BABY DEDICATION
It’s exciting whenever a new child enters a family. There’s no greater moment when parents sense that children are a gift from God. In these joyful moments, pastors have the privilege of sharing how parents can express their full appreciation to God through baby dedication.
Here at Renewed Life Church we don’t baptize children. Baptism is for adults and or children who understand what salvation is and have recognized their own personal need to be forgiven of their sin by Jesus Christ and have chosen to give their lives to Him.
Baby dedication is different than baptism. When a parent (s) chooses to dedicate their children to God, they are committing their child to God’s protection and committing themselves to raise their child in the ways of God. This means they will take responsibility to teach their children the ways of God and will dedicate themselves as parents to live out their Christian Life before their children. God says the following to parents.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! 5 You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole being, and all your strength. 6 These words I am commanding you today must be kept in mind, 7 and you must teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, as you lie down, and as you get up. Deuteronomy 4:6-7
Parents, what this means to you is, God wants to be real in you first so that you can tell your kids every chance you get about how important God must be in their lives. To tell them about the importance about God, when God is not important to you is only hypocritical.
What God says in these verses is that He wants this to be your lifestyle in being a Follower of Christ.
If you’d like to choose a god-parent you may. But chose wisely. You want the god-parent (s) to know God the way you want your children to know Him. If the god-parents will be spending time around your children you want them to model a Christ like example especially when your children are young and in their formidable age.
God once again tells us why it’s important to teach our children about Him when they are young.
Train a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6
So parents, this means that training about God has to start when they are a child because when they get older they will have so much of God in them that no matter what happens they will always remember what they have learned.
Here is what is expected of parents requesting baby dedication at Renewed Life Church.
- You must be a believer in Jesus Christ.
- You must be a Follower of Jesus Christ.
- You must commit to take the primary responsibility of teaching your children about Jesus.
- You must commit to model before your children what it is to be a Christian even through your own ‘good, bad and ugly’.
- If you are single it’s ok.
- If there are 2 parents it must be husband and wife, man and woman.
If you can say yes to the 6 above, that you will do your best to do this, that you will have your children in church to learn more about Jesus, then we will gladly move forward with the dedication of your child.
Download this form, print it out and sign below. You can place it in the ‘black box’ on Sunday or mail it to:
P.O. Box 1549
Litchfield Park, AZ 85340
Or, you can email this form to: [email protected]