Grace Alive Child Dedication and Parent Commissioning
Grace Alive Child Dedication & Parent Commissioning
What is the Purpose?
In Psalm 78:7, we see God’s desire for every generation. God wants kids to put their hope in him. He wants them to know and trust in him. Specifically, God wants them to not forget what he’s done to rescue and save us. Instead, he wants the next generation to remember his words and obey them.
The primary context for our kids learning about God is not in children’s ministry on Sundays. Instead, our homes, our cars as we drive along the road, by our child’s bedside, and at the breakfast table — will be our lecture halls and laboratories. These are the places our children will hear and see the gospel. Discipleship happens in planned moments when we pull out a Bible storybook and in unplanned moments when our child sins or is heartbroken, and we give correction and comfort.
This psalm charges parents with this responsibility, but it also tells us that God gave his people a community. Training kids doesn’t end with parents; it includes the whole church. We need each other. We need one another’s encouragement, one another’s accountability, and one another’s eyes to see what we can’t see. Without understanding the role of the church, child dedications make no sense.
Therefore, we conduct child dedication services for three reasons:
• First, God wants our kids, and ultimately their hearts and lives, to belong to him. So, in dedication we confess together, “God, all we have — even our children — belongs to you. All we have is yours.”
• Second, we don’t just dedicate our children. We dedicate ourselves. We do this because we recognize our God-given responsibility as parents.
• Third, we dedicate to ask for help in the form of a commitment from our church, the believing community.
FAQs about Child Dedication & Parent Commissioning
1. Why do you perform child dedications rather than infant baptisms? Isn’t this just a “dry baptism”?
One key distinctive for Grace Alive is believer’s baptism. We are credo-baptists. We believe that baptism is a sign of the new covenant community, reserved for those who have believed upon Christ and experienced regeneration. The New Testament links this new covenant sign of baptism to the proclamation and trust in the gospel (Acts 2:38, 8:36).
But, at this point, you might be confused. I’ve been arguing above that the relationship between parents and their children is a covenantal one — as opposed to a consumer relationship. All family relationships are covenantal by their nature. But a child who is born physically into a believing family does not become a part of Jesus’s new covenant family until he or she is born again (John 3:5-8). Paul tells us that Abraham is our model; the sign and seal of the covenant is given to those who have already been regenerated and justified (Romans 4:11).
Even we get confused. Once the week before a child dedication service, a Sojourn church elder, who will remain unnamed, invited the congregation back the following week for our infant baptism services. He never even caught or corrected his mistake!
Child dedication as we practice is, in fact, similar to the ceremony conducted by infant baptizers. That’s why I quoted so many advocates of that position when explaining the covenantal nature of parenting above. But, biblically speaking, what infant baptizers practice is not truly baptism. I like to tell my Presbyterian friends that it’s a “wet child dedication.” Their practice confuses the grace of being born physically into a family who believes with the greater grace of being born spiritually into the family of faith.
For the sake of our kids’ eternal souls, let’s not mix this up. The confusion can be disastrous if it tempts parents to hold back from proclaiming the good news in their homes.
As Stephen J. Wellum writes:
To get baptism wrong is not a minor issue... It may even lead, if we are not careful, to a downplaying of the need to call our children to repentance and faith. Often Baptists are charged with not appreciating the place of their children in the covenant community. Not only does this charge miss the mark in fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of the new covenant community, but it also runs the danger of what is truly imperative — to call all people, including our children, to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It is only then that the promise of the new covenant age becomes ours, for the promise is not only for us, but for our children and “for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:39).
2. Is this even biblical? I don’t see any verses in the Bible that teach child dedication.
We don’t have any Bible verses to reference here. We can’t point to a passage which says, “Thou shalt have child dedication services.” But I do know parents are tempted to think about their relationship with their kids as if it was a contract. And I also know nothing challenges consumer thinking quite like making really difficult covenant promises. It’s true for marriage, and it’s true for parenting too. The child dedication covenant confirms this reality: parenting is a higher, self- sacrificial commitment. The sacred public vow helps us teach parents to practice regular patterns of sacrificial love from the very beginning of their parenting journey.
3. We’re dedicated to our kids every day. Why do we need a service to be dedicated?
This question sounds like the one coming from the young guy who says to his fiancée, “Why have a marriage ceremony? We love each other. That’s the important thing, right?” Making a public declaration does heighten the commitment. This is similar to the truth: when you write things down, you’re more likely to actually do them. It is appropriate to experience a level of fear and reverence about heightened accountability and obligation. But in our culture, people are sometimes afraid that formalizing a relationship will destroy its intimacy, spontaneity, and fun, as well.
Yet the opposite is the case: The grace-based nature of the covenant commitment frees us from having to prove ourselves, and this ultimately leads to greater intimacy. It’s true with marriage. When dating or living together, you have to prove your value daily by impressing or enticing. You have to show that the chemistry is there and the relationship is fun and fulfilling, or it will end quickly. We are still basically in a consumer relationship, and that means constant promotion and marketing.
The legal bond of marriage, however, creates a space of security where we can open up and reveal our true selves. We can be vulnerable, no longer having to keep up facades. We don’t have to keep selling ourselves. This is why lovers have an instinctive tendency to make promises to one another — “I will always love you” — at the height of passion (Song of Songs 8:6-7). They know — if only intuitively — that commitment and intimacy go together.
In a similar way, I believe that seeing parenting as a covenant, which is the goal of making a public commitment, will free us from the pressure to get everything right with our parenting. We can receive the authority, influence, and responsibility we have as a gift, but we can also receive how our kids turn out as a gift. In a fallen world, some kids will be sick and some kids will fall away from the faith. We can never accomplish all of our good goals. But a covenant way of thinking frees us to be thankful and enjoy God’s good gifts when they come. If and when good things come, they are gifts from God. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “What do you have that you did not receive?”
4. Isn’t this just a sentimental exercise?
At our church, the child dedication services have consistently been two of our top five high attendance services of the year — usually right behind Easter Sunday. We see child dedication as an incredible opportunity to proclaim the gospel to extended family members and equip parents to lead their children with loyalty and love. Before the child dedication service, we give invitations to the parents with children being dedicated to send out friends and family inviting them to the service. As you’ll read about below, we also put together a child dedication class/small group. The goal is to make that time into, well, into a party — celebrating the new life God has given to the families in our church. We want it to be a time of gospel encouragement and celebration for our parents. We’ve found that this has been one of the most fruitful things we’ve done as a family ministry.
5. Who can participate?
This is an event for the entire family. Due to limited space, we ask that only the parents and siblings of the child being dedicated come to the stage. However, we highly encourage grandparents, other family members, and close friends to be invited to the ceremony. Special seating is available for all family and friends attending