{"id":11481,"date":"2026-02-05T13:41:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/?p=11481"},"modified":"2026-02-05T13:41:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:41:31","slug":"children-in-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/?p=11481","title":{"rendered":"Children in Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_3347-rotated.jpeg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_3347-rotated.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11482\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_3347-rotated.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_3347-300x225.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>My wife, Janice, can still remember taking our children to church and trying to keep them from getting too restless in the pews. She also remembers the people in front of her turning around and tutting disapprovingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This also happened to another Janice, who became a Minister, and who made sure she had a child\u2019s play area in every church she preached in, so no young mum needed be put off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Reflection: &#8211;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The Bible tells us that all things work for the good of those who love the Lord, and sometimes the difficulties we overcome are what makes us better.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Geoff Serpell<\/strong> <em>adapted from The Friendship Book 2025<strong>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My wife, Janice, can still remember taking our children to church and trying to keep them from getting too restless in the pews. She also remembers the people in front of her turning around and tutting disapprovingly. This also happened to another Janice, who became a Minister, and who made sure she had a child\u2019s play area in every church she preached in, so no young mum needed be put off. Reflection: &#8211; The Bible tells us that all things work for the good of those who love the Lord, and sometimes the difficulties we overcome are what makes us better. Geoff Serpell adapted from The Friendship Book 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11482,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"disabled","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pew-stories"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_3347-rotated.jpeg",640,480,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_3347-rotated.jpeg",640,480,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_3347-rotated.jpeg",640,480,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_3347-150x150.jpeg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_3347-300x225.jpeg",300,225,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_3347-rotated.jpeg",640,480,false],"news_plugin_small":["https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_3347-rotated.jpeg",640,480,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_3347-rotated.jpeg",640,480,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_3347-rotated.jpeg",640,480,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Geoff Serpell","author_link":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/author\/geoff"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/?cat=76\" rel=\"category\">Pew stories<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"My wife, Janice, can still remember taking our children to church and trying to keep them from getting too restless in the pews. She also remembers the people in front of her turning around and tutting disapprovingly. This also happened to another Janice, who became a Minister, and who made sure she had a child\u2019s&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11481"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11483,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11481\/revisions\/11483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}