Why don't more adults go to church?

An article I recently found. It alludes to the fact that the church provides free childcare. I wish I knew a little more about who wrote this and where it comes from so I'll just post it in it's entirety. This is written by a comedian Bob Smiley...

Why don’t more adults go to church? This baffles me because when you really think about it, the church has exactly what most adults are looking for: free child care. How are people missing this? Every church in the world has a nursery and that alone should get every parent in town banging down the door to join! In fact, we should market this type of blessing. Forget about knocking on doors in hopes to share a bible verse. We should find a house with a bunch of kids. (see: look for 182 broken toys in the front yard and the phrase “WILL YOU STOP TOUCHING ME! I‘M GOING TO TELL MOMMMM!!!” coming from inside the house) Just go bang on the door. Twenty minutes later when the Mom can finally get to the door, simply say, “This Sunday, for two hours someone else will watch your children for free, what do you think about that?“ You know the Mom would shout, “Halleluiah, praise Jesus! If I get baptized will you take them now?”

People would be excited about going to Church if we marketed this! You know, I use to wonder why my parents were so happy about church but I‘ve totally figured it out now. I’d be excited too if I could get a break from me. On Sunday morning, my parents acted like kids at Christmas time! They’d come running into me and my brother’s room, start jumping on our beds and shouting, “Get up kids! Its Sunday morning! Come on! Get out of bed! Let‘s go to church! Get your church clothes on! No, Bob, you don’t even need to brush your teeth, you’ll get a peppermint at the end of class! Let‘s just go! Woo Hoo!”

I understand that excitement now because I have it, too. Every Sunday morning as I’m jumping on one of my three kid’s bed and saying things like, “Colter, put down your brother and put on your church clothes! Colter, listen to me! Put down your brother! Oh man, ok. Stay calm. Help him back up. That‘s right, help your brother get the band aid on and let‘s get him in the truck! ITS CHURCH TIME!!! Who wants a peppermint?” Our churches would be full if we‘d embrace and market the free childcare angle! I remember once saying to my dad, “Do we have to go to church?“ My Dad smiled and said, “No.“ I said, “Really?” He said, “We GET to go to church” I came back with “Great. Do we GET to sleep through it?” but he was too busy jumping on my bed and shouting “Woo Hoo!“ to hear me.

Nowadays, Wendy drops off our two older kids on Sunday morning and I take Zander, our youngest, to the nursery. By the way, church nurseries are run by people who volunteer to be in there! They volunteer! First of all, I don’t know what kind of sin a person commits where they feel like the only way to work it off is to volunteer at the church nursery but man, I’d kind of like to know what it is. Its got to be a pretty bad one. I’m listening to 20 screaming babies as I’m dropping one more off. I’m handing our youngest kid off to the volunteer thinking, “Boy, bet you wish you’d never gone into that bar.” or “Here’s another baby, should have never went to that website, huh? Bet you’re regretting it now.” or “If you wouldn’t have voted for Kerry you wouldn’t have to be in there!” You know, whatever the sin is. I don’t really know what it is and I’m not really there to judge, except silently in my head of course because I‘m a Christian.

Our church nursery has a system where they assign each kid a number and if the kid is being a problem then they flash that number up on the screen during the church service. If your child’s number pops up on the screen you’re supposed to go get your child. Well, I don’t think that’s very Christian because that’s gambling. We’re all betting against our own number and that’s wrong. I know this is bad but my wife and I ignore the number. We’ll see our kid’s number flash up on the screen but we pretend we don’t see it. It’s not fair because normally we’ve only been in the service for 2 minutes. It’ll be a small number up in the left for awhile. Then the number will start flashing. After about five minutes the graphic gets bigger until its covering the song or the scripture. Wendy and I just sit there looking straight at the pulpit as if we are in a coma with a smile. One time the nursery volunteer came into the auditorium looking for us. She had Zander on her hip. He was hitting her with a Larry Boy Doll while singing the Veggie Tales song. She never found us though because Wendy and I had the wig and glasses on.

So, every Sunday I drop Zander off through that half door thing into the nursery. Zander is accident prone but not toward himself. It always involves others. The nursery volunteer is always like, “Oh, is Zander staying with us today? Great! We just got the highchair fixed again and you may notice that its almost time to take out my stitches.” (I‘m thinking yea, if you‘d stop sinning you could get out of there). Then she goes into her speech, “Here’s Zander’s number. Now you keep watching the screen and if the number 666 shows up, that’s Zander! Is this his diaper bag? Cause---uh---It looks like a suitcase?” I reply with, “Well, you never know how long Carl is going to preach.”

And that’s another thing, Parents dont care how long the preacher goes! People with out kids are always saying, “I hope the preacher only goes 15 minutes.“ Not us! We’re praying the preacher goes long! I’ve been known to shout, “Preach on brother! Take your time! Ignore these Pharisees! You listen to the Lord and what He‘s saying. You listen to the Lord and me and we’re both saying to go long!” One time I shouted out, “Read the Genealogy!! And this book is chock full of hymns!! Come on everyone, lets get our Hymn on!!” I’m not proud of this but once, during a church prayer, I even snuck back and wound the clock backwards to buy Wendy and I more peace and quiet. However, someone looked back and caught me. I played it off by saying, “I’m just praying back here, dude. I’m praying near the clock because God is time, He’s unlimited time. Besides, you shouldn‘t even be looking back here. We’re praying right now! You don’t look up when your praying! That‘s a sin. You go right now and work it off in the nursery!”