Thanksgiving And Baptisms

Birth

It is great to be involved with parents of new born children. We want to share their joy, to thank God for the new baby and pray that God would protect and bless the child.

At St. James we have two services to mark the birth of a baby.

 

Service of Thanksgiving for the Birth of a Child

This is a short service that expresses what parents feel when they have a new baby: gratitude to God for the birth of the baby, and prayer for God's help with the responsibility of caring for children.

 

In the service the minister takes the child and blesses him or her, the parents pray for God's help and the minister gives them a copy of a Gospel a reminder of God's offer of eternal life through Jesus. The service is normally held during the Family Time at the end of our 11.00am service. Everyone can have a service of Thanksgiving.

 

Service of Baptism (sometimes called Christening)

Whilst the Thanksgiving service reflects the fact that we are all made by God, the Baptism Service reminds us we can only become Christians and children of God by committing ourselves in faith to Jesus Christ.

 

If the parents have already come to that point of commitment and faith in Jesus, then it is right our children should be baptised into that faith. But if the parents are not yet sure for themselves it is not right to claim for children a faith they do not possess.

 

Therefore we hold Baptism services not less than six months after the Thanksgiving service, where the parents (if necessary one but preferably both) have been confirmed and are attending the church. Confirmation is the service in which adults 'confirm' the commitment to God made for them when they were baptised as babies. Obviously it does not make sense to have a baby baptised into the Christian faith, if the parents have not made it their own by being confirmed.