God's Will: The First Weeks

This started out as a daunting task and a crazy leap of faith.

Since then, God has given blessing after blessing, and many awesome answers to prayer.

So here we were, in this age-old building with a congregation with 1 or 2 people in their 50's and the rest of them upward of 60's, 70's, 80's...we even have a woman that is now 103 years old!  She comes almost every Sunday, bless her heart!

I decided to weather "big church" with my kids that first Sunday, armed with activity bags.  I put coloring books, crayons, markers and marker boards and some little characters in each bag, thinking it would occupy them for an hour. 

My girls did fine, but my boy wanted nothing to do with sitting still and being quiet, thank you.  I brought lollipops, but that didn't last too long.  Only 10 minutes or so into the service, my 3-year-old was army-crawling under the pews.  I was mortified.  Here we were, trying to make a good first impression, and he was being himself.  Kids have no desire to make a good first impression.  They have a desire to explore, have fun, and get into trouble.

The congregation's reaction was my first big relief.  I had to wait until he made it out from under the front pew so I could retrieve him.  I heard chuckles and saw smiles and a few, "Isn't he cute?" comments were made.  I knew I was safe.

BUT I also knew couldn't do this every Sunday.

I found out that one of the women of the church loves to teach Sunday school, so she started a class for my kids when we had only been there about 3 weeks.

I was thrilled!

I tried attending the adult Sunday school, but really had very little in common with the group.  I also had a burning desire to improve the classroom situation for our kids.

Our old church's kids' ministry wings were filled with kid-sized furniture, bright interactive halls, age-appropriate toys and activities, and plenty of technology.  The least I could do was clean out some classrooms.  But they were really, really packed full of stuff.  They had been used as storage space.  There had been no use for them.

First things first.  Every Sunday for weeks during the Sunday School hour, I worked.  I rolled up my sleeves and began to remove things.  Praying, praying, praying as I cleared each square foot of clutter.

I started with the 10 x 10 foot nursery.  Removed 12 kids' chairs that made it impossible to walk through the room.  Took out the dilapidated kids' table, and trashed some old toys that had no use left in them.  Or were scary looking.  Checked out the cupboard - threw out all snacks (who knew how old they were?), old pla-doh, dried up glue sticks, etc.  Collected any toys that came from the 1980's or prior and donated them to the local thrift store.

Once that room was all cleaned out and wiped down, I looked at what was left.  We had a glider rocker (very good for a nursery - any infants that came could be rocked), a tv/vcr combo - that was an interesting relic, but it worked and there were plenty of vhs tapes.  A wipe-off board, a light colored carpet (improvement over the original pea soup green carpet), a storage cupboard and shelf.  This was a good start.  After a few cleaning sessions, it was functional, but not great.  I could use it during worship services, but it needed...more.  I raided our toy and book supply at home - we were no longer using many baby/toddler toys or books.  They really spruced up the room.

I also brought some age-appropriate toys and games for my kids.  From their own collection.  Don't worry - we left all of their favorites at home.  I bought some window clings and colorful posters to hang around the room at the Dollar Tree.

After those were hung up and the new toys were arranged, it looked great!  Since then, we have added a changing table, which added 2 more storage shelves for toys.  This also made the space baby friendly (the real purpose for having a nursery, right?)

Here's a current picture of the nursery.  I think the light was off.  It's usually brighter in here.  

And yes...there are two stained glass windows in the nursery.

As I labored to rid the nursery of clutter, my hubby labored to learn how to preach and how to care for the people of our congregation.  He had been a youth pastor for roughly the past 7 years and was...used to a much younger crowd.  He has a Master's degree in theology and his Bachelor's was in Christian Thought.  He had plenty of material - but the trick was to learn how to shape it into a sermon for the people of this church.  He has loved learning about the Bible since childhood, but he avoided every speech and preaching class while in school.  He never thought he'd need to speak in public.  Who would want to do that?

But God had other plans for him.

Isn't that how exactly how God works?

We have our plans, but God has something better, greater, and more faith-stretching than we would ever choose for ourselves.