From the Minister's Study
Samplings of Newsletter Columns by UU Ministers
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From Rev. Jane Rzepka, UU Church of Reading, Massachussetts,10/31/98
On Babies in Church

Two weeks ago, in the body of the newsletter, I said this about babies:

For me, one of the greatest aspects of church life is babies and little kids. We want them to feel happy, included, and at home in our congregation, and we want their parents to feel that way too. So we have a dilemma, a dilemma that needs to be handled with a lot of sensitivity, when these wonderful children make a great deal of noise or engage in various antics during parts of the service designed for adults.

I went on for awhile, and concluded by encouraging you to keep me posted on how you felt. I was both very happy and quite moved by what you said. Essentially, we all seem to agree:

* We like babies and children.

* We like our worship services, and want to be able to hear and to focus on the words, music, and our own spiritual feelings.

The plot thickens: * We understand that while we offer excellent child-centered programs, for various reasons, it works best for some families during some periods of time to have parent and child in the sanctuary together, and we want to accommodate that.

Many of you have offered:

* To honor those people who are easily distracted or who have difficulty hearing by covenanting to move with your children to the foyer if and when the children are noisy or rambunctious (or even incredibly charming!), and enter into the service via loudspeaker, and soon, video monitor.

* To welcome newcomers who have children, let them know that we offer child- centered programs, and, if they would like to participate, help them get settled.

* To work in the future with those parents whose children seem distracting week after week (that is not the case with anyone just now, by the way), in hopes of finding a solution agreeable to all.

* To relax a litte, knowing that we are a vibrant community of coughing, sneezing, cooing, chuckling, whispering human beings of all ages, who want, above all, to live with one another in loving community.

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