Sunday mornings can be a struggle with kids. We want desperately for them to fall in love with Jesus. We want them to be excited about getting up and going to church. But often times, it's a battle just to get them there. Maybe it's just the us, but we've walked into the church building wearing a huge smile, hiding the truth that minutes before we were angry and yelling about getting in the car to go and worship God! REALLY! Some of that is life and we'll live in that tension until we get to heaven. But here are some thoughts to help us enter the sanctuary in a different spirit. As we talked about in a previous blog, church can be just another event on a busy family calendar (can I get an "amen"). Why not be intentional about changing that. Don't wait until Sunday morning to get kids ready for church, start today. I know it's Friday... but Sunday is coming.

Today is the day to start talking about Sunday plans. Ask your little guys what they are looking forward to on Sunday. If they go to Sunday school, start talking about the lesson that they are studying. Find ways to tie what they are doing on Sunday to what your family is doing this weekend (one resource that you might want to check out is www.famtime.com). And maybe as important as anything, plan your Saturday night - get them to bed at a decent hour (OK this is definitely one that the Pritchards need to work on!!!). It's harder to have a great attitude on Sunday morning if Saturday night was a blur. I know (I really know) that sometimes it's impossible. But we want to be characterized as making Sunday morning (God) important in our family's rhythm. We talk a good talk, but we have to be disciplined enough to live the talk in front of our kids.

Often times Kelli will bribe (yes you read correctly "bribe") our kids on Sunday morning. Especially if our schedule has been crazy. She'll make muffins or we'll go buy donuts, something to help start the morning on a positive note. The bottom line is, preparing our kid's hearts for worship shouldn't begin at 9am on Sunday. It should begin right now. As a matter of fact, this isn't a bad idea for our own hearts as well!