We are excited for Parent-Child Dedication this Sunday. It is a wonderful time for proud parents to introduce their children to the congregation, to ask for a blessing and to receive the promise of support.
And it is fitting that our Parent-Child Dedication comes right at the time that we are discussing our Mennonite heritage. Mennonites were originally called Anabaptist or re-baptizers since they insisted on a believers baptism as opposed to infant baptism.
But one thing the tradition of infant baptism has taught us is that the inclusion of children into the church community is important.
With this in mind here are three reasons why we dedicate our children and why we call it a Parent-Child Dedication.
We believe it is crucially important that parents commit themselves to raise their children in a Godly manner with the desire to see them become disciples of the living Christ. There is a lot of biblical material to suggest that the dedication of children to the service of the Lord is important and a custom that dates back to the very early days of the nation of Israel.
We believe that community is crucially important and that as Christians we are not called to live out our faith alone. That is why this time of dedication is done publicly in the presence of the congregation in which the parents are inviting the community to hold them accountable and to carry them as they raise their child.
Lastly, we believe that the congregational commitment to the care of its children is of the utmost importance. The time dedication is a time of commitment and making of promises by the congregation. The congregation promises to cherish, and to pray for the child and the child’s parents. The congregation also promises to include the child in the community of discipleship and to remove any barriers that would hinder the child from growing in faith and love of the Lord.
So in summary, we take the dedication of our children very seriously. It is a time of mutual commitment between congregation and parents.
Through this time of dedication we declare that God has given us the gift of life, and that God makes a claim on all our lives starting in our infancy.
We hope you can join us this Sunday for this wonderful and joyous time together.