I can easily recall one hellish Sunday morning after another in which I had to get myself and one, then two, then three, then four little children ready for church. We were never on time! NEVER! It was a running joke in our small group of friends. If anyone arrived AFTER us, they were really LAAAAATE! Now our kids are between the ages of 7 and 3. It is amazing the difference few years can make.

I am embarrassed to admit the number of fights Hubby and I had on our way to church. “If YOU had not….” “Well, if only YOU had….” At the time, we were both very involved in the goings on of everything. If we weren’t singing or teaching a class, we were helping to plant a church. So, we almost always HAD to be there. I wish I had read Hughes’ book back then.

“[Sunday worship] begins with Saturday preparation. If possible, get the Sunday morning clothes clean and ready on Saturday night. Even have your breakfast plan in mind by then. Lay out the Bibles and lessons and other Sunday morning necessities. Agree with your spouse and older children about what time you’re all going to get up in the morning in order to leave plenty of time to get ready for church. Then get to bed at a reasonable hour! Pray about the Lord’s Day…If you can make these changes in your weekend pattern, your Sunday worship will undoubtedly improve” (Disciplines of a Godly Woman, pg. 58)

Good advice! Sounds easy enough. My biggest problem is the “get to bed at a reasonable hour” part. That part is sooo important. Hubby and I can agree on the time we need to get up and set both of our alarms, but if we stayed up late to watch a bunch of episodes of “24,” then you better believe “snooze” is going to be pushed a dozen times. And, then, it really doesn’t matter that all of the other stuff is laid out perfectly. We are going to be in a hurry! Now, one could reasonably argue whether or not watching Jack Bauer mercilessly kill terrorists is appropriate pre-worship fare, but I’m not opening that one for discussion.

Nowadays, three out of our four kids can get themselves ready with very little help from Mommy and Daddy. My main job, as usual, is to get the laundry done and put away. For the most part, I let the kids pick out what they want to wear. I am thankful that they usually make good choices.

Breakfast is always simple and sweet. Shouldn’t Sunday be sweet?

We keep a stack of Bibles on our dresser or the school-table (we insist on all kids using a Bible at church whether he or she can read it or not). Near the door, I hang a bag with pens and notebooks for drawing/note-taking. It has been my habit since high school (I don’t know why, I just did. In fact, until a couple of years ago, I still had 10 year-old sermon notes on old bulletins) to take notes for personal review later in the week. I am trying to teach our kids to do the same, but in their own way. For example, the last sermon we heard was on creation. While my notes were words and sentences and bullet points, Hannah’s were pictures of the earth, sun, moon, etc. Eventually, her notes will look like mine (I pray better than mine).

That was more info that I planned to share about our Sunday mornings, but that’s pretty much how I help to get all of us out the door. Now all we need is a particular church to go to every Sunday…