We love having children in our church and we encourage you to bring up your children in the Christian faith. Baptism is a wonderful picture of God’s grace: before we can do anything to earn God’s favour, God loves us and delights to bring us into God’s family.
If you are thinking about having your child baptised, we ask that you come along to one of our regular 10:30am Sunday services and speak to Gavin or Ros after the service. We have baptism services on the fourth Sunday of the month (in general).
If you are not able to honestly take on the promises made in a baptism service, but would still like to celebrate publicly the birth of your child, please consider taking part in a Thanksgiving service.
Matthew’s gospel records that the risen Jesus commanded his disciples to baptise new believers. The church has continued this practice ever since. Baptism is a symbol given to us by God to help us understand what God is doing. So what you see the water doing on the outside (cleansing, reviving and refreshing) is a sign of what the Holy Spirit is doing on the inside when we commit our lives to Jesus.
Christian baptism is therefore not just the celebration of the birth of a child, but is a new-birth ceremony, symbolising a new beginning as a follower of Christ.
During a child’s baptism service, parents and sponsors (godparents) make serious promises on behalf of the child before God and the church. They are asked if they will bring the child up as a faithful member of the
Church, to follow Christ and to fight against evil.
They also affirm that they will encourage, teach and help the child so that s/he may learn to worship God, pray to God, put their faith and trust in God and to take their place in the life of the Church.
There are 3 other questions asked of parents and sponsors:
Do you turn to Christ? Do you repent of your sins? Do you renounce evil?
Saying “I turn to Christ” means that you accept that Jesus lived and walked on this earth, was crucified on a cross to pay for our wrongdoings, was buried and that on the third day he rose from the dead. Jesus is God-with-us, and you are saying that you will follow and obey him.
Saying “I repent of my sins” means that you acknowledge that you (like everyone else) have done wrong - in thoughts, words and actions and are asking for forgiveness from God.
We come to Jesus who died on the cross so that we might be forgiven all these wrongdoings. We come to him because he wants what’s best for our lives.
Saying “I renounce evil” means that you want to turn away from following your own desires. We do this by following Jesus in our lives as we pray, read the bible and meet with other Christians on a regular basis.
To have your child baptised in an Anglican Church at least one of the parents must be baptised.
By having your child baptised you are saying that you want to be part of the church. As a member of St Mary’s we would therefore encourage regular attendance at one of our weekly Sunday services (8:30am or 10:30am) (and at least one service before the baptism), involvement in other activities and groups at St
Mary’s (e.g. home groups or social events) and financial support for the parish.
There is no charge for baptisms, but we encourage a gift offering (placed in an envelope and put into the offering during the service).
What is a thanksgiving service?
The thanksgiving service does not replace baptism but provides an alternative opportunity for parents and family members to celebrate together, to publicly give thanks to God for the arrival of a child and to pray for the child and the parents.
In contrast to baptism this service does not require parents and sponsors to make promises on behalf of the child.
Although we encourage you to have a public thanksgiving service as part of a normal church service, it can be held as a private ceremony in the church for a fee.
What’s my role as a parent or sponsor?
Bringing up your child in the Christian faith is a great responsibility - one that we pray you will take seriously. There are many ways that you can encourage your child in their knowledge and love of Jesus.
For example:
- Praying regularly for the child.
- Setting them an example of Christian living.
- Providing them with a bible and other Christian books and music.
- Bringing them to church regularly.
For more information please contact us at St Mary’s.