I remember when...

I never grew up going to church. My family did not get ready and head out together on a Sunday to goto church. My earlies recollection of going to church as a boy always brought the thought of boredom (sometimes today I still feel the same way depending on where I am going :D ) .

When I was about 4 years old, my mother dressed me in some beige dress shorts and matching beige button up shirt and told me to wait outside on the porch for the Sunday School bus that would come and take me to the local baptist church in my hometown of Brockville, Ontario. I immediately began to dread the moment the Sunday School Bus would come, because I felt those people were 'mean' (to be honest I was a rather rambunctious child and I probably irritated them :D ). As I was waiting the thought crossed my mind to hide. Let the bus come but I would be nowhere to be seen. So I did just that. I HID. I crawled under the porch of this old house and hid. The place where I hid used to be used to store coal many many years prior, but it still had the coal dust and plenty of it to get the Beige outfit all nice and black. So as I proceeded to get dirty, I heard the bus pull up and the driver called my name, then my mother came out and called to. After waiting for a few minutes they could not wait any longer and they left. At which point I crawled out of my hiding place, black from head to toe from coal dust and marched into the house.

I guess I wrote all that to give you this moral of the story. Kids are very perceptive about when they are wanted and when they are not. Is your house a welcoming house to your children? Is your church just 'tolerating' them or have you focussed on them?

It is time for the church to not just tolerate the children, but to love them, no matter what problems they come into the church with.

Matthew 19:14 (New International Version)

14Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

Until tomorrow.

Dale