Quaker Worship and Children

I've been thinking about the way children often can't sit still in a Quaker meeting. They're often fidgety and sometimes they like to ask, "are we almost done yet?" And adults sometimes, too, you know.

And you know how Quakers got the name, Quaker? You probably do - people would "quake" or shake, because God was telling them to get up and do something, and they just couldn't hold it in. Or God didn't want them to hold it in, at least.

We often don't even think about the possibility that fidgety young Quakers, the ones who don't sit still in Quaker Meeting, might be unable to sit still because of some kind of Quaker ministry they're called to share.

Now, I'm not saying that every fidgety kid has something to say during meeting that all of us ought to hear.

But I wonder if every fidgety kid has some kind of "ministry" that we ought to be helping them express - it could be speaking, drawing, painting, cooking, fixing stuff with wrenches and hammers...