February 27, 2005
Special Forum on Adult and Child Behavior in Church
FEBRUARY 27, 2005
INTRODUCTION BY JEFF BRIERE
Thank you for being part of this forum. We’ll be here about 40 minutes or so, and I expect we’ll schedule another of these meetings in the future. Child care is available for this time and the children will have a snack.
In the largest, most pleasant and agreeable sense of the word, I want you to engage one another around our topic. So, this is not a debate, but a discussion and here are the rules of engagement:
I will moderate this discussion and David Reed will take notes. A summation of our discussion will be published in the newsletter. I don’t know if we’ll have that ready for the March newsletter, but certainly by April and before that, on the web site or via e-mail if you wish.
David Reed is also our time keeper. In order to give everyone a chance to be heard, please limit your remarks on any one issue to two minutes. That’s longer than you think. I have some note cards here, so you can prepare your thoughts in advance if you wish. David will signal you with a soft chime at two minutes.
Please hold your secondary remarks on an issue until everyone has had a chance to speak.
Refrain from generalizations about people. Avoid personal attacks, of course, but also mind how you express your anger or disappointment. With any complaint, try to make a constructive suggestion.
Speak from your own experience. Don’t repeat rumors or hearsay.
In a moment, I will ask Maddie Kertay to begin this discussion, but I want to provide some background first.
After the Christmas Eve service, Maddie sent me a message in which she apologized for the antics of some adults and children during the service. She said she was mortified, being that she was leading the charge to bring young families and children into the church.
In truth, up here in the pulpit, I am not much distracted by children or adults who speak to their friends during the service. I’m kinda busy and focused on the sermon. But a few kids and people were over the top at the Christmas Eve Service and I was distracted, too. So I thought we ought to discuss the situation.
This church is growing. New people are coming through the doors. If we continued to be a small family–sized church, this discussion might not be necessary, because everyone would know what’s expected of them. Just like you know what’s expected of you in your own family. But we’re growing. I expect to welcome more than a dozen new members in a few weeks.
So everyone, new and old alike must know what’s expected of them in the worship service. We all come together here, in this space, and we need to be happy about doing that and leave in a good mood. When our expectations are not met by our fellow members, we naturally feel anger. When we get angry, I believe we should talk about it.
So that’s the background. And in thinking about this situation, after talking with Maddie and Dolores, I learned three things.
1. If I have anything to say about it, child care will always be available for church–sponsored events and maybe other events as well. I tried to arrange for child care for the Christmas Eve service, but our regular provider could not be here and I did not follow through and find another person. I will not let that happen again.
2. 7 pm is too late for young children. If I ever knew this, I forgot it. It’s been awhile since I lived with young children. So next year’s service will begin earlier.
3. There is a continuum for services. On one end, you have a quiet, contemplative, spiritually moving service. On the other end is a free–for–all. In my inexperienced minister mind, I aimed for something in the middle. I welcomed children in to the service and termed it intergenerational. I thought the children would enjoy the story, be captivated by the large projected pictures and then sit attentively through the rest of the service. It didn’t quite happen that way. The third thing I learned is to be clear and realistic about my own expectations.
So after I beat myself up over those three things, Maddie pointed out that children were not the only ones whose behavior was distracting.
I have done some thinking on the matter and still would like to find a way to better put it into words, but the upshot of the whole thing is that I personally do not want my children to behave in a lesser fashion at this church than they would be expected to behave in the Baptist church down the street, or at a town hall meeting or while waiting at the Doctor’s office. Perhaps others see it differently and I am open to their thoughts on the matter and the chance for these comfort zones to define how worship and church activities are lead. I keep coming back to the idea that there is a need for broader terminology when it comes to how we set service. It is quite clear to me that we all see things from vastly different view points and that words and clarification will go a long way to making intentions clear. So I think we come to three points.
Parental responsibility involves keeping your children quiet, knowing their needs and meeting those needs in a way that does not infringe of the experience of others and knowing what to expect of any given situation.
Congregational responsibility is a process of consideration for those around us. This goes for speaking during service, prattling on during candles for community and generally being unaware of how your behavior affects those around you.
Organizational Responsibility is a set of guidelines for those who organize events to be aware of when doing so. It would address foods that kids can eat, times that kids can tolerate, lengths of services, child care at events, being careful not to exclude church members at primary functions on the basis of cost, or location and so forth.
One thing that concerns me is the amount of food that is thrown away from children’s plates at pot lucks and other such events. Parents need to monitor the portions their children take. [A rejoinder to this comment was that there often is not child friendly food at the pot lucks. It was noted that parents need to bring child friendly food to these gatherings.]
I need a tradition for my children on Christmas. They need a role of some sort they can play at the service, perhaps something that can be repeated every year.
I watch some of the kids running around in the sanctuary. I’m scared to death one of them is going to trip or fall and really hurt themselves.
I was at the Christmas Eve service. I was so angry at some of the parents for not supervising their kids. The service itself wasn’t the problem, and we don’t need two different services. We just need to have an expectation that the children need to behave or they need to be taken out of the room. There is a difference in being ‘child friendly’ and ‘child led’. We really don’t want to do the latter.
When you say it’s going to be an ‘intergenerational’ service, you have to expect some level of movement and talking. Intergenerational means that movement is needed.
The Kwaanza service came off much better. I want my kids to be with me at Christmas events. Parents need to bring some type of book, or snack, or something to keep them occupied. Maybe the Church can find a way to involve them more in the service. We can all sing ”Jingle Bells,” or some other carols like it that the kids will know.
There is a difference between fidgeting and being really loud.
Did anyone talk to the ‘offending’ adults under the auspices of the Agreement for Fellowship?
[In response, Rev. Briere explained that he had not, precisely because the congregation ahd not set any standards for behavior. Further, he felt somewhat at fault, as he had not managed to arrange child care.]
At other UU churches I’ve been in, the kids are kept in RE for a period of time – they can do activities inside or play on the playground – while the adults have their social time after the service.
One thing that would help is a clear definition of what an ”intergenerational service” is. I remember the Baptist services in my youth where the parents and the adults sat through the main church service, and the kids sat there quietly. I have the feeling that here we intend for intergenerational services to be more participative, but I’m unclear on exactly where the boundaries lie.
Meetings like this are helpful. This is about establishing a sense of community. Everyone can contribute to being part of the solution. We need to avoid getting into an ‘us versus them’ mentality.
I believe that we are currently being child friendly. I am concerned, though, by the lack of high school students taking part in religious education. I know that many of them are music students. Maybe we should consider trying to form a high school music group as a way to draw them back into the church.
If you want teenagers, you need younger adults (20’s or 30’s) working with them. The last thing a teenager wants is to be around their parents, or someone their parents’ age.
My concern is the “running around” between the different things that go on. Maybe we need some rules like they have in school: you don’t run in the halls; nor do you run in the sanctuary.
You have to get children to act appropriately when they’re “upstairs.”
Christmas should be all-inclusive. We need a service that meets the needs of both the adults and the kids. We need more kid friendly activities. There should be less lecture and more singing. We don’t want to make things too much like school.
I’ve been the parent of a disruptive child, and I pointed out at that time that the church has to find a place for them. There are ways to make kids fit in. For example, lighting candles gets and holds their attention. You can “test run” a children’s service downstairs. There needs to be a crayon box upstairs. [It was noted that there is one – but apparently it isn’t displayed prominently enough.]
There wasn’t a defined usher’s role at the Christmas Eve service.
Lack of teenage attendance is a problem for many churches. The teenagers don’t participate when we do something they say they want to do. We need to try some limited special activities (or something) for them.
Talking to people who were misbehaving - and there were plenty of adults talking too much at the Christmas Eve service, too – is important, but we need to set some ground rules first.
We need to have some fun with the teenagers here.
There is no single answer. But we need to accept that there will be, as Linda Helton observed, “cookie crumbs on the carpet when children are around.” There are three things we need to be sure we do:
Planning – we need to plan for the kids and all that entails;
Tolerance – we have to get used to kids being kids;
Responsibility – we have to assume responsibility for our kids.
I want to reiterate that we should plan to keep the kids’ snack time separate from the parents’ social time.
My motivation for coming to church – any church – is my kids. I want them to learn a sense of community and tradition.
We need to remember that it isn’t just the kids who behave badly. I would like to point out that the music played during the offertory isn’t supposed to be background for adult conversations. There is too much adult chatter, and sometimes movement, during the services, too.
We need to control the amount of time spent – some people rattle on way too long – and avoid political statements during the Candles of Community.
Can we get the teenagers to serve as teachers for the younger kids?
I just want to thank all of you for providing a liberal religious setting and being so welcoming to me and my children.
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