Out of the mouth of babes...

"Maw Maw, we need to talk. Turn the radio off." My five year old grandson said to my wife, Trish. She was taking him home from church after the midweek service. Although Zach's mom was at the service, he had asked that my wife take him home, so she obliged. The request to turn off the radio was a little unusual for him. Although my wife did not tell me the station that was playing, the dial is usually on His Radio. Zachary loves His Radio.

This Wednesday night service was different. Rather than dismiss the kids and youth after praise and worship, we kept everyone in the sanctuary. Our midweek attendance has been down lately, with school activities and sickness, and I wanted to have all available people for a meeting that was needed. Our annual Harvest Festival would be coming up in 3 days, and I wanted to make sure we had all bases covered. This is a major outreach for our church, and requires much planning. The meeting I had called for was one that was of the round table kind. Except there was no round table. It was an open format, with a couple of key people telling where we were, how we would do things, and what was needed. Talk was going on in several directions. This is where the problem arose...

I didn't know there was a problem, and in reality, there wasn't. At least not from my vantage point of assessing everything. But as Maw Maw was driving Zach home, he needed to talk. Trish relayed the conversation he had to her. It was something like this:

"Maw Maw, I have been in a lot of meetings. This one was not done right. Everyone was talking. When a meeting is taking place, everyone is supposed to be quiet, and you listen to the person up front."

As I said, I had asked a couple of the outreach leaders to the front. In the midst of their communication, people were responding back and forth. There was also one lady making rounds and talking to people while this was going on.

A meeting out of order? Not really. But what stirred me was that the kids learn early. Zach understands a lot more about flow, order, and reverence than a lot of adults. He may have misinterpreted this one, but at least he is watching.

Art Linkletter used to do a show called, "Kids say the darnedest things". Yeah. You can learn a lot through a child. One of the perks of being paw paw is that this time around I am actually still enough to listen. And I am loving it!

Got any kid stories about church? I'd love to hear yours.

Pastor Ronnie