The thing about handling story time at church is that you have to establish a credible threat of violence. Those five year-olds may not be able to tie their shoes, but they can spot a pacifist a mile out. Since we’re mostly not allowed to spank other people’s children any more — and often not even our own — you have to be a good bluffer to manage a roomful of unruly children.

Or you can just go ahead and do what my wife did the last time we had story time duty, and swat the behind of the first child to test you. I’ve heard it said that nothing gets the attention of adults like the sound of a pump-action shotgun being chambered. I don’t know if that’s true, but I am fairly certain that nothing gets the attention of a group of youngsters — many of whom are with you because their parents can’t make them behave in church, or anywhere else, for that matter — like the sound of a firm hand slapping a fanny. With two swats my wife adjusted one attitude quite nicely, and served notice to several other hellions that there was a whole pile more where that came from.

And suddenly, there was peace. The newly disciplined child, who doesn’t see much order elsewhere, became my wife’s shadow and new best friend. The usual slappers and toy-stealers decided to keep their hands to themselves. And the sweet children got to play without fear of thuggery. There was a new sheriff in town, and her name was Mrs. Woodlief.

I was, meanwhile, Barney Fife: big talker, comic relief, and generally harmless. But it didn’t matter, because we all knew who the quick draw in the room was.

Some people claim they can do without spanking, and seem to raise their single mild-mannered child fairly well with time-outs. Others beat their children at odd intervals, and call that spanking, and wonder why it doesn’t work. Many spank appropriately, and some have managed to get by with virtually no spankings, often because they were so consistent in the early years. Consistency and appropriateness seem to be key: when those elements are in place in whatever form of discipline a parent chooses, I’m struck by how much happier children are.

I had a guitar teacher many years ago, who was the mother of a toddler. She told me one day that she had been raised by strict parents, and that she wasn’t going to give her child a lot of rules and discipline. She wanted him to be a free spirit. I can only imagine how miserable that boy must have been, never certain of boundaries, and therefore never feeling safe, or certain that there is right and wrong. His mother at least had the consistency part right — she fashioned an artificial world for her child in which sin consistently was without consequences. I wonder how he is finding the real world these days.

It’s hard work, being consistent. I fail at it often enough, especially with four boys, each of whom has his own way of testing the edges. But we shouldn’t kid ourselves about who we’re really going easy on, when we choose to let a lie or disrespect or laziness slide. When we spoil our children in those ways (which is an apt way of phrasing the matter, when you think about it), we are choosing our immediate comfort over their long-term well-being. We are loving ourselves more than them.

And it shows. He who spares the rod, after all, hates his child. So I say, to parents of unruly children: love your children more often. Or bring them to story time, and we’ll love them for you.

Lately I’ve grown ashamed of how often I discipline my children out of anger, or annoyance, rather than a genuine desire to train them up. If three year-old Isaac’s repeated thumping of a table leg penetrates my consciousness at dinner, I’ll tell him to stop it out of irritation, not because I want him to have good table manners. If eight year-old Caleb tells me I said A and not B, I’ll glower and tell him not to correct me, as if it’s a principle I’m standing on, rather than my expansive pride. If six year-old Eli mumbles, I’ll snap at him to speak up, not because I am, in that moment, concerned with the development of his elocution, but because it’s consuming mental bandwidth to discern what he’s saying.

My disciplinary actions too often have me at the center — my wants, my ego, my sense of how things ought to be in my domain. I suspect we all fall prey to that impulse from time to time, or perhaps a lot of the time, or perhaps it’s mostly just me. But maybe I’m not the only one who tells himself some subconscious story about the righteous anger of God, to justify my own anger. Maybe other parents repeat to themselves how they’ve tried and tried, in order to justify their barks when the whippersnappers forget yet again to close the back door. Maybe too many of us we pretend that, because our children have become outwardly inured to our browbeating, that our glares and raised voices don’t wound them — worse, that it’s only our anger that gets through their thick little skulls.

So I’ve been practicing patience. Emphasis on “practicing.” When Isaac launches into one of his interminable monologues, right in the middle of a discussion between me and the wife, instead of shushing him, I’m trying get down to his level, put a hand on his small shoulder, and explain that mommy’s talking, and that the polite thing to do is wait his turn. I’m also trying to listen more, to really look him in the eye and stop whatever I’m doing and just listen, so he feels less inclined to interrupt just to be heard. I’m trying to patiently, lovingly guide my children, rather than gripe at them so much.

But there’s so much work to do, isn’t there? There’s bills and laundry and the daily grind of jobs, and meals to be made and dishes to be washed, lawns to mow, and — in our case — fallen trees to cut up and rooms to paint and essays and books to write. There’s much to be done, and it’s so much easier just to shush them or glare at them or talk over them to make my point and get my way.

Yet if you were to ask me what is the most important thing I have to do here on earth, I would say it’s training up my sons. So I’m going to start trying harder to act like it. I’m praying the Lord will have mercy — on me, on them — every time I fail.

Attention: This is another post that may be abused by our unBelieving readers. But as the papal commissioner Johann Tetzel said, indulge me.

Church discipline is making a comeback. To many, Believers and unBelievers, the idea of excommunication from a church body smacks of hypocrisy and hate and generally being a Pharisee. After all, if we’re all sinners, how can we kick people out of church for sinning?

But for those who know something of formal church discipline, this is not quite what it means. It’s less about getting rid of sinners and more about getting rid of those who habitually commit public, known acts of sin and are unrepentant, or whose repentence is highly suspect. In other words, the faithful Believer is defined less by his sin and more by his reaction to it.

The Protestant reformers named three “marks by which the true church is known” - the preaching of the pure doctrine of the gospel, the pure administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of church discipline to correct faults.

Christianity Today has a series on church discipline here, where various minds apply themselves to discussing its disappearance from church life, and why it’s essential.