How one handles a crying baby is a test of whether you are preaching or performing.
A Crying Baby…or Two?
By now, many folks would have read the reports of an exchange between the Republican nominee for President, Donald Trump, and a tiny baby.
It seems a baby began to cry at Trump’s rally within earshot of the nominee. First, Mr. Trump addressed the situation charitably:
“Don’t worry about that baby. I love babies,” Trump said after hearing the baby crying during an aside about the trade imbalance. “Don’t worry about it. I love babies. I hear that baby crying, I like it. What a baby. What a beautiful baby. Don’t worry, don’t worry. The mom’s running around like—don’t worry about it, you know. It’s young and beautiful and healthy and that’s what we want.”
But then after two minutes of crying, Trump called for the woman and child to be ejected from the speech:
“Actually, I was only kidding, you can get the baby out of here,” the Republican nominee said to laughter and applause. “That’s all right. Don’t worry. I, I think she really believed me that I love having a baby crying while I’m speaking. That’s OK. People don’t understand. That’s OK.”
For the Republican nominee, Trump wasn’t able to speak over a crying baby. And that made me realize that these speeches–at least for Mr. Trump–are more about his performance than they are about his connection to the rest of the crowd.
Preaching…or Performing?
For preachers, a crying baby also tests whether one is preaching…or performing.
A few years ago, I was at a Conference where each day the Bible Study was led by a performance artist/theologian who acted out the biblical story and gave some exegetical/theological insight to the Scriptures. The content was terrific: substantial and challenging. But on the second day, a baby began to jibber-jabber loudly in the audience. After a few minutes of this, the performer stopped the show, looked in frustration at the baby and parent, and said “I love children, but I’m getting really distracted.” The parent and child got up and left the room…followed by several other parents who went out in solidarity and in protest.
I talked later with the parent and I made this claim: a crying baby is a test as to whether someone is preaching or performing.
- A performance is about focus and transmission of content: a solo or group act is on-stage doing an activity (singing, dancing, speaking, painting, instrument performance, etc) and it is the audience’s job to receive the content and appreciate or engage it.
- A sermon (and I tend to appreciate black preachers’ definitions of sermons and preaching) is “verbal and nonverbal communication of the inward manifestation of a command by the Holy Spirit to relate to others something about God’s presence, purpose, and power in one’s life and in the life of all of humanity” (Teresa Fry Brown, Delivering the Sermon, pp. 17)
Given these two definitions, I get how babies can be a distraction to a performance. As a parent of a toddler and a 10-month-old, my crying baby seems to be about 10x louder for me than she is for other people. Her cries are amplified, her running commentary on her dad’s sermon pierces through a crowd. So I get how a baby would interrupt a performance’s transmission of beauty or message because they interrupt that well-crafted focus.
But those practical considerations do not overwhelm my theology of the moment: Preaching is about naming and claiming God’s love present in the room. The Holy Spirit isn’t given to the preacher and then transmitted to the people: that Spirit is in each one there communicating back and forth from pulpit to pew. Churches that have call-and-response to the preaching moment get this phenomenon–and to them, crying babies are just another “amen” section.
The preacher is preaching if they connect with the congregation: calling out a crying baby and causing them to leave idolizes the spoken word as more important than the body of Christ fully present in the room.
Engaging the Crying Baby Test
I think you can tell a lot about a preacher by how they handle the distractions and especially the babies in the preaching moment.
There are practical ways to respond:
- churches create “cry rooms” so that parents feel more comfortable (and, to be honest, some non-parents as well).
- Other parishioners can help comfort the baby if the parent is okay with it.
- I’ve seen my share of church-fails such as when another parishioner took a baby out of the parents hands and walked with the baby out of the sanctuary–had I been a more fully aware preacher, that would have merited a call-out! Let’s be clear: Parents self-selecting to take a baby out is one thing: public shaming or pressure to send a baby out is wholly another.
But in the end, it’s my belief that if I can’t preach over, above, through, or alongside a crying baby, then I have no business preaching. And I should do serious reflection as to whether I am performing the Word of God or if I am allowing the Word to speak through and without me. If the latter, I should be confident that the Word will not be stopped by a crying baby–and indeed, it is incomplete without the presence of all who need to experience it.
What say you?
(Note: some content appeared in this September 2013 post)
I love screaming babies in my church!.
You can’t tell me screaming kids weren’t around while Jesus fed the 5,000! Ha! What I do anytime the baby gets loud is say “Hallelujah” or “thank you very much!” It never fails to make the people laugh. Sometimes it’s important to let people know the grace of God is so easy going that I can stop a sermon and just lift up that baby in prayer and laughter!
Hi Jeremy,
I am reminded of a situation where a clergyperson went to the crying baby and actually took the baby forward and continued to preach while comforting the baby….this could perhaps lead to a question of taking too much authority or completely embarrassing the parent….or as it did in this instance, it showed awareness of the pastor, who was comfortable doing so with the family (this I found out later)……but as parents, we know that our crying child is far more distracting to us than anyone else…..
Crying babies are signs of life and the future. Having served in churches with no children at all, the sound of a child is beautiful compared to the deadly sound of silence.
Re: OP. To quote a self avowed expert on the responsibility of the community for children, “What does it matter?” The liberal left judged it not to be important on 1/23/13. Odd now that they should now be so concerned.
Hi. I’m having trouble translating your comment. Can you interpret your words of the expert, the date, and who the liberal left is that declared children don’t matter? Thanks.
“What does it matter?” Clinton testifying on Bengazi. 1/23/13. Considered by left-wing liberals to be unimportant. Odd now that they should be so concerned about the response of Trump when a baby cried. Left-wing liberals have been turning a deaf ear to the silent screams of children since 1973.
Ah, so a post about children and church leads to commentary on Bengazi? That doesn’t seem to be a reasonable parallel, even throwing Trump into the mix, so I really didn’t get anything out of your comment.
Your pardon. Commonly read this and other blogs. Have always found this blog to mirror left-wing liberal Democrat positions. Read the current post and thought it to simply be a politically driven slam at Trump under the cover of a supposed concern about children. The phrase… “What does it matter?” was Clinton’s quote which reflected her own politically calculated attitude toward the killing of the American ambassador and three other Americans at Bengazi. Other than being concerned about political embarrassment, she and her side gave that matter little notice. Same exact approach demonstrated to issue of industrial scale abortion in this nation. Other than being concerned for any political blowback, she and her side demonstrate no concern.
Hillary fails the honesty, integrity, loyalty and corruption tests.
How do those tests relate to the content of preaching and crying babies? Otherwise, it seems like you are not engaging the content appropriately.
So you were actually talking about crying babies? I thought you were talking about Trump. My mistake. Carry on.
The sound of a crying baby in church is a sign of the future. Not only is there a relative new born in the congregation, but also at least one young or younigsh parent in the congregation. I am absolutely comfortable with a baby crying in church, and have been known to take the cry as a sign of affirmation or disagreement with the sermon, which ever helps make a point.
By taking babies out of church, we begin the process of taking children out of church. If is is okay to take babies out of church, then is it okay to say that a toddler who cannot sit still should not be allowed in church? How about a teenager that whispers to a friend and giggles. At what age do we allow children back in church? If we wait until they are adults, then we risk running them out with their babies. The church is a family, made up a people from birth to death.