Sunday with Samuel

This
is the place to hear last week's story about the wisemen and see the surprise at the end that I blogged about a week ago. No fair starting at the end.

The time for the kids during worhip yesterday was mostly a reenactment of Samuel's Story. [3 cheers for the Story!] Lots of sleeping mats, a voice on a hidden microphone calling someone's name, a child left and came back with a message. It didn't go quite as planned but nothing catastrophic.

A couple of fun things happened in our couch barricaded foyer. We have 4 regulars: 13 months, 18 months, 2, and 3 1/2. If I have the ages wrong, sorry.

C is learning how to cut and he likes puzzles (alot!) . Cutting a coloring picture of the story in strips makes a perfect puzzle.

Toddlers playing with a doll and a blanket and putting it to sleep may not seem like a tie-in to Samuel because it's so everyday but being put to bed, being spoken to and comforted at night, are elements that are very real to a baby. And they are very real elements to the story.

One of the moms was coloring pictures to cut and paste (a boy, a boy sleeping, an old man waking) with her toddler and he's learning to say new words. I heard him say "nap" and I don't think mom prompted him. His word prompted her to tell him the story. So interesting. We really haven't been expecting anything from bringing toddlers and babies to worship. But something really is happening.

I first began to hear about worship language and vocabulary and faith language when I was talking with Barbara Pettit at Pasadena Covenant about Young Children in Worship and we ended up talking about their mult-generational services. Since then, language seems to be everywhere I open a book, no awkward pun intended. But "nap" and Samuel's story is a very real connection for a toddler. The story of Samuel and putting a doll to sleep is a real connection when you're one or two years old. What are the chances that when a child takes a nap or lays down to sleep at night he or she will think about the story of Samuel? They can't really tell us but the seeds are planted.