Appropriate Church Behavior

Appropriate Church Behavior

In church last Sunday I noted a small child who was turning around smiling at everyone. He wasn’t gurgling, spitting, humming, tearing the hymnbooks, or rummaging through his mother’s handbag. He was just smiling.

Suddenly his mother jerked him around, and in a stage whisper that everyone could hear, said, "Stop grinning. You’re in church!"

With that she gave him a slap on his hind side, and as the tears rolled down his cheeks she added, "That’s better," and returned to her prayers.

Here was a woman sitting next to the only life left in our civilization, the only hope, our only miracle, our only promise of infinity. If he couldn’t smile in church, where was there left to go? (James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) p. 92.)