When my children began equating hatred of church with hatred of God, I knew the time had come to make some changes.

About 18 months ago, I decided to homechurch my children. I thought that if parents could homeschool, then maybe homechurch would work, too.

I watched my children roll their eyes at the cute skits, write notes during the sermon, and stand with arms folded during songs.

 One of the last Sundays we went to a church service, my daughter whispered in my ear, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Why does every song have to have that word in it? Like twenty times?”

I didn’t have a good answer, so I laughed and shrugged my shoulders, but I knew that I had to accept that this type of spiritual teaching was not working for my family.

When I announced we were not going to attend our church anymore I received cheers and hugs.

However, once the initial excitement subsided, the oldest looked at my warily and said, “Where are we going to go now?”

I told them that we were having church at home. Immediately my son said, “Oh no! Mom is going to preach forever!”

I promised that I would refrain from long sermons—they do know I love to preach a good sermon—but that this would be a communal church where everyone contributes.

Here is the plan that I presented:

• Sleep late on Sundays.
• Come to church in your pajamas, but please brush your teeth.
• Mom cooks and we all eat together.
• One person is in charge of the spiritual focus.

Everything sounded good to them until I said, “Spiritual focus.” I explained that up until this point they had listened to the Bible stories, sermons, and songs, but now it was their turn to teach each other.

Some weeks have been excellent, others have been a disaster, but overall I have found their insights to be uplifting and enjoyable. We have laughed together, learned together, and most important the blatant animosity towards God has completely disappeared.

Sometimes I question whether I made the right choice because I grew up in church. As a pastor’s daughter, there was never a question as to whether or not we went to church. It worked for me. I fostered a faith in God that has never been shaken despite the boring church services, the bad singing, and some judgmental people.

I continued the tradition of faithful church attendance as a young adult, and then as a young mother. I took my children to all the activities, events, and services. I wanted my children to know my God, to share my faith, and then to personalize it.

When I noticed my children dreading Sunday mornings, I tried different churches thinking that maybe ours was too big, but the attitudes remained the same.

If someone had given me this scenario when my children were young, or even before I had kids, I would have said, “Make them go. They’ll get through it. You must take your children to church.”

But as a mom in the middle of it, I realize that no amount of tradition, eyebrow raising, or judgmental questions will keep me from the needs my children are experiencing in the present. They don’t need the same things I did or the same things that people present today.

They need a small environment where they can ask questions without getting the “Because God said so,” answers. Some of their questions we can’t answer. We put them out there and talk about them, but we don’t know everything, and we aren’t afraid to say so.

We play games, we watch movies, we talk, but we never ever sing a song with hallelujah in it. Come to think of it, we never sing because they hate it, so sometimes I sneak off to an early church service to hear some praise music and smile every time I sing “hallelujah.”