After nearly two months of church-skipping, I made a command decision this weekend and announced that we would be going to church. Now, I’m not thrilled with our current church, but it does have its “up” side. For one, it has an early service, which lets us get in and get out quickly. It also has a good childcare department and it’s the right size (not too small, not too big). And lastly, it’s uncomplicated. From the parking, to the quick-exit, I know where everything is; I know where I’m going; it’s just…comfortable, for lack of a better word.
My wife (hereafter to be known as “Career-mom”) doesn’t really like our church that much and holds onto the irrational belief that the perfect church is out there somewhere and all we have to do is visit enough of them to find it. She’s playing with statistics here. I, hating little more than being the new guy in a new church, try and avoid this as much as possible and I got lucky this week because the two churches she was interested in, didn’t appear to have much for the kids. So new scary church out…old comfortable church in. Yah me…I win!
Now, our oldest son doesn’t like going to the kids’ church, so after dropping off the baby, my wife brought him into the big church with us. To his credit, he did very well, only whispering overly-loud one or two times and certainly not reaching the volume that two children did about five pews ahead of us, which prompted one of the bouncers (AKA: elders of the church) to get up and politely ask them to take their child elsewhere.
But wouldn’t you know it…this Sunday was Communion Sunday. Unlike Catholics, we Pentecostals take communion at our pews. Consisting of little unleavened wafers (think tiny oyster crackers w/out salt) and an itty-bitty cup of juice, Communion for us is a complicated affair of holding onto your micro-wafer while simultaneously trying to pass the juice-laden tray to the next person without causing a complete disaster. My son was sitting next to Career-mom and I noted, quite amusedly, that she got sacraments for him too.
The whole sacrament distribution process takes about five minutes (we’re very efficient), and after everything was passed around and the Pastor had reverently recited the proper passage from the Bible about how the bread represented Jesus’ body and the juice his blood, we all partook…it was all very holy and quiet.
But just as I was putting my now-empty plastic cup of juice in the holder, my son looks over at Career-mom and me and says, “But I’m still hungry.”
You know you can’t get mad at that!
Postulates & Pastimes 