Recently, at our church, my husband has been leading a short children's devotional near the beginning of the church service. Every week, all of the kids in the church sit on the front steps of the stage as my husband explains to them a portion of their lesson for that week. Every week, he asks a question, the kids provide just the right concoction of cute or humorous or Sunday-school-expected answers, and the whole church is blessed as a result of it. Isn't it neat to see how the family of God is blessed when we're all together?
Well, every week, I don't really have any concerns with this set-up. The kids listen well, they're polite, and they answer appropriately. Every week, I don't have any concerns about the church kids, or my kid, parading in front of the church.
Except this past week.
My child (of all the children) decided to go up on stage without her shoes on. At first, I honestly didn't even notice. It could've been the vantage point from my seat in the pews (I just didn't see her), or it could have been because my brain has been multi-tasking so much lately that it's kind of like a computer search with so many tabs open that you forgot what your initial search was all about.
In my defense, she was sitting a few rows ahead of me prior to the devotion, so I had no direct control over what she was or wasn't wearing upon entering the stage.
At the end of the devotion as I got up to take the children to children's church, one of the other moms kindly handed me my child's shoes and explained she had taken them off while she was still sitting in the pews. And that's when it hit me what this must have looked like to others in the church.
Wait. It gets better.
Later on that same day, another friend of mine texted me a picture of all the kids sitting on stage, and this time, I noticed. Not only was my child shoeless, it appeared that she was giving herself a foot massage all the way through the devotion. In case you're wondering, yes, she does have manners and home-training on appropriateness. haha... In fact, if you sit down to a meal with this same child, she'll be the first to tell you to take your elbows off the table and to stop talking with food in your mouth. She's my little rule follower.
So what's up with the shoeless thing in front of the church? I have no clue. I talked with her about it, and I still have no clue what exactly happened. Moving forward, I talked with her about the importance of not being a distraction to the message being shared in church, etc. I know, I know, some of you reading this may think I made too much of a big deal about it. She's just a kid. It wasn't disrespectful per se, it was childish. I can understand that point of view, but we'll blame my issue with it on my Type A "this is how it ought to be" type personality for now.
Why am I sharing this whole story with you? Here it is.
Later on this week, another attender of our church texted my husband saying he had some younger family members that couldn't come to church because.... wait for it... they didn't have appropriate church clothes. One of the family members... wait for it... you probably know where this is going... couldn't come to church because he simply didn't have dress shoes to wear. Now, you can only imagine how this hit my heart when I heard that news. The complete irony of these two situations, all happening within the same week, is not lost on me.
Because of this, I really wanted to press in and see what it is the Lord was telling me. And this is what I believe His heart communicated to mine. Let the shoeless children come to me.
I'm not at all trying to add anything to Scripture by that statement. I know Jesus simply says let the little children come to me in Scripture. But what I am saying, in other words, is that He communicated to my heart this week that I should do anything it takes to let the children come and learn and listen about Him.
If it's a child (my child!) who has ample amounts of shoes at home and for some reason feels so at home in church without her shoes on, but she's learning about Him...then let her come learn about Him. Barefooted. Not disrespectfully, but child-like-ly.
And if its a child who has no shoes at all and has to stay home instead of attend church, get the kid some shoes... so he can come learn about Him.
I guess to sum it all up, we can all sometimes come into church with an unwritten code of how things "should be done," and yes, there is a way to carry out our love, learning, and worship for the Lord in respectful and appropriate ways.
But when our list of "should be done"s start to get in the way of what matters most in church (and that is Jesus Himself & the Gospel). Then we really need to check why our hearts hold those positions.
Is it a matter of what people will think about us?
Is it threatening our comfort?
Is it threatening our pride?
Is it threatening our man-made traditions?
It could be a number of things, really.
But at the end of the day, I've come to personally recognize that the whole shoe-in-church-thing is in all actuality a very American church issue. None of this would be addressed in a good portion of churches around the world who meet in much poorer communities. But you know what is addressed in a good portion of churches around the world? Something of much more value than that. The Gospel.
All in all, God's been using the events of this week to help me mine out what's truly important on the "should be done in church" list in my mind,
And it's not just about my child's shoes that weren't worn in church.
It's about all the souls (soles?... sorry, couldn't stand the temptation to use the pun!) of shoeless children right outside the church's doors that still need the Gospel.
And that, my friend, more than anything is the message God pressed into my heart and reminded my mind of this week.
And to think, it was all because... shoes weren't worn in church.
{p.s. I initially was going to end this blog post with a challenge to take off your shoes briefly the next time you're in church and just maybe you'll experience what Moses did, as he stood on holy ground.... but then my husband wanted me to make sure if you attend our church that you only take your shoes off in the sanctuary. The chances of needing your tetanus shot up-to-date going shoeless in the fellowship hall is for real. Lol}
