Sunday, November 8, 2009
In the spirit of Bloggy Love and good Christian hospitality, TftT is thrilled to welcome an anonymous guest poster today. Please welcome her into your homes as you would your own house of prayer.

Hi! How was your Sunday? Oh, we haven't met? Sorry! I'm anonymous military spouse/disgruntled chapel-goer. Nice to meet you! I just know you're dying to hear all my thoughts on the chapel on base this fine Sunday morning, right?

I went down there this morning with my husband and two small children. We've tried all the English speaking churches around here and don't really like any of them. It didn't take long; there are only three. The chapel is really convenient, and roomy. There's all these families here now and they keep talking up how great it is for families now, lots of new housing, facilities and programs. I thought the chapel would be great, nice and welcoming, maybe with a nursery and/or Sunday school for the kids. Jesus loves the little children, right? There's even a song, for God's sake! I guess the chapel here didn't get the memo, because they obviously hate children and don't want them around at all.

There was no Sunday school or nursery at the service we went to, so we sat way in the back by ourselves. There weren't many people there, so we weren't bothering anyone. There is a little room in the back, intended for crying babies, but it appears to be full of musical equipment. Our two-year old isn't too good at going to church yet, so I took him out pretty quickly. At the end, I came back in to pick some tags off the Angel Tree so we can get some gifts for less fortunate children. While we were discussing why some kids need Angel Tree gifts, the almighty holy colonel in his shiny robe was making an enormous fuss in the back pew, calibrated precisely for our 'benefit': 'Cracker crumbs! Someone ate a cracker back here and there are crumbs all over!' Keep in mind there were less than ten people at the service and he knew exactly what he was doing.

Now, we try to pick up our crumbs wherever we go and don't make a habit of dropping cracker crumbs in church. Since I had taken the little one out while my husband stayed with the older one, we didn't notice the crumbs. Crackers were only eaten in church in the first place because there was no nursery. Is that really such a big deal? What is the chapel telling people when the boss man of the place acts like that? This is what it says to me:

  • Keep your grimy kids out of our church;
  • We don't care enough about our community to offer childcare or children's church so families can come;
  • The chapel floor is more important than a kid's feelings; and
  • Passive aggression is the way to go.
Is that what Jesus would do? I don't think so. He would definitely write a blog post about it, though.

1 comments:

Wendy said...

Wow - how unfortunate that they have a nursery room that is rarely used. And no Sunday School in session?

I suggest doing what my husband's former church did. Hire a non-Christian to watch the children, so nobody misses out on church AND the little children get some fun coloring books (the pictures of Jesus were very popular in the nursery where I worked) and VegiTales!

I agree that church is supposed to be a place for a family. If they want the attendance, they either need to provide child care and education, or accept the cracker crumbs.

They could recycle them into communion bread...

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