by Caroline Anderson
There are some definite positives to online church as a family – the biggest one being it cuts out the need to leave the house. Michael McIntyre does a brilliant sketch about the difference between leaving the house as adults and doing the same thing when you have children – honestly it is so difficult and often leaves me questioning whether it was worth it. The other main positive is no embarrassment about the noise that the kids are making. Thankfully we’re all muted and no-one can hear what’s going on in our living room, which is often shouting, crying, singing anything except the song being played, bashing toys around etc etc.
On the waiting room slide when you first join the Sunday Zoom it says something about putting away distractions. I asked Justin the other week where we could put the kids, but we couldn’t think of any options that wouldn’t make us unsafe and neglectful parents! So some of the struggles to online are that we can’t always hear what’s happening as both children love talking their way through the service, and we keep having to pop out to the kitchen or upstairs for various demands (why is there always a toilet–related situation between 4.30 and 5.30 on a Sunday?). I remember thinking at the beginning of 2020 about Ruby turning 2 and that we might be able to leave both children in Treehouse at some point. We are still waiting for that day.
So Sunday services can be hard in person or online when you have young children. About six months after our first child Faye was born, I wrote a blog post about adjusting to church life as a mum, and I recognised the need to make an effort with Sundays even when it was difficult and didn’t suit our routine. But at least then if it didn’t quite work out on a Sunday we had some midweek meetups and were able to still see people from our church community. Now I think for us it’s even more important to prioritise being online on Sundays as we don’t have the extra meetups. I’ve found it so difficult that I can’t run the Tea and Tots group like I used to, and I can’t wait until we can start up again.
Having said all that about the struggles, we still look forward to our online church service and the kids always say they love Sundays (although I think that’s partly because they often stay in their pyjamas for most of the day and we have more exciting snacks). It’s important to us that our whole family are known in CCC, so we have decided to keep our camera on even when it’s chaotic and our house is a complete state – hopefully you’ll all be happy to take us as you find us! Faye and Ruby enjoy spotting people they know on Zoom and we make a habit of pointing everyone out so that they still recognise people they may not have seen in person for a while. You might have noticed them sticking their faces in the camera, and they’ve been known to exchange online high fives, waves and hello messages with various people.
One thing we have tried is that one of us goes upstairs into a different room to listen to the talk, which can be good as we take it in turns to be able to concentrate each week. However, this has depended on my emotional state – recently when the Covid situation has been getting me down I find I just want us to be together as a family, and I think that’s ok – it’s a difficult time.
Online church is tough for most people. There’s just no real replacement for being in the same room; singing, chatting, praying, listening, laughing and crying together. But while it’s not safe and we’re not allowed to meet in person, I really appreciate that we’re doing our best to stick with each other and have as much community as we can. Online church would be terrible if you weren’t all there – the reason we stick with it as a family is because of all of you, so please remember it really does matter that you’re there, we do notice. And thank you so much.