Cleaning The Church

 I don't know if I've mentioned this before but I seriously dislike cleaning the church.  It isn't the actually cleaning, I mean really when you spend your life picking up messes what is two extra hours a couple of times a year?  It isn't the idea of it.  I get it.  We have church buildings that we use and I can see how potentially cleaning them may give you a sense of ownership, something akin to the ownership people use to feel when they actually had to provide the labor, money, and materials to build their buildings as opposed to the sort of disconnect of just writing out your tithing checks and not really knowing specifically where the money is going.  I can see how having members clean leaves more money available for other things like proselyting and humanitarian efforts.  I get it.  That being said with a husband who works all the time I usually don't have the option of only having one of us go without the kids to get the job done or two of us for extra eyes and hands.  While theoretically the idea of bringing the kids to help them gain a sense of respect for the building sounds great, the practice of taking a 2,4, 7, and 9 year old to the church to help me clean,  keep them busy, out of trouble, and from making more messes is a lot more stress than I usually want to undertake.  The truth is even with our tight budget, I'd be totally willing to kick in an extra 10 or 20 dollars of tithing a month to help pay for a cleaning person just to avoid that stress.  But since that isn't an option I go and try and at least not be a hindrance to the other families also assigned to clean with us on our day.  This last month Dr. J was actually with us.  It cut my stress level significantly and while the kids did eventually bore and start to scatter, before that point our family got all the floors vacuumed and mopped and Cheetah took out most of the trash, a task that was ALMOST worth the stress level just to have the opportunity to watch.