Today was Mother's Day, and I was visiting a church in the Palatine area called Harvest Bible Chapel. It was a very nice church. But I noticed something today that has increasingly become a church-pet-peeve of mine. This isn't specifically a criticism of Harvest, because to be honest, I don't think I have ever been to a church that hasn't done the exact same thing.
Here's my pet-peeve. Because it's Mother's Day, one of the pastors said something like, "We'd like to stop and recognize all of the moms who are here today." Then they asked all of the moms to stand, and then the whole congregation gave them a round of applause. Pretty typical church/Mother's Day stuff, and it drives me crazy. Why? Do I hate mothers? No. Here's why this is a pet-peeve. It started with a conversation I had with a guy I knew in Colorado 2 or 3 years ago. We were having a conversation the Sunday after Mother's Day and he said he had just come back from a trip to the mountains. He said, "We always go out of town every Mother's Day weekend." I asked why.
He said, "My wife and I have tried to concieve for 15 years and we just haven't been able to get pregnant. It's been a real spiritual and personal struggle for us. One Mother's Day we were sitting in church after a particularly rough year, and the pastor invited all of the mothers to stand. All of the mothers got up, and I just sat and waited for it to be over. I gazed around the room, as the congregation clapped and congratulated all of these women for giving birth. Then my eyes fell on my beautiful wife sitting next to me. Tears were streaming down her face. I grabbed her hand, we got up and left. And from that day forward, I decided I would never put my wife through another Mother's Day at church. We'd take a weekend, just the two of us to get away."
Now, I know you can't please everyone, but let's be real. Mother's Day is a Hallmark holiday. It's not Easter or Christmas, even though Church's treat it like it's some kind of traditional religious benchmark of the faith. Many Protestant churches don't even observe Good Friday, and we treat Mother's Day like Jesus
celebrated it himself.
Now, if you want to make mention of Mother's Day in the church service I think that's fine. I know motherhood is a noble thing. I know that it's a hard job, and moms deserve honor from their kids and husbands. If you want to say during service, "Hey, make sure you call your mom today or take her out for lunch." that's a great idea. But don't. . . DON'T. . . make them stand! It makes every other non-mom in the whole place feel like total poo. It would be like having a church service on Valentines day and saying, "Would everyone who has a date today, please stand up? Now, all of you who are going to be sitting at home alone tonight, let's congratulate all of these lucky folks who've found love!" See my point? I think we're making more non-moms feel bad than we're making actual moms feel good.
That's my opinion anyway. Thanks for listening to my rant.
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