A typical UCCan baptism service for an infant or child includes the parents making a profession of faith, then promising to raise the child in the faith (or to share the faith with the child, or language such as that) and then the congregation promises to help the parents live out that promise.
Often in UCCan circles there are those families who have their child "done" and then are rarely (if ever) seen again. The habit in the church communities is to complain about these families who don't take baptism seriously. But I have started to look at it in another way.
HOw do we as faith communities live out our vow? How do we encourage those familes to pass on the faith? I hunch that in may places it isn't all that much. Simply offering a church school program isn't enough. So now the quetion to ask is how best should we do it?
If we aren't living out our vow we have no right to complain about the parents who seem to take their vow more lightly than we might wish.
What a great question to ask, Gord. Our UCC churches have much the same experience. It's easy to look askance at the parents, not so easy to look honestly at ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more!
ReplyDeleteI wonder the same thing. I am
ReplyDeletePCUSA and wonder if one member
could be "assigned" or volunteer
to be a special contact for the
child and family to support and
encourage?