Life getting in the way of making it to church each week? For one family it’s about priorities, finds Madeleine Collins.

For Toongabbie couple Brendan and Sally Jones, running after three boys and working all week means it is far easier to stay at home rather than the hour and a half it takes to feed, clothe and bath Jacob, nine, Thomas, six and Oliver, 10 months, and still get to church on time.

But the active members of St Luke’s, Northmead are spurred on by Paul’s encouragement not to give up meeting together with other believers.

“If I could just stay at home it would be so much easier,” says Sally, 33. “Sometimes it’s not possible, but our aim is to get there every week. When you don’t go, it becomes easier to not go the next week and then the next week to not go again.

“[But the Apostle] Paul encourages us to keep up meeting together, to keep hearing God’s word, to be accountable. If you don’t go to church and be encouraged by other people, it’s easy to fall away.”

The family attends a Saturday congregation at 5pm. They say while a Sunday morning service would still suit, it is a good time in their busy week.

“[It’s] a long day but Saturday’s at five is really good because the kids aren’t too tired. If we want to go out later we can,” Sally said. “By Sunday we’ve had it. We don’t want to meet any commitments. It is good to have a day where you know you can rest.”

Brendan, 30, is a social worker with DoCS and tries to keep a check on the amount of hours he works each week. Before Oliver was born Sally worked part time at William Clarke College. But the couple say even if Sally was working full time, no matter how busy they are or tired they feel, church is top of their list as a Christian family.

“I don’t see it as a burden or an extracurricular activity, it’s part of my routine,” Brendan said. “You need to make conscious decisions for it to be a priority…rather than a last minute thing and you’ve got all these things you can’t get done so we won’t go,” he said.

If the baby is ill, one of them will go to church, and Brendan will often take Oliver into the crèche to let his wife hear the sermon. “I think if our church didn’t have the crèche and children’s program we’d probably be looking for somewhere that did,” Brendan said.

Sally agrees. “It helps that we’ve got a wide support base. I can’t imagine doing it without them.”