(RNS) — Brian Kaylor didn’t realize how the coronavirus pandemic — with its stay-at-home orders, school closures and other distancing measures — was emotionally impacting his 8-year-old son, Kagan, until the children’s minister at their church started sharing a nightly bedtime story.
In the first storytime video, posted on Facebook and Vimeo, the minister at First Baptist Church in Jefferson City, Missouri, talked about feeling sad and angry.
“How is she reading my mind?” Kagan asked.
The second-grader is struggling with not seeing his friends, and the videos have been a comfort, said Kaylor, editor and president of Baptist magazine Word&Way.
Kaylor pulls the videos up each night on his phone, and his son disappears into another room to watch, usually wrapped up in a blanket, he said.
Kagan runs to the screen when the same minister gives the children’s messages during online services. He shows off his latest Lego builds to his friends during Wednesday Wave sessions she hosts for the kids on Zoom.
“I think my son needs the social interaction and comfort from our church community right now even more than I do,” Kaylor said. “So, I appreciate ministers working to create that space virtually.”
As the coronavirus continues to upend daily life in the United States, churches and Christian leaders are finding ways to relieve bored and anxious children unable to leave their homes — as well as their…
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