colleges for Liz? Big decisions around that age, too.
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Morning! We were gifted with an amazing sunrise this morning and it is still and quiet in the forest.
And Jo I was “that” child in kindergarten…I cried every morning as I was dropped off at the schoolyard.
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So sad for all those young ones who cry at school. I’m sure I mentioned it before, but with the three-year-old class, we had one who cried and vomited on the other teacher every morning. I was thankful to not be the object of attachment but felt so badly for the other teacher. I heard a child cry at church yesterday and said I always want to comfort a crying child.
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My friend, Karen, taught at the preschool the first year it opened. She had the youngest class and was great with then given her nursing background. She had the idea to get bags of birdseed to let the children stand at the windows and throw the seed and wave bye to their parents at the same time. It seemed to be a good distraction and facing of the reality that their parent had left the room but was outside in the world and would be back.
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Good morning! It’s a great time for coffee and Bible study.
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Monday?
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Just in from Bible reading out on the deck. A beautiful day here. Good to see our pastor and his wife back in church yesterday, he is doing well. We had a good stand in speaker, a man we have known for years but have not seen in years either. He and his wife are lovely people.
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Two comments after catching up on the weekend thread. Forgive me if I’ve told this one before. A few weeks after we moved into our Pennsylvania house, we were laying in bed watching a strong storm. Hubby said, “I’m really enjoying this.” I said, “The light show?” and he answered, “No, it’s the first time in 33 years that I don’t have to worry about the basement flooding.”
As for the beer truck . . . last week I had the privilege of representing our District as their voting delegate at the national convention of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. I had to walk about a quarter mile to our 6:00 a.m. District breakfast every morning and spotted the truck pulling in on Monday. As Lutherans are supposedly notorious for drinking beer, it struck me funny so I took a picture of it.
Another funny thing about the convention was that they allowed and encouraged bringing someone else along. However, the box on the form for entering the guest’s name was labelled “Spouse” and I had to enter “Sarah.” You may have to be LCMS (or Wisconsin, like Six) to get that.
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Happy belated Anniversary, Linda!
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Linda – For us non-LCMS folks, please explain what that meant. 🙂
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If anyone here follows Joel Osteen, please read this article. (Or if you know some Osteen followers, you might want to share it.)
“Joel Osteen’s “The Power of I Am” may be the most popular sermon on YouTube, but it’s also got to be the worst. . . .
Despite the YouTube count, this is not a great Christian message. In fact, there’s nothing truly Christian about it. It’s not a Christian message because it fails to preach Christ, who is the message of Christianity. And it’s not great because it fails to proclaim the greatness of God. Even worse, it sets up health and wealth and self-centered flourishing as being so much greater than God.”
https://www.challies.com/vlog/the-joel-osteen-sermon-that-changed-oprahs-life/
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Speaking of Challies, due to the many references to him on here, I was able to use him to help daughter yesterday. She asked about a preacher she had been following for a few years. I watched a bit and found him to be very Young Lifeish. Rah rah type, lots of enthusiasm to get the young on board. In researching I found Challies thoughts on him and forwarded his column to her. She says, though she enjoyed the rah rah encouragement, she was not finding much depth so the Challies thing showed her it was time to discontinue following that path. I have to wonder, if she was following this individual and he was pointing her to Christ, how she got into the pit she got into. We live in a complex world, I am glad we have the Light.
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Good Morning Everyone. Yesterday was tough. I was exhausted and so was “Papa”. I am a little put out with all the children. His and mine. The only redeeming quality of any of them is Little Missy.
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I just noticed on two different Twitter profiles that the male one included him/he, and the female one had her/she. What is that code for? I understand what Chas wrote, him/her, but I’m wondering about this other. The things you must ponder before following a person who likes your posts.
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The rah, rah movements to motivate young people in modern Christianity have always been subtle forms of the prosperity gospel and thus have always proved ineffectual. In the wake of the recent announcements about divorce and loss of faith by Josh Harris, author of the enormously popular I Kissed Dating Goodbye, several writers have given an appropriate title to the purity and courtship movement of the late ’90s and early 2000s, calling it the sexuality prosperity gospel. By claiming that if one stayed pure until marriage, one’s marriage would then be wonderful, the movement set young people, including the then very young author of the movement’s seminal work, up for disappointment and failure. The purity movement, the quiverfull movement, the Christian homeschooling movement, etc., etc. all have claimed that if one obeyed God by doing X, Y, and/or Z, one could expect God’s blessing. In other words, they were prosperity teachings. Jesus Christ is never the end goal in such movements, rather He is used as a means to an end.
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Kim, haha, give Little Missy time …
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This virus is taking its time leaving me. I laid low all weekend, went to the grocery store and church and watered, but mostly I read and slept.
I also have a shooting pain from my right shoulder up to the back of my neck, I think it’s from a computer position while working so much at home.
But, yes, here it is Monday once again. I need to get some stories going.
The Gilroy shooting, meanwhile, is so upsetting, especially with a 6-year-old being killed.
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I think I might have a viral infection. I have been having trouble breathing for the past few days and thought it was my asthma flaring up, but yesterday I developed a viral-type backache and had night sweats. The trouble is, my inhaler medication can really mask signs of infection, so I am never too sure when I experience these flare-ups/infections what exactly is going on. I just rest as much as possible and drink lots of fluid. I hope I will feel better by tomorrow, as I have another interview.
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Kizzie, The LCMS does not condone same-sex marriage. Since I was taking my daughter-in-law, Sarah, I had to enter her name in the box labeled “Spouse.”
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Interesting points, roscuro, about how the purity movement mirrored the health-and-wealth themes in some ways (do this and this will be the reward). And I remember in the 1990s throwback themes so popular for Christian families (my pastor’s wife called it the “Little House (on the Prairie)” syndrome).
I sat next to a family on Sunday (in fairness, I don’t know them well and this will sound perhaps unfairly critical from an outsider …) who remind me of those trends. They have a large number of children (I haven’t counted but they take up an impressive number of seats); the girls wear ultra-feminine sparkly princess dresses (adorable, yes), the boys are in properly tucked-in shirts and slacks, sitting straight & facing forward, but with dad watching over them from the row behind like a hawk, providing direction and swift correction if one of them appears too restless. Mom is tall and willowy, dressed in flowing dresses with long hair. They’re all beautiful and almost perfect, but it’s like a regimen and a very controlled dynamic when they file in and take up most of 2 rows.
Well, anyway, I probably should get to know them if we ever sit together again, although they always seem insular and preoccupied, understandably I suppose. But I always think back to the 1990s ‘big family/Prairie” movement in Christianity when I see them.
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roscuro, I hope you don’t have that virus. The doctor gave me an inhaler to use but I’d never used one before and was completely inept at it — I kept spraying it on my tongue.
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Speaking from the little house on the prairie with fifteen children, we want our children to sit quietly in church. It is good practice and they may learn something. Son always wears his shirt tucked in, slacks, tie, and dress shoes. He likes to look sharp. He always out dresses the preacher. Daughter always likes to wear her prettiest dress. Yesterday it was one she picked up in the thrift store last week, a long flowing floral number with lots of lace and bows. Very 80’s. Other daughter of course is in tshirt and jeans and the yes you have to wear it item.
The other option appears to be to let the children run rampant. Not interested.
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I understand, mumsee. I consider your situation more organic, perhaps, the real deal.
But I do think there also was a “trendiness” within some Christian circles for re-creating a lifestyle from an earlier era that was more about the popularity within conservative Christian circles. I had/have friends on a farm in NY who would have it into that but, again, for them it was always quite natural and “real” — though the husband (a great guy) did seem a bit overbearing in ruling the roost at times. I remember they were fans of the “kissed dating goodbye” book in its day as their kids were approaching adolescence.
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DJ @1:00 😆 about how you used the inhaler. Yesterday, the Seconds and I got into a conversation about how so many people use inhalers the wrong way.
@12:58: With a few less children, the family you are describing might be the Youngests in church, down to the father watching like a hawk.
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But their kids all turned out to be amazing adults, homeschooled but graduates of ivy league colleges, now all with children of their own, most with careers as well.
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I kept reading the instructions (breathe out first then … spritz and breathe in deeply). I think I finally got 1 or 2 sprays to go in, but my tongue was also quite numb by the time I was finished.
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Mumsee, I have seen your family in church and I have seen families such as the one DJ describes in church. DJ is not describing your family.
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Exhausting.
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(I was talking about the inhaler, not mumsee … but … Just kidding!)
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DJ, @1:37 material success is not a guarantee of spiritual success, at all. Josh Harris was apparently initially successful – married for 21 years, successor pastor to C.J. Mahaney in SGM – but eventually that all came tumbling down.
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What we have just witnessed is how labeling so dominates our minds and is a dangerous way to go, but people seem to have a wonderful ability to categorize in order to seek understanding. I am still pondering about how to get myself out of the category that my miscommunication has caused my friend to put me in. Of course, I put her in the category of liberal. Not any better. Each person and their situation is unique. I think I was a pretty unique homeschooling mom with only one child, but in someone’s mind I was probably categorized by a label that I did not even know of. Only Christ can reconcile the labels and the people who wear them with those who utilize them. Sorry if I am overly sensitive about this right now.
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I know, I was just joshing DJ. We have known those families as well, but one cannot necessarily tell what they are like just by observing, as DJ alluded to and Janice said.
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Janice, we also were a unique homeschool family. We did not fit in though. Not with homeschoolers or with public or private. Not conservative enough or liberal enough. But there were a few friends here and there. The four children did well. But they all turned out well though one does not appear to be following Christ.
Education continued for all. All got degrees from college, eldest was invited to several ivy league graduate programs but declined, second and fourth both got their master’s, third got her nursing degree and has been successful in that for over ten years. All are married and staying on the right side of the law. We wait to see how the next eleven turn out but we are seeing some good stuff.
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And no, exhausting fits my family, at least last week.
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I fully agree on both counts (1:46 and 1:42).
I’m not in close touch with my NY friends lately, but after they’d left their Quaker meeting (which he’s grown up in but was veering into approving same sex marriage in the 1990s), they began meeting on Sunday mornings for worship with a group of other home-schooling families in the area. I was part of those meetings on a couple visits, the men would take turns offering the Sunday message.
Eventually, they fell away from that (some kind of disagreement, I sensed, but I didn’t know the details) and the husband/father decided they should spend Sunday worship time alone as a family meeting in the kitchen every week — a very isolating situation, in my view. I could tell my friend (his wife) was uneasy with that idea, but probably hoped it would be temporary and was following his lead. I wondered if the reason behind it was that he didn’t want to be under anyone’s spiritual authority. He liked the spiritual authority he had in his own family (and it was a firm but very loving one; still, we all need to be under some spiritual authority to avoid going potentially off the rails).
Who knows, and in their defense they lived in an area where there weren’t a lot of viable churches easy to get to from their farm, esp with 8 kids in tow. The father (who was also the local public defender) had toyed with Roman Catholicism for a while, especially the charismatic variety; she liked the Missionary Alliance church they once visited. Now that the kids are all out of the home and on their own, I’m hoping they’ve found a good church to attend — I’ll have to try to catch up with them again, I miss those days when we’d send old-fashioned letters through the mail to each other 🙂
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With the way our public school curriculum is going our here, there’s little choice for Christian families now but to go the home-school or private school route.
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Janice, and Mumsee, I also am from a homeschooling background. Eldest Sibling still homeschools her children and my other two siblings intend to as well. I have nothing against the concept of homeschooling or even with the concept that homeschooling may provide academic advantages when done well. I do have a grave problem with the concept behind the Christian homeschooling movement (notice, I talked about movements) and its prosperity gospel style promise that children who were homeschooled would be better and stronger Christians. I speak out of experience, and incidentally, I was/am in a position to know about families such as DJ describes from more than just observation. I knew one such family, with about as many children as the one DJ describes, very well, and I saw what happened to the children. It has been ghastly and the awful story is not over yet.
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Incidentally, Gregg Harris, the author of The Christian Homeschool, labeled as the seminal work of the Christian homeschool movement, is the father of Josh Harris.
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I suspect there’s a lot of grief in the Harris family right now. We cannot parent well out of Law and Fear— neither of which are of Jesus.
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What makes me suspicious–and probably judgemental–is I can see leaving a church for a variety of reasons. But when people say they’re abandoning Christianity because of what happened at a church, I doubt their commitment to Jesus.
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Roscuro, I think the word is still out on whether Josh Harris has left / is leaving the faith. I read a couple of pieces about what he said, and one reader argued (fairly effectively, I thought) that what Harris actually said is something akin to “The purity message was so tied up with my view of Christianity that to question part of it feels like questioning all of it.” He may well toss all of it, but I’m not convinced he has done so at this point. The separation from his wife is a concern, but I don’t know anything about that (cause, seriousness, who initiated it) and it’s not really any of my business, so I’ll wait and see on him.
I was pushing thirty when “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” came out, and I refused to read it. The author was simply too young to be writing a book intended to overturn cultural norms. And the fact was I had already distanced myself from typical dating, since I had had roommates who got their hearts broken several times, and it simply didn’t seem like a merry-go-round I wanted on. Several years later I had to edit a book on the subject written to parents, and the author had some good things to say but was way too extreme in how she said it. (She basically equated things as innocent as a casual date or holding hands with someone to whom you aren’t married to adultery.) I had a fine line agreeing with her on what she got right but guiding her on the extreme stuff. At least one of her children was a college student at the time, and I wondered how it affected the daughter’s social life to have her mom decide Josh Harris was the relational expert with the only right way to do things.
My hunch is that there have always been two groups of men when it comes to dating and courtship: those who know what they want and move quickly when they find it (her) and those who take forever to decide whether they want to marry and whether they want to marry this woman. The courtship movement has pushed the “quick” ones to even greater speed and has pushed the “slow” ones off the marriage path altogether.
I think there are some very good things about the courtship model. When I was young and single, I hated the culture in which young people would date around for ten years before they finally married someone, with multiple serious relationships in there (many of them quite physical). I didn’t want any part of that. So I really like the idea “Don’t become part of a ‘couple’ when you aren’t ready to marry, when you don’t even know if you want to marry, etc.” If seventeen-year-olds are forming exclusive dating relationships, spending lots of emotional energy on each other, kissing, and so forth, but not marrying till they’re twenty-six or twenty-eight (ten relationships later), that is unhealthy and unhelpful in multiple ways. But the answer isn’t to make the first date as serious as an engagement.
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I picked up some unspoken nuance in Harris’ statements about his faith as well.
“The information that was left out of our announcement is that I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus,” Harris wrote. “By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian,” he added, “I am not a Christian. …”
Now, he may be saying that his “measurements” were incorrect all along, it’s not particularly clear. But he does seem to be taking quite a major step back from everything right now, including Christianity.
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This was more of his statement on Instagram:
~ I am learning that no group has the market cornered on grace. This week I’ve received grace from Christians, atheists, evangelicals, exvangelicals, straight people, LGBTQ people, and everyone in-between. Of course there have also been strong words of rebuke from religious people. While not always pleasant, I know they are seeking to love me. (There have also been spiteful, hateful comments that angered and hurt me.)
The information that was left out of our announcement is that I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus. The popular phrase for this is “deconstruction,” the biblical phrase is “falling away.” By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian. Many people tell me that there is a different way to practice faith and I want to remain open to this, but I’m not there now.
Martin Luther said that the entire life of believers should be repentance. There’s beauty in that sentiment regardless of your view of God. I have lived in repentance for the past several years—repenting of my self-righteousness, my fear-based approach to life, the teaching of my books, my views of women in the church, and my approach to parenting to name a few. But I specifically want to add to this list now: to the LGBTQ+ community, I want to say that I am sorry for the views that I taught in my books and as a pastor regarding sexuality. I regret standing against marriage equality, for not affirming you and your place in the church, and for any ways that my writing and speaking contributed to a culture of exclusion and bigotry. I hope you can forgive me.
To my Christians friends, I am grateful for your prayers. Don’t take it personally if I don’t immediately return calls. I can’t join in your mourning. I don’t view this moment negatively. I feel very much alive, and awake, and surprisingly hopeful. I believe with my sister Julian that, “All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” ~
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What a conversation today! I’ve got more to add along similar lines to various strands of this discussion.
Yes, Wisconsin Synod (WELS) Lutherans also, like the LCMS, do not condone same-sex marriage.
But… (and this that I’m about to mention gave me pause when I first discovered it)…
…I found a book in our church library recently by a surprising author — Jen Hatmaker. (For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards.)
I saw the book prominently displayed on the new-book shelf (new to our library, but the copyright date is 2015) and thought to myself, wait, what have I read about that author’s beliefs? (I thought I’d heard she has some unorthodox “Christian” beliefs.)
Out of curiosity (and a sense that maybe I should be reading this to check if this might be a book that church leadership should be cautioned about*), I checked the book out and have read parts of it, and looked up information about Hatmaker online.
She has come out (since the publishing of that book) as being pro-same-sex marriage, she embraces full LGBT inclusion in church membership and leadership, etc.
The article about Joel Osteen that Kizzie linked above reminded me of some things I’ve read while skipping around in Hatmaker’s book. Note in particular this statement from the Joel Osteen link:
Compare that to this excerpt from Hatmaker’s last chapter, titled “On Women”:
Aside: Where’s God in that previous paragraph? Kinda sounds like we women can do it all for each other. And where are the men in the “who else…” paragraph? There aren’t any men who deliver hope, embrace the weary and lonely, teach the “good” (whatever that means) Word, take responsibility for “your people”, etc.?
Continuing:
Whew. I am woman, hear me roar.
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*I don’t know the process by which new titles get selected for inclusion in our library, but I think someone (maybe the church librarian?) reads prospective books in their entirety, as sometimes I’ve seen a disclaimer sticker in the early pages of a title. The above-mentioned book has one such sticker, printed with these words:
Even if there aren’t a lot of blatantly wrong things in the book (I haven’t read enough of it yet to know, and as you can see from the above excerpts, not all of it is in error — obviously, we do want to model compassion, offer encouragement, show hospitality, etc.), I’m concerned that having a book in our library by an author who celebrates what we call sin, even if that celebration isn’t obvious in the pages of that particular book, could lead newer Christians astray if they look up other works by the author. My guess is whoever approved that title does not know about Hatmaker’s heretical stance on practicing homosexuality or in other areas.
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Linda – For some reason, I thought that it was a reference to Sarah, Abraham’s wife. 😀
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6 Arrows, I would call that book, and your concerns, to your elders’ attention.
DJ, yes, that fuller background does seem to indicate he has walked away from the faith, and I’m very sorry to hear that. The quotes I had seen were far less clear.
Scripture directly tells us not to put a “novice” in as a spiritual leader. That doesn’t mean a young man can never be a pastor–but he needs to be tested and approved, not put in place because his daddy was famous. It shouldn’t be “He’s pretty smart for a 22-year-old” but “He’s wise and discerning, and he makes people forget his age.”
Years ago I came close to being asked to edit a book I didn’t want to edit. The woman simply wasn’t ready to write a book. She was maybe 22, and her married name would be on the book but at the time she actually wrote it she was single. (It was published shortly before her marriage.) She was writing a book to women that was supposed to be some sort of wisdom, yet she had almost no life experience from which to draw. She hadn’t been a wife and mother, but she had barely even been an adult. If she were 40 I wouldn’t gripe about her inexperience as a wife, but when she hadn’t had time to be an employee or anything else other than a daughter and a student, she wasn’t ready to write a book. We do disservice to such authors, and definitely to their readers, when we give them platforms. Such happened to Josh Harris. Publishers should have said, “You have some good thoughts, Son, but let’s wait a few years. Come back when you’re thirty, and we’ll look at the book together then.”
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Cheryl and DJ, I read his full statement shortly after it was released, which is to say, last week. I was not condemning him – there is always room for repentance and restoration – just making a comment on the ongoing fruit of certain movements based in a prosperity gospel mindset. I will, however, observe that according to our Lord, we are perfectly capable of determining the true state those who set themselves up as leaders and teachers in the Church, by their fruit (Matthew 7:15-20).
Remember that question I asked you all two weeks ago, about the pastor who resigned? He also got divorced and then said he did not believe anymore in what he taught. A few members prevaricated after that unexpected visit – “There may have been wrong on both sides…”, “We don’t know the whole story….”. Yet, we did know the fruit. He had left his wife and family, which according I Corinthians 7:11 and I Timothy 5:8, is very wrong for any Christian to do. Thankfully, he has not returned since.
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Janice @11:46- re: the male one included him/he, and the female one had her/she
I believe that is a signal that the person is referring to preferred gender pronouns. In other words, “he” considers himself male and “she” considers herself female. It’s a reaction to the gender neutral pronoun movement.
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Some random comments:
Re: behavior in church. Some people need to fidget somewhat. Nightingale bounces her foot when her legs are crossed. My MIL thought that was awful. (MIL and Hubby are the only two people I have ever seen able to sit perfectly still for long periods. Kinda weird, actually.) I fidget somewhat, too, but not in a distracting way.
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That reminds me of a scene towards the end of Pioneer Girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s autobiography. They are sitting in church (Mary and Laura were young women at this point) when a dog was chasing a kitten in the church. The kitten ran and hid under Laura’s dress. That caused Laura to shake with suppressed, silent laughter.
Mary, who was blind and did not know what was going on, “punched” Laura with her elbow and “whispered savagely” to behave herself. To me, Mary’s actions and attitude were worse than Laura’s, and Laura’s weren’t really bad anyway. (Quite frankly, I did not like Mary much after reading the book, but I think I also felt that way after reading the Little House books. Mary comes across as a bit prissy.)
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I don’t know if I would be able to use an inhaler if I needed one, since I would not be able to close my lips around it.
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Peter and Janice – I was wondering if that was referring to trans persons or is a strange new way of referring to biologically (and “identifying” as such) male and female persons.
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Kizzie, I recently was reading pediatrician’s recommendations on discipline and one of the wise observations was that children should not be disciplined for what is not obviously bad behaviour, and the example they gave was “swinging legs”. Reading the Little House books, I was always glad my mother and father didn’t forbid me from moving a muscle in church. I do remember Youngest, however, when we were both young adults, getting extremely indignant with me when I dozed off in church. She seemed to think it positively sacrilegious.
Kizzie, the aerosol inhalers are not meant to be used with closed lips around them. The trick with them is coordinating breathing in with spraying out the medication.
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A spacer apparatus helps greatly with inhalers. When Wesley used the inhalers eventually he was given the spacer, a long tube to which you attach the inhaler and the other end is placed in the mouth. It is similar to a clear plastic paper towel tube. It holds the med in the space until the breathing is right to take it in. Also we learned it was good to draw up the shoulders when taking it in to get the med in better.
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Sitting quietly in church: thirteen of mine can sit very quietly in church, doing all of the directed things like singing, note taking, standing, sitting. Two do not. I have often wondered about it Not for the older four, as we had taught them to sit quietly, but the next nine. I have asked a few thinking it was from bio home rules or foster care. I was surprised to hear a couple say they had never been in church but knew they should sit quietly. That includes the most defiant as well as the seventeen daughter with her many issues. I wondered if they might not want to draw attention to themselves or they just wanted to be polite. They could generally answer questions concerning the sermon.
That leaves the youngest two. They are able to sit quietly for hours reading books or riding in the car but the twenty or thirty minutes of sermon are too much. One minute is too much. Son squirms or kicks the chairs in front or pushes on them or has his finger up his nose or licks the dirt off his shoes, or rattles the pages loudly in the hymnal or chorsu booklet or if he manages to get a bulletin, etc. Daughter squirms and plays with hair ties or feed bag string. The squirming is not a problem, it is the noise and the messing with other people’s chairs I call him on. But they are often in amazement watching other children running around the room, doing this and that or playing games on mom’s phone or whatever.
Different tolerance levels for different people. I welcome the children but do wonder at times, what the parents or grandparents are thinking.
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From what I have seen, the children in my church seem to be pretty well behaved, with a normal amount (whatever that is) of squirming or fidgeting. No children running around, and I haven’t seen any on phones (although I don’t see everything that goes on).
I do see adults on their phones, but they are using them to access Bible apps to read along with the pastor.
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When Wesley was young I let him take a very large drawing pad into the service so he could draw and listen at the same time. I thought that was better than letting him read which would have totally tuned out the pastor’s message. I never saw children running around in church when Wesley was young, but neither were they engaged with the service.
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A lot of our kids liked to draw in church. And they were still absorbing at least some of what was preached, as evidenced by statements they’d make at times after the service was over. Proof that, oh! they really were listening. 🙂
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Such a peaceful summer scene on the header.💚💚💚💚
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We weren’t allowed to draw or do anything other than sit and listen, follow along in Scripture, etc. It worked for me, but I don’t imagine it would work as well for children with a real need to do something tactile. I am a squirmy sitter, but I don’t know if that was true of me as a child.
When I was 15 or 16, I was singing in our church’s choir, and one day after church Mom told me (as a point needing correction) that I was moving a bit with the music (moving from side to side a little, too close to dancing I guess). Looking back now I find it hilarious (and a little sad) that she felt it worth mentioning. I’m not sure it’s natural to stand perfectly still while singing or even listening to music!
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I would think a “You must sit perfectly still” edict would make it extremely difficult for a naturally-wiggly kid to concentrate on anything but trying to freeze his body in place. Doesn’t seem conducive to thinking about the service’s message.
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Peter, 4:39, you wrote about the he/him, she/her: “I believe that is a signal that the person is referring to preferred gender pronouns. In other words, “he” considers himself male and “she” considers herself female. It’s a reaction to the gender neutral pronoun movement.”
I don’t think it’s as much a “reaction” to the gender-neutral pronoun movement as it is participating in it . . . potentially. That is, from what I read (I haven’t seen it personally), in some communities one is supposed to find out what pronouns everyone else wishes to have used. So the people on Facebook may be rolling their eyes and saying “I’m female, guys–she/her” or they may be matter-of-factly providing the data, and expecting someone else to tell them “gender non-conforming: zir/zir” and they will try to remember to say “When Robin was at zir friend’s house, zir got a cat.” If I’m ever asked my preferred pronouns, I think I’m inclined to put a puzzled look on my face and say, “Um . . . what do you think?” Like, duh, if you aren’t sure if I’m male or female, ask your four-year-old. She can tell you.
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We never required our children to sit perfectly still, but allowed them to read books or draw until they were school aged. Then they had to listen and follow along in their Bibles. One or two of them learned how to take notes that way.
I have to move a little or I doze off.
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