The little kids at our church sing a song with the line “reverence is more than just quietly sitting”.

Can we take a few minutes and chat about kids and church.

Our family goes to church every week, we’ve been going to church every week… well forever. So at this point I’d say that my boys have been to church at least 100 times each.

They know what church entails, and yet every week they are surprised by the required reverence.

We have officially become “that family” at church.

You know the one, the one who doesn’t have their kids under control, the one who’s mom looks like she is about to cry, and the dad is mostly asleep because he’s over dealing with the monsters.

The family with the giant bag of activities and snacks and still the kids are bouncing on the pew, hitting one another, and randomly shrieking.

The family no one wants to sit next to because how can you get your kid to pipe down when every member of this family is losing their freaking mind.

Yep that is us.

We even switched sides of the chapel to annoy a whole new group of people.

We are “that family”.

Let me paint you a picture (are you ready?).

Yesterday we got to church early (like every week), before the meeting had started AsthmaMan was attempting to flip over Mr. Spreadsheet’s leg and Harry Potter was playing this great game with the Princess that was basically him stealing her pacifier until she screamed.

It hadn’t even started yet!

So the meeting starts, and things settle down around us, but that’s just the time that Evil AsthmaMan makes his appearance.

As soon as he walks into the church building AsthmaMan is a different (and less enjoyable) child.

So everyone around us is singing the hymn and AsthmaMan is shouting “POOP!!!!” “WE EAT POOP!!”, people were starting to stare, but then again they’re pretty used to strange things coming from this corner.

The meeting progresses and AsthmaMan disappears under the bench to play dinosaurs LOUDLY! Why the T-Rex can’t just quietly munch the hymnal is beyond me, but it couldn’t.

Then he noticed that the Princess had Craisins, and SCREAMED that he wanted some too (but not his own, because that would be too easy).

Meanwhile Harry Potter is trying to steal toys from AsthmaMan (which is really improving the situation) and snacks from the Princess, so they’re both super excited and not frustrated at all.

AsthmaMan and Harry Potter decide they need to “wrestle” for one of the stupid plastic dinosaurs, this ends in tears.

Then… then as if the rest of the screaming and fighting weren’t enough the Princess decides to test her voice out in the chapel.

This means she took out her pacifier and SCREAMED at the top of her lung for.no.reason! She would scream, giggle, shove her pacifier back in, and then repeat the entire process.

Then AsthmaMan decided to sing with the congregation … except that every time the rest of us would say “Jesus” he would shout “POOP!”

It was an amazing day, but honestly pretty typical for us.

By the time the meeting ended and we were off to Sunday School I wanted to cry. My previously clean clothes were covered in half eaten crackers and my nicely flat-ironed hair was frizzy.

I think for the moment I would be ok if reverence was just quietly sitting.

Actually scratch that, I would be ok if reverence meant that we didn’t SCREAM at all during church.

I’m sure some day I will look back and laugh at the circus that surrounded that 75 minutes each week, but for now I just look back and cringe, and look forward with dread. Some day this is going to be totally worth it, right?

Oh and as a side note, I saw AsthmaMan in the hallway with his Sunday School class… walking with his arms folded and his mouth shut… so it turns out he can be reverent… with 10 other 3 year olds.