Sometimes I get distracted at our church, which began as a Christian coffeehouse. With such origins, there is a counter at the rear of the room stocked with carafes of coffee. Although there is a designated time in the middle of the service for people to fill their cups, some folks tend to do so during worship or even during the sermon.
I find it distracting, even though the pastor doesn’t seem to mind people getting up from their seats and wandering to the caffeine supply. Perhaps I’m just too old school in believing that church is a formal affair that demands silence most of the time.
As a baby, my dad once started crying in the sanctuary. The minister stopped the service and ordered my grandmother to remove the squawking child from his presence. There wasn’t a lot of tolerance for children expressing themselves in the 1910s.
My dad went on to be a preacher himself for 65 years. Whenever a baby started to fuss and the mother would get up to leave the service, my dad would encourage her to stay in the sanctuary. “I can talk louder than the baby,” he would say. Such informality is a good lesson for me.
Honestly, it bothers me most when people get refreshments during worship. There can be pleasant distractions. For example, I'll notice movement, so I'll look up and see someone raising his hands to God. That kind of distratction makes me tear up with joy. Then again there are movements that distract me, so I glance up and realize it's just somebody filling their coffee cup. I try not to even give it a thought because I want all my focus to be on God, but it's disheartening nonetheless. I don't mind if people don't want to focus on what's happening at the moment, but I wish they wouldn't be so blatant about it.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree, Lauren! Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, it is very distracting and possibly a little rude to the speaker...but then I am old school too.
ReplyDelete