Child Dedication

Child dedication is offered twice per year at the church we attend--once in the fall, and also on Mother's Day. This is not a baptism, but rather a time where we as parents commit to raising our children to know and love God. When Jillian and Adrienne are old enough to make the choice for themselves, they can choose to be baptized. We have discussed having the girls dedicated before, but were never able to commit due to Matt always being on call those weekends. This year he just so happened to NOT be on call, and we learned that we would have family in town, so we decided the time was right.

A slide show of children being dedicated was played in the lobby and sanctuary before and between services. I snapped a pic of each of the girls' slides--I chose to submit these particular pictures because I felt they really depicted their personalities.

After the worship portion of the service, the families descended upon the stage. Adrienne was so wiggly and a bit irritable, so I apparently felt the need to bounce her around the whole time. Jillian was also getting squirrely, and worked so hard to not start some sort of performance of her own (she was ecstatic when she learned we were going to be "on stage"), but I think they did great overall. They certainly were not the only kids who were working to hold it together.
Thanks to Debbie's willingness to man my camera, I have videos of this portion of the service. I was hoping to be able to post them here, but for some reason I am unable to upload them. I think it is because my camera takes HD videos. I will keep trying and see if I can reformat--for now, here are a couple of shots of us on the stage with the pastor and other families.

After the dedication, each child was presented with a gift bag containing a white rose and the following:

A book

Dedication certificate

An envelope containing a letter they are to open when they are old enough to make the decision to accept Jesus.

It was a special day for our family. I am thankful we had some family here to witness it, and I think it was especially meaningful for Helen to be present at the dedication of her only great grandchildren.