Little Hellions in the Pews

Sometimes life really does imitate The Onion. On Easter Sunday, staff at North Carolina's Elevation Church reportedly removed a 12-year-old cerebral palsy sufferer from services after a mild outburst from the boy compromised what the seeker-friendly megachurch's website calls "the Elevation experience." After the incident hit the local news, the church issued a statement saying, "It is our goal at Elevation to offer a distraction-free environment for all our guests."

Given the rock-star image Elevation's pastor cultivates, perhaps this church views Sunday worship primarily as performance, and a disabled child who speaks out of turn during services as the equivalent of a heckler at a play or concert. Should Christian worship be primarily about entertainment? That's a serious theological question raised by this situation. It seems likely that Elevation Church, which comes across as a place that confuses spectacle with spirituality, has its priorities out of whack.

As a general matter, though, it's hard not to feel sorry for churches and parishioners faced with the problem of children badly misbehaving during services. It's one thing to accommodate a special-needs child who may not be able to control his outbursts. It's another to be expected to tolerate children who treat church as romper-room time.

Years ago, attending mass at my Florida parish was an exercise in anger management, thanks to the couple who sat near the front and let their three small boys run wild during the liturgy.

The hellions crawled all over the pews, made faces at fellow worshippers, and more or less acted like mass was an occasion to party. Every single week. Their parents sat serenely in the pews, unwilling to let their children's obnoxious behavior distract from their churchgoing experience. The rest of us didn't have that opportunity, given the clown show going on in that family's pew.

This was not the fault of those children, awful as they were. This was the fault of their mother and father -- and, I suppose, the fault of the church community, for not being willing to say something to them about the problem. Once upon a time, such a request would not have been necessary. Nearly all parents expected better manners from their children in public, and would have been mortified had their children acted like barbarians in church, of all places.

You can't count on that anymore. Many parents these days expect their churches to put up with their children's rotten behavior out of a sense of Christian compassion. At least I think that's the reason. It's entirely possible that these parents are so self-centered that they never give a thought to their responsibilities to the larger community, which include basic courtesy. Is it surprising that children permitted to go wild in movie theaters, shopping malls, and other public places don't grasp why they should suddenly adopt good manners in church?

All of us churchgoers who are parents have been put in socially awkward positions by our misbehaving children. If you've been there yourself, it's easier to have compassion for younger parents struggling to bring their little ones under control in church. But at least they have to try!

When our children were babies, and one couldn't stop crying during church, one of us would take the child outside. If our toddlers wouldn't sit still, or made incessant racket, same deal. We felt we owed it not only to both our fellow worshippers and our children (who had to learn self-control somehow), but also had that duty as a matter of respect for the solemnity of the occasion. If we wouldn't allow our kids to behave that way at dinner in someone's house, why would we allow it during worship in the house of God?

Some churches address the problem by having nurseries set aside for little children during services. This might make sense for churches whose theology places strong emphasis on catechetical or exegetical sermons, where proper participation in the service requires attentive listening. But it is less theologically suited for sacramental or charismatic churches, and in any case, a church's default position should be for including the entire family in services.

A church can only be pro-family in that inclusive way if parents are willing to govern, within reason, their children's behavior. Mom and Dad should be prepared to meet the congregation halfway. They may find that congregants will treat them with understanding -- and, if their difficult child has a disability, the challenge, if handled sensitively, could offer an opportunity for a congregation to grow in love and compassion.

Though Elevation Church appears to have overreacted in its particular situation, and to have handled the fallout with a dismaying lack of grace, it is worth remembering that churches are not wrong to expect appropriate behavior from children (though that will, of course, change somewhat with the context of each church). It's true that Christians are expected to "bear one another's burdens," as St. Paul counseled the Galatians. But we parents have a responsibility to respect other worshippers, to say nothing of God, and therefore to work to make sure our children's behavior doesn't impose an undue burden on everyone else in the parish.

Chances are our fellow congregants, as well as the pastor, will be too nice to say anything to us. Believe me, they notice -- and they're not blaming our kids for our kids' bad manners.