When is a Child Truly Being Disruptive in Church?

I have been looking for a church for a few years now, one that I would leave feeling uplifted and truly welcome. A few months ago, a girlfriend of mine approached me with a new church that had formed only this past year and asked if I would like to meet her there. I jumped at the chance as I had never heard of this church before. And what do you know? I had thought I had found "my" church! Finally! That is, until this past Sunday.

My son is only 16 months old and he is typically home with my husband during church service on Sunday's. This past week, my son has changed from two naps a day, down to one nap which happens after lunchtime. That frees up our morning. I thought I'd give my husband time to himself Sunday morning as he had been with our son a lot recently, so I took him to church with me thinking I would simply drop him off at the church's nursery. Gosh, I could write an entirely different article on the church nursery itself, but to make a long story short, I kissed my son goodbye after spending a few minutes with him and left to partake in worship. Five minutes later, I poked my head around the corner of the nursery to check on my son, just to see that he was crying. He's at prime age for separation anxiety and stranger anxiety right now, and there was no way I was going to leave him in the nursery with two women and four other children that he had never seen before. So I picked him up and thought I would see how his behavior was during service.

For an amazing 15 minutes or so, he was sitting on my lap playing with the service brochure, not a peep out of his mouth. Then he began to get a bit bored and wanted to get off my lap. Now, when I'm without my son and sitting to listen to the message and happen to see a child walking around, even if it's for a moment, I immediately pay attention to them. It's not that they're disturbing me. Children are just so darn cute! Yet, I understand that if my son is playing around, he's sure to disturb others around us, so I stood up and led him to the hallway.