Pastor Matt is the tits for calling out the lady and her annoying kid, and her sub-par pareting skills by giving her kid a shaker. Which is even more reason to make use of the “kick ass” kids program. The little kids do not listen let alone understand what Matt is saying anyway, so Im all for requiring kids to be put in the program, and the parents too if they need to.

I too was quite distracted by it during the first service, but that is due to my mass ADD. Still, i love how real Pastor Matt was about it and how he addressed it right there. Definitely parents should send there kids to the programs. I myself am involved in Pipeline, and i think they would be way more ‘entertained’ in the since that they can learn about God more effectively with kids their own age.

Is it me or the whole idea of child care is for the “child” to be “cared” for while the parents can actually enjoy a great sermon?? Nothing scientific to me about it. I have a 20 month old toddler boy. Enough said. I would leave church (with the DVD in hand) before I had the pastor call me out. Sunday’s to me are like my meal for the week. It keeps me going-minus the distractions. I was in the second sevice today and I was shocked that someone had there kid “up front”, “making commotion aka: back flips”, “shaking a rattle”, and then refuse awesome child care (go Janie). If I can be REAL with you all…I will…I say she was being inconsiderate to others around her and pastor matt. BUT, the sad thing is that she might have gotten robbed of a good sermon because of this distraction. I hope she comes back and drops off the kid at flip flops. =)

I see it both ways. I don’t have any kid-o’s but I do wonder if they (that family) will come back. Those programs are in place…and maybe Matt was letting her and everyone else know at a perfect time that you’all have them. Church is still all about community right? For me, kids never seem to bother me, but I always feel sad/nervous for the parents who are usually upset about them making a fuss.

I know it’s remote… but what if there was a reason this particular lady brought her kid to big church this week? What if her husband just left her or died or she had some other tragedy this past week? Maybe she was seeking God by coming to church but also needed to hang really tight with her family members right now for some reason.

In general, I think I do like rules about not bringing kids into adult worship. But, I think the way that is worded and presented is VERY important. Words are powerful and help define culture. The “rule” should tell the reason why in a convincing and loving way. Any sign or communication about who is allowed in the worship center is one of people’s earliest impressions about your church, so I must be crafted well.

Maybe we try our best on wording stuff like this and then test it with a “focus group” to tell us how we are doing. If that sounds too hard… then maybe kids in the worship service aren’t such a big problem.

Ref: IKEA’s use of signage/wording and “The Tipping Point”

We have some kids in our church that are notoriously loud and obnoxious. It drives me insane.

So, how do you go about tactfully telling these people that they need to stop letting their child go nuts during a service? We’re a smaller congregation so I know these people really well and don’t want to damage the relationship.

Any suggestions?

I was thinking of making a “child care IS available! RIGHT NOW!” PPT slide, then everytime a kid made a fuss during the service our video guy could display it onscreen.

At my church in the States the staff is always ready to politely steer parents bringing children into the service to the nursery area. But, if the parents don’t comply, they have a special section near the door for parents with nusery-aged children. It seems to be very effective because I don’t recall ever hearing a disruptive child in church.

Story about this type of situation … when I was around 5 years old I remember the pastor kicking some pre-teen boys out of a church service. Obviously since I still remember it to this day it had an effect on me and probably every other child/parent in the room. I knew to NEVER even think about being disruptive in church.

I believe this issue needs to be addressed if it’s in the middle of a service and someone is being distracting. But there also need to be preventative measures in place in order to keep as much peace as possible.

(As a teacher, I sometimes have parental/sibling interruptions in my classroom. I refuse to continue teaching until they be quiet or leave.)

Hmmm…..I don’t think I have to say where I stand!!

(thanks Jaime & Poice Man for the love!)

I’ve often wondered what this issue of kids in a worship gathering would have been like in the early church. We make big deals of kids distracting others from encountering God, etc but in the 1st century they were mainly in large homes, with families, etc. So how did they deal with this?

At one level you wonder why parents would bring their child into the service and then proceed to sit on the front row…it’s like your just looking for trouble with a toddler on the front row.

And then you have the great irony of ‘we love your kids’ so much that we don’t want you to ever have them around us …just kidding, but it is a sweet irony.

I am completely convinced that children need their own place to learn and experience God. In our church we actually have 4 theaters just for children. They rotate from their classes to one of the theaters during their service time.

This give children the experience of sitting in a worship service and teaches them not only about God, but how to worship, how to behave in the service etc.

I am even further convinced that parents need their own time too. For one, many of these parents cannot focus on the message if their child is in their lap. Further the people around them have a hard time focusing when a child is disruptive.

If we allow children to sit in the service and disrupt – then we could very well be distracting someone from hearing the gospel and miss the encounter that God had planned for them that day.

At my church we do have children in service from time to time – for one reason or other a parent decides to keep their kids with them. If the child becomes disruptive, ideally the parent takes them out of the service – which again is a major distraction for the parent – but hopefully minimizes the impact on the others in the room.

In the case that a parent doesn’t take the child out – our security and safety team members are instructed to help the parent understand to remove the child. In reality our safety team just asks them to move to the cry room. The cry room is equipped with video feeds and audio of the service.

So far we have not encountered a parent that refused to remove their kid – but if that day comes — it might be interesting to watch how our guys handle it.

We have some great guys on the safety and security teams – I believe all of them are very caring and committed to being discreet and helpful more than forceful. But the sheer size of some of these guys is pretty intimidating at best. So they are pretty effective by just having to ask someone to step out.

I guess the day they have to forcefully remove someone is the day we call up the police and ask to borrow their Tazers.

LOL – jk on the Tazer part.

Man, Los, your timing couldn’t be more perfect…had the week off at my place, so we visited my old church with my folks today. A once-a-year program where all three services gather together in a nice hall. Wonderful program, music, etc.

Until the baby-shrieking starts.

Our new one (2-1/2 adoption, first time at church, home a week) gets restless, so my wife heads out the hall. Sadly, a few others with poor social skills could care less about the pre-service announcement about kids (we love ‘em, but don’t let ‘em interrupt) and let the poop-demons cry and wiggle without a care in the world. Aigh!

The loudest, and most extended, fit comes as the pastor is leading new believers through their prayer of salvation.

Single the numskulls out and make ‘em feel embarrassed. There are no rational excuses. Period. PERIOD.

Selfish. Ignorant. And Lazy.

I think a no kids at all policy would be short sighted. I remember trying to find a church with two young kids and how freaked out they became if I tried to leave them in one more strangers arms. I would sit in the back or in a cry room if they had one. and leave if needed. I feel for Pastor Matt and the Listeners and it must be addressed, but think a middle ground can be found like some that have been mentioned. I think if you have some special “ushers” that are able to softly guide parents that come in with kids to a back section while telling them of the great child care if they were open to that option. Then if their kid acted up and they didn’t have the common sense to step out with them, the same usher could ask them to step out and maybe step out with them and use the opportunity to find out what their story is and show them some real care and love on them. You never know if this is the one family that someone has been praying for and loving on and hoping would one day come check out church. perhaps they lack “common sense” because for them there is nothing common about coming to church.

Choices. We all have them to make and we all make them. The choice here is leave, out of respect for the other 99.9% of the worshippers that didn’t bring an infant into an otherwise “adult” service. Take your little babe to the trusted nursery, have faith and enjoy the fact that noone will be staring daggers at you during the service.

Hey! I’ve got 6 kids, who have all spent a lot of time in church, and i can’t remember ever having to be told to remove my unchained melodizer from service. Now I have a grandson that goes with us every couple of weeks and I never (I really mean NEVER!) take him into service.

It just takes away from everybody’s chance to connect. Some folks might say it’s a double standard, how we want young couples in church but we don’t want their kids. But there is a time and place for kids to be in a service and it’s not until they can behave and be quiet. Like about age 25, maybe?

So, the choice is obvious! Submit to those who know what’s important and put the needs of the many above the needs of the one. Leave now, for the sake of peace.

Grandpa “G” -> Out ->

Kids DO belong in church! (sorry BH) But, it is up to the parents to teach them during the week in various situations how to sit and not be a distraction to others. I think that your pastor was wrong to personally point her out in front of EVERYONE out of his own frustrations. At least have staff available to do it discreatly. COME’on! Yikes, then to go ahead and make sure the other 2 services could gossip and scorn her as well? Yikes. Not everyone parents the way we think they should. But we shouldn’t publicly put them in an awkward position.

I agree with Rick that some of this is due to cultural perspective. We have gotten to a place where we believe that adults and children should be completely segregated to worship God. I fail to understand how a fussy child would keep someone from receiving the Holy Spirit. Life happens. Crying kids happen. Early christian meetings took place in the home, where everyone could participate. I have been in crying rooms, foyers, nursing mom rooms and the back row for about NINE years now, with a baby hanging off me like a monkey, yet I still chose to worship, open my bible with my one available hand, lift it in praise, pray with my eyes open so my crawler didn’t put something nasty in his mouth. Life happens. Circumstances may not be perfect in order for you to study or worship, but nevertheless we are called to do both. Its not so much about having children in church, its about parents not being responsible for adequately training and disciplining their children when out in public. And when they do act up, and they will, then be gracious toward them (they are kids, for goodness sake) and others around you.

Oh, and even if an usher walked up to that lady and took care of it, it still would have been embarrassing and a distraction.

i TOTALLY see both sides. first of all, i would never bring a toddler into a church service for obvoius reasons…toddlers aren’t expected to sit still and be perfect little angels for over an hour. i believe that sunday school is definitely where they should be…for everyone’s sake, it’s good for kids to be in their own place with kids their age to have their own church, for sure.
an infant, on the other hand, is a different story. if you are strictly nursing your baby, how are you supposed to leave your infant in the nursery (without any food?). as for me, i know that i would be so distracted during the service wondering if she’s hungry (i guess that’s when the pagers come in handy, though).
however, if you do choose to bring your BABY in to church, it should be common sense to take them out of the room as soon as possible (and sit near to door) if they start to cry. nothing really phases me, i’m pretty much immune to kids noises, but i can see where it could be distrasting for a lot of different reasons. i do see where matt is coming from. (and leia will join the babies in the nursery pretty soon, i hope we’re not distracting anyone).

Would you let your toddler play with a loaded gun? Ride their bick in the street? Drive your car? Pick their own dinners? Of course not! Why? because those are not age apporpriate activities for a toddler. Well neither is sitting still and quiet for 45 min straight! So put the little darlings in child care! Thats why we spend all that money to provide it. DUH!!!

I was there, in the front row, 1st service, and don’t remember a thing from the first half of the sermon because I kept asking God to forgive me for hating the oblivion on the end of the row with the rowdy kid. This child was not bad, just a kid being a kid. My guess from the noise and stroller is that the child was between 6 and 12 months old. How sad is it, that instead of discussing the actual sermon and the wonderful gift God gave us in His Son Jesus, all this bandwidth is being wasted talking about one clueless parent without the awareness to understand that she is ruining the service for everybody else.

For all the people who can’t bear the thought of being seperated from their precious bundles of joy, even for an hour and a half. Please, do us all a favor – stay home! Thats right I said it! STAY HOME! I mean really, what did these parents get out of coming to church? ZIP, NADA, GAR NICHTS! Why? because before Matt called ‘em out they were pre-occupied with keeping the little darling quiet and thinking about the daggers people were staring at the back of their heads. Then, after Matt said something, all they were thinking about was how embaressed they were and how they’ll NEVER come back to this un-friendly church! EVER! Spritiual growth – Zero.

Should Matt have called ‘em out from the stage. No. He shouldn’t have needed to. The real failure is that we let Matt down. Not one of us (volenteers or staff) was aware enough (or in my own case, brave enough) to deal with the issue before it got so bad that it affected the entire congregation. I guess the real leson here is that Sandals really isn’t the little church where everyone knows you name anymore. That we are going to have to put in place some policies and training for our ushers and greeters. What if instead of a loud kid it had been a real security threat? We are in a war people, the enemywill do what ever he can to disrupt God’s message. This week it was a loud toddler, next week who knows?

Posted mid-thought there; my bad.

Sandals always felt like an open, welcoming place to me – long time Christians, new Christians, people still seeking, strippers looking to get out of that industry, etc. I guess I wonder whether this mom / fam left feeling like Sandals was an open, welcoming place.

Of course there was an alternative provided for her kid(s) that is open / welcoming, and she didn’t take the opportunity, so that is her call.

Probably no easy answer on this one

Well put Bobby.
Well Thought Out.
Well Put.
Los

Feeling a need to clarify.
I said earlier I thought kids belonged in church. I know babies and very small children create distractions. It would be proper for the parents then to remove themselves and the child from the service. I don’t like the idea of banning all children from the service. My 12 and 10 year old are capable of sitting and listening during a service after they have attended a sunday school class. I love what Bobby said about worshipping and kids seeing others in corporate worship. That is a very good influence and experience for them. My 6 year old would benefit from this worship as well. Can he be a distraction? Yes, and I have to work with him. I don’t deny him from children’s church by any means. But I would like the opportunity to start to bring him into services with me as well from time to time.

I would have walked out in the middle of church and never come back… I don’t need to be around pretentious, arrogant preachers… let alone learn from them.

No kids under any circumstances! If they leave, sorry. There are churche that allow kids in the service. Our church isn’t one of them.

i totally love Pastor Matt! and ya, children and babies in a “grown-up” area just don’t go well…and parents should totally know that and have respect for others and get rid of their children for a few hours and take advanatge of “alone” time with God

I was distracted. I also get distracted by the guy with the bic pen clicking it, click, click, click, click, or the lady chewing the gum, smack, smack, smack, or the candy wrapper, or the popcorn, crunch, crunch, oh wait that only happens at the movies. I know there are no solutions. But church is not about me, I know who Christ is. It’s about worship and serving so that those who don’t know have an opportunuty to see Christ. I say send them all to Janie because who wouldn’t want their kids loved on by her. And just like I can rent a movie to be away from the popcorn noise, I can always get the CD to catch what I missed.

I’m sure Jesus would feel the same way tammy.

I bet Jesus would be glad that “mrs. elephant” left a church feeling unwelcome because there was “an elephant in the room that got addressed…”

I’m pretty sure Jesus had sudden outbursts of anger while he was preaching and some kid was running around…. especially in Matthew.

Matthew 19 (The Message)
13-15 One day children were brought to Jesus in the hope that he would lay hands on them and pray over them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus intervened: “Let the children alone, don’t prevent them from coming to me. God’s kingdom is made up of people like these.” After laying hands on them, he left.

By the way…
“I’m sorry for this woman who most likely was embarrassed, I’m sad if she leaves thinking Sandals is unloving and that our pastor is_____________ whatever… some of you have filled in the blank… But I’m glad this elephant is out of the room!

In my opinion this totally negates any “apology” that was offered.

hey carlos, what happened..I said way more than that

I’m a SAHM. No one watches my kid but me. That includes a kick ass program. I will send Nick to the nursery if our friend is working (she works one Sunday a month). When he’s older and less out of the stranger danger phase, maybe. But right now? It’s more about me than about him. Jesus welcomed the children. Thankfully, our Pastor does as well.

I might have kicked that preacher in the teeth. Or allowed my kid to. Or something. How insanely rude.

Brody, I was thinking of the same verse in Matthew when the disciples wanted to send the children away but Jesus told them not to stop these little ones from coming to Him. And then I heard this clear as day, “Matt Brown isn’t Jesus”. He is a man, just like you. He did what he thought was right at that time. I highly respect my pastor and when you sit in a pastor’s church every sunday for a few years you get to know their heart. And I know his heart aches for the lost and dying and in no way would he have intentionally wanted to scare this woman and her children away. We are a work in progress, right Brody? I would much rather be in a church where the Pastor freely admitted his faults and inadequacies than let everyone continue to think he was a holy and righteous “Pastor” all day everyday without any struggles.

I hear you, Los, Sandals does a great job of encouraging authenticity and discouraging judgement. I grew up at the church down (actually, across) the street… so I feel you here.

In this situation, though, just from reading here, it seems like passing judgement on Toddler Mom’s handling of the situation (or on the haters, for that matter) is OK, but passing judgement on Matt is not…?

Where are the boundaries? What is “judge-able” and what is not?

I don’t know… just asking the question.

Lots of defense for Matt going on here… as it should. You’re right, Denise, he’s not Jesus, he’s a man.

Less defense for the mom/toddler going on here… though she is not Jesus either…

Matt’s position allowed him to admit his faults and apologize. Toddler Mom doesn’t get that chance.

well said, whittakerwoman…

First of all, we all know that good “debates” make for good blogs, which is why this is comment #63. I’m not bent out of shape and I agree with you, Carlos, that no one needs to get their feelings hurt.

To me it seems unfortunate that “most of the “haters” last about 1 week”. I know plenty of people, that “hate” Christians, that need to last longer than a week at church. Perhaps someone would consider rewriting the ministry statement on the church website, if what you say is true. Was this woman “welcomed into a relaxed and receptive environment”?

My argument is not with the pastor. As stated in these comments and the original post, the pastor apologized and (for all we know) was forgiven. My problem is with the comments left by people pointing out the mothers “sub-par parenting skills” or maybe calling the woman and child an “elephant in the room that needed to be dealt with”.

Don’t get me wrong. I have three (very active) boys ages 4, 2 and one month old, and would (and do) gladly sit in the back of the service when one of them needs to be in there with us.

Who ever said that a pastor needs to be perfect? I never ask for that in my church, and never expect the pastor to view the congregation with the same deluded mentality. However, in this case, yes, your pastor was wrong. No, your pastor isn’t Jesus, but his profession is to be representing Jesus to a room full of people. And so is yours. Simply saying the “haters” should take a walk is the furthest thing from what Jesus would tell them. Again. Doesn’t sound like a “relaxed and receptive environment” does it?

Regarding your statement of “I highly doubt that Brody or Jenna or a few others would last a day in our environment”…

The reason I asked what “your environment” was, was simply because your churches “environment” is printed (using the same exact word) on your website. To me your description and the one advertised at Sandals, are completely different.

I understand a lot of people having your pastors back on this one, but he realized he was wrong and admitted it to two more services. I think that was big of him and the right thing to do. Why is it that the people he is shepherding can’t do the same and realize that what he did was wrong?

**I don’t know why these are italics either… it could have something to do with the amount of comments and it bringing it into a “hot topic” on your blog.**

Brody – you communicate very clearly in your posts; very well written…

Probably a semantic thing… but I think you and Los may differ on the definition of haters… I don’t think he’s referring to people that hate Christians… rather, maybe to professing Christians who like to hate / judge…

I think Brody’s assertion that haters should NOT take a walk was built on the idea that your definition of “haters” meant “non-Christians”…

Semantics again… but, seems like it plays a part in the discussion and disagreement here.

If haters = overly judgemental religious types… then Scripture tells more than one story about Christ dealing with them…

I hope this isn’t considered “beating a dead horse”, but since the conclusion was “agreeing to disagree”, I think I will point this out:

“… Jesus called to himself a child – the essence of one who is powerless, dependent, needy, little, and poor. He placed the child ‘in the midst of them,’ as a concrete, visible sacrament of how the Kingdom looks. Jesus’ act with the child is interesting. In many of our modern, sophisticated congregations, children are often viewed as distractions. We tolerate children only to the extent they promise to become “adults” like us. Adult members sometimes complain they cannot pay attention to the sermon, they cannot listen to the beautiful music, when fidgety children are beside them in the pews. “Send them away,” many adults say. Create “Children’s Church” so these distracting children can be removed in order that we adults can pay attention.

Interestingly, Jesus put a child in the centre of his disciples, “in the midst of them,” in order to help them pay attention. The child, in Jesus’ mind, was not an annoying distraction. The child was a last-ditch effort by God to help the disciples pay attention to the odd nature of God’s kingdom. Few acts of Jesus are more radical, countercultural, than his blessing of children.”

Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens: A provocative Christian assessment of culture and ministry for people who know that something is wrong, 1989, 96)

Hey, guest pastor here. Here’s what I try to say from time to time:
Welcome to worship, we love your kids, we have a great kids program for them, However if you would rather have them stay in worship with you, we just ask that you handle them how most of us would like to be handled. If I start to whimper a bit, I hope someone would give me a hug and maybe walk around with me a bit. But, if I start causing a distraction and yelling, I hope someone would take me out in the hallway and figure out what was going on. We just ask that you handle your kids how you would like to be handled.

Or something like that.

LOL re: had to just move on to the next point…

I have no idea what I would’ve done in Matt’s shoes, Nathan. I’ve had stuff happen while I’m up there, but it has always gotten handled by someone who was off stage – or, worse, it was ignored.

This one lady used to bring a tambourine to church every week and play it during the worship music. Great except she had ZERO RHYTHM.

bobby.

I hear you on the consistency thing.

However, that was my first comment and after that exchanged 3 or 4 emails with Carlos, asking whether the pastor apologized. Carlos mentioned that he even took the lady out to lunch. That was cool enough for me.

Until….

I read the comments by the pastors wife and several other attenders of the church.

I figured that my first comment would raise a few eyebrows and look at that… it has. Yeah it was passing judgement on the pastor, imagine that… lashing out in “anger” and being called on it… where have I heard this story before??

This is my favorite though…
“To be honest with you bro, that one statement turned me off to anything else you had to say.

I wonder if that happened on Sunday at Sandals…

ahahahahahahahaha

Alrighty, on this whole topic, honestly, I’m just not reading all 70 comments thoroughly – sorry – but I’m kind of a big deal and that keeps me too busy to read so much stuff. ; )

I’m gonna blog more on this topic soon I hope because this whole post of yours, los, reminds me of a lesson or two I’ve had to learn the hard way over the years performing…

There are reasons we’re together in a place called “church” as the community called “Church” that go well beyond the production and preaching. Children, the handicapped, the elderly, the simple, the fat, the tone deaf – they all either detract from someone else’s experience of certain aspects of the church (show) OR can’t fully participate, understand or appreciate it.

But we aren’t together in authentic community only to fully understand, participate and appreciate the teaching and other performances on a Sunday morning. We have value beyond these abilities. Children, for example, are living metaphors of acceptable religion, examples of the attitudes and values our spirits must take on in order to be followers of Christ.

AND a church that doesn’t allow interruptions, noise, mistakes, distractions, is not – I think, having not been to yours – a “real” place at all. Life is filled with all these things. And I fear that my having to pay tribute to and listen to God in a perfect vacuum poorly prepares me to continue listening to and paying tribute to God in my noisy and less-than-perfect real life outside the sanctuary/gymnasium.

it seems to me that one of the compliments I hear paid most often to Sandals is that it upsets the staid Christian full of Pharisaical expectations and that it is a place of acceptance for the outsider, the spiritual seeker, the bruised, wary and worldly. It seems – again, I haven’t been there myself – like a contradiction then to require the gym to be a distraction free, kid free, squirm free, noise free environment, mimicking the most traditional cathedrals you guys – I’d think – want to be the opposite of in many ways.

I know what it’s like to prepare a sermon/performance and have it not be the center of attention. That hurts my ego. A sure sign that I’m prideful. And anger is a confirmation of that. At least in my life.