Our oldest grandson recently spent the weekend with us, a monthly event that my husband and I enjoy to the hilt. It is largely an unchanging routine: We load up the snack drawer and cookie jar, and before we know it, we are tossing the football, building Legos, driving matchboxes, designing train tracks for Thomas the Tank Engine, reading good books, singing, and playing Go Fish and I Spy. In the cooler months, we roast marshmallows over the fire pit and sip coffee-milk on the front porch. Regardless of weather, there is always ice cream.
It is a big time.
Come Sunday, we go to church.
How I delight in having my favorite five year old on planet earth seated beside me for Sunday worship.
In preparation, I return to the olden days and pull my stocked tote bag from the wrought-iron hook tucked inside our front hall closet. I am Mary Poppins as I draw from my supplies: a pocket Bible, a Bible story book, coloring sheets, crayons, stickers, two matchbox cars, a small stuffed animal, one notebook, and a Ziploc bag full of gummy bears.
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This last visit, when we arrived at church, our grandson helped us set up. (We are a young church plant that utilizes another congregation’s facility.) First, he helped his Papa haul signs — I’m strong, too! —he said as he flexed. Next, he assisted me as I lugged small water bottles to the fellowship hall for our after-service gathering. We stacked plates, fanned napkins, and then high-fived.
Soon, everyone arrived, and after our hellos, we took our seats. I told our grandson that he was a big fellow now, and as I kissed his cheek I reminded him that it was important to sit quietly and listen to his Papa’s sermon, because we would learn what God was teaching us from the Bible. He nodded, accustomed to such reminders. His Daddy is a pastor, too.
So the service began, and we stood for prayer, read Scripture responsively, sang, prayed, and opened our Bibles.
My grandson leaned his head against my arm, slowly tracing his finger over the highlighted passages in my Bible which rested atop my lap. When we bowed to pray, he scrunched his eyes closed. When his grandfather preached, he listened, then quietly flipped through his Bible storybook, and after a time whispered: Gummy bears, please in my ear.
Halfway through the sermon, long after all the gummy bears had vanished, I felt the pulse of his side-eye as I jotted sermon notes. After a moment, he reached for his own bulletin, chose his favorite red crayon, pulled me close, and whispered:
Nonnie, how do you spell humility? (A repeated word from the sermon.)
So I spelled it out, letter by letter, and he wrote the word carefully across his bulletin, head tilted. Satisfied, he grinned and pulled a matchbox truck from the depths of my tote bag and drove it quietly on his lap until the sermon’s end.
As we rose to sing the doxology, he tucked his hand in mine, and belted it out. I have since been given the inside scoop: he sings the doxology at home, too.
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Once upon a time, four little ones sat beside me in the pew, learning to be still and listen, sing, and take notes as the Bible was proclaimed week by week. And now they are teaching our grandchildren to do the same.
Train your children in the way they should go—right into the sanctuary, among God’s people of all ages, people who are praying, singing, listening, taking notes—and when they are old, may they never depart from it.
Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6
