Zachary's Sermon Notes

Since age five, our children have been sitting with us in "big" church. I cannot claim this as a personal conviction, but rather a necessity since there is no class provided at our church for kindergartners and older children during the worship hour.

Despite our lack of choice in the matter, we appreciate it and consider it a great opportunity to instruct the boys on how to participate in corporate worship of our Heavenly Father. The Sunday morning training is not always easy, and occasionally we leave frustrated and feeling like our own worship experience has been far less than ideal.

And then, some days are true blessings, like this morning.

Our expectations for Zachary, age 7, are that he reads the Scripture passage to himself once the sermon begins and then completes the sermon outline given in the children’s bulletin. After completing these tasks, he is free to draw as he listens, but he must not talk, pass notes, or play games (like tick tack toe) with other children.

Today, while listening to a sermon on being selfless, he exceeded our expectations. I give partial credit to his fifth grade friend, Katie, who sat beside him. She did not have a children’s bulletin, yet took some notes and copied down Scripture references as the pastor mentioned them. I appreciate her positive example and the parents who are raising her.

Zachary also took notes this morning, which blessed me and will always be precious to me! Here is what he wrote:

-dont blert out stuff without thinking
this is hard.
-dont let strangers in your house
-dont start a fite
-love others
-pay otinchun [attention]
-tell others about God if you our a cristhten you go to heven
-dont beg
-help others in need
-love God wership only God
-dont wership idles
-Be nice
-dont make fun of others
-act good
-dont use bad werds

So maybe we need to work on spelling and sentence structure a bit, but I'll take these grammatically incorrect sermons notes from my youngest son over perfectly written pointless words any day. I am encouraged that God's Word and desires are growing in his young heart more each day.

“At that time Jesus said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.’ ” Matthew 11:25