You all know I struggle with maintaining balance when it comes to our church activities and family time/structure...I have learned last night that Jason has taken on the youth as another activity for Wed. nights now while Emma Grace and I are busy with Pioneers and MITI (at least they are in the planning stages and he's one of the planners). I just wonder what will become of my little boy during this time. Hope the youth group likes him because that's probably where he'll be if Bibbi and Papa don't come get him. :) I just think with all the activities our church is doing, we really need a paid sitter on at least Sun. and Wed. nights ("oh no", Michele says, "she didn't just say that!" Ha!) for those nights when we are involved in leading our church children, mothers, youth, and congregation. It's just an hour, so I'm not concerned about a sitter for him for an hour, be it grandparents or paid sitter, but I am concerned about when we will eat supper. With Jason not getting home M-R until 6pm, I guess I'll have to start feeding the children at 5:30pm by myself in that rat race it already is because I flat refuse to eat dinner at 7:45 or 8:00. It's not feasible for children who are supposed to be in bed by 8pm or 8:30pm. Jase is WHIPPED by 7:30 or 8:00 when we get home, so we'll have to work out something different or this mommy is going to have to stay home evenings too and let daddy do the work of ministering and being involved. 8th floor psych ward, here I come! (JK)
So I pose the question to you all, do you think you can become what I call over committed to God (that isn't possible since our lives are totally about Him anyway, right?!) and in turn miss out on time with our families and ministering to THEM first before we focus on outward ministry to our church family? When they are involved too (the kids) and when they aren't rocked so much by a weird, altering, unexpected schedule every night of the week (babies are not good at weird schedules and our 4 year old proved that eating dinner at 8:15pm works out very poorly for sleep the other night!), then we as parents can be more involved. Wish the time for activities could be 5:30-6:30 or something like that. I'd love to help out with the youth--I've worked with youth for 8 years so far in my profession--but I'm just not sure how much I can be stretched without popping. Just an item of discussion...
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2 comments:
You crack me up! And you know me so well! LOL. Our Wednesday's are screwy too. Brad is at church until about 11, so it is a hard day for us. What I do is (even still and my "baby" turned TWO today!!!) put Jamey in the sling and he joins me where ever I need to be. If I am helping somewhere, Jamey just goes with me. I feed the kids an early lunch and then an early dinner so we are ready to go to church by 6:00. I also do their baths in the morning on Wednesdays so when I get home (without Brad) after church, we can quickly do jammies and brushing teeth. I just have to plan ahead and have things ready before hand so that it runs smoothly.
As far as having workers at church to help out with nursery or whatever, there are workers in place, but I don't utilize them. Big surprise there, eh? I guess my thoughts on that are this: When Jesus was here, during his teachings he didn't send the kids off to another area. He wanted them near to hear his word also. I don't believe sending the kids to their own classes/nursery is biblical. You would be surprised to hear what my kids have picked up from being in the services, classes with me.
Now my older two do go to their own Sunday school classes, but our pastor is trying to implement a "family" Sunday school class so we don't have to do that anymore.
That is just my experience. I understand that wouldn't work for everyone. Want to hear something funny? I am the nursery director. I coordinate all the workers for Sundays and Wednesdays. LOL.
We can agree on this - Wednesdays stink. It is so hard with Brad being gone day. I feel stressed most Wednesdays. But, in the end, it is worth it. It is nice to get out of the house, socialize, etc. I sure do enjoy my time after everyone goes to bed on those days!
Wednesday nights are one of our favorite nights of the week. LOL. We are blessed b/c our church does a Fellowship dinner at 5 and then we are all involved in Awanas from 6-7:30. The kids & I usually don't get out of there until 8 since I'm always one of the last to leave. And until recently, I did the whole routine by myself with all three kids b/c Chris was commuting from Cola.
My children all love their classes and none of them are just being "watched". Our nursery director is amazing. She is fully committed to sharing the Word with the children from birth. She starts teaching them Bible songs right away and by the time most of them are a year old, they are patting their little Bibles and singing B-I-B-L-E. They know that Jesus is in the Bible and He loves them so much. They pray and praise. The can tell you much of what Jesus taught. I sometimes learn more teaching a preschool Sunday school class than sitting in the service. There's something to be said for focusing on the basic truths. It is such a blessing to see. I think it's important for them to be taught at their level though I do think they can learn much from simply being around it.
As for being overcommitted, I definitely think it can happen. My first misson field is my children and my husband. I also know that God has called me into ministry on staff at the church with the children for such a time as this and so I just trust Him to provide the balance for me. My kids love going to church. Bethany (my youngest) pretends she's going to church when she's at home. And if anyone was going to be tired of it, it would be her.
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