Category: family

Church and church

On Sunday morning, Brenda told four-year-old Nellie that we’re going to church today. Nellie asked, “Is that Reeve’s place, or the place where they turn the lights off?”

Now, I thought that was funny. Reeve is the one-year-old son of the leaders of our small group, and we meet at the leaders’ house — Reeve’s house! The place “where they turn the lights off” is the building where we have our Sunday meetings, and yes, the vibe involves very dim lighting.

I like it, though, that she thinks of each of these meetings as “church”. To her, church isn’t a building you go to, it’s a group of people you meet with. That’s pretty good ecclesiology; the four-year-old can teach this forty-six-year-old a thing or two.

Saying good-bye to Christmas

I have a policy in our house about Christmas songs. It’s my idea, my own rule. It’s this: no Christmas songs before Thanksgiving! My own way to stem the tide of Christmas creeping earlier into the year.

So the kids asked me this: when must we stop singing Christmas songs? Oooh, that’s a tough one. I chose New Year’s Day; as good a day as any.

So my four-year-old daughter Nellie asked me why we can’t sing Christmas songs anymore. It was hard for me to explain in a way she could understand that if we keep the songs isolated to that time frame, it makes them that much more special. Maybe she got it; maybe she didn’t.

But Christmas this year was very green — not a snowflake in sight. And today, 17 days after Christmas Day, there are 6 inches of snow on the ground. Ah well, a little late but certainly welcomed. The boys were out with Allie today, snow shovels in hand. They weren’t exactly shoveling, Allie informed me, “more like playing.”

I’m good with that.