Let me start by saying that after attending Shaw and Heather’s church I loved it, but even before we went I already knew it must be special b/c the people running it were smart enough to have a Saturday evening Easter service. I know that Easter isn’t about the Easter bunny, and egg hunts, etc, but let’s be honest…when you have little kids Easter morning is consumed with chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, and plastic eggs. Trying to wrangle two kids {especially boys} into church clothes and then expect them to sit still for an hour plus service after consuming mounds of sugar is a total nightmare for every parent.
Every year we show up 2 minutes before {or sometimes 5 min after} the Easter service has started despite lots of good intentions to go early and get seats together. I am always sweating from rushing to get myself ready plus two kids and trying to take a decent family photo to document the fact that I did indeed dress everyone in “Easter church clothes”. We finally squeeze into a spot on the last row with at least one of the kids in our lap b/c there isn’t room for a family of 4 to sit together on Easter Sunday unless you show up 30min early. And who can show up for church 30 min early on Easter when they have young children? No one! Hence we are sitting in one of the last rows with every other family of 4 and more with children under the age of 10. It is usually at this moment that I get annoyed that there are so many people crowded in “my” church that only come twice a year and are now taking up all the good seats. I ask why I am the one squished in a row sweating, with a kid on my lap and constantly saying “shhh!” when I attend church {almost} every Sunday with my children who can behave {pretty} well when they have room to sit on their own and haven’t eaten 100 jelly beans before 9am. About 2.2 seconds later I am flooded with guilt and apologizing to God for all my selfish thoughts. I then spend the rest of the service feeling guilty, saying “shhh!”, and shooting one of the boys the stink eye for wiggling too much when we are crammed in a row made for 10 with 20 people on it. I NEVER hear a word the preacher says on Easter Sunday.
This year though it was all different. We went to Easter church on Saturday night. It was AMAZING! I had time to shower before church. My kids were dressed in Easter church clothes, they weren’t hyped up on sugar, we took lots of pictures and were able to get there 30min early without rushing. I heard {almost} the whole sermon…I still had a 4 and 7 yo that provided a few interruptions, but overall it was pretty perfect. I’m pretty sure any Saturday evening Easter church service would have been a huge step up from my past 6 Easter church service experiences {except maybe the 3hr+ bilingual candlelight service one of my nieces went to with her boyfriend after our church service}, but this service truly was amazing. I love the non-traditional, contemporary music, big auditorium services. I also love “my” church and our church family in Pensacola, but for one day out of the year I have to give the upper hand to the churches who offer a Saturday evening service!
Easter morning we patiently watched the boys open all their plastic eggs, consume mounds of sugar, dye eggs and go on an Easter egg hunt. It was a pretty perfect Easter which began on Saturday evening!
