listening and leader sheep

We keep the little ones in church with us.
Unlike our smarter friends,
it had never occurred to us to
practice
sitting quietly for church.
It was never an issue with the other kids;
after forcing them to go to their classes
against their will,
they were thrilled to stay with us.
Not so with this new batch of kiddos, though!
Needless to say
we have had more than our share
our unpleasant Sunday mornings.

Years of yucky Sundays!
Sometimes, we would ask each other
why
on earth
we were putting ourselves through this.
But still
we felt it was the right thing.
One day
I was talking with a young mom
whose children always sat so nicely in church
(I hated to sit in front of them,
for fear my children would corrupt hers)
She told me they worked on it during the week.
I thought she was brilliant!
And so we practice
(but not as much as we should)
and we have a list of things we do

and don’t do
at church

and talk about it weekly.
Things improved, but still weren’t great.
Last Sunday, though,
Jeremiah and Josiah were perfect!
And Lily wasn’t too bad, either.
The sermon was called
‘leadersheep’
and our pastor talked about sheep & shepherding
and focused on a particular breed of sheep that were leaders.

Today we drove to Ozark to buy some more chickens.
From the twenty we bought March 29th
we have two.
On the way there
Jeremiah sees some animals out the window
and says
“I saw some leader sheep!
and they were big”
(they were cows, but that’s not the point)
~
Tyler and I just looked at each other and smiled.
~
And that is why we keep our children in church with us