Dedications and Infant Baptisms
For many families, having a service to thank God for their child is really important. It provides an opportunity for families to gather their extended family and friends together for a celebration of the child’s life and to consider how they want to bring their child up.
At St Thomas’ we hold 3 different services to meet these needs: christenings, dedications and thanksgivings. The initial 2 services are for families who have made a commitment to God and want to continue this commitment in the upbringing of their children. The services include promises to bring the child up following the teachings of the Bible and to pray for them regularly. Some people are not yet ready to take this step of commitment and so a thanksgiving service is available. This is a lovely event that includes some prayers and thanks to God but without the promises mentioned before. This also means that if a family then wants to have a dedication or infant baptism at a later date to make these promises, they can.
Infant baptisms are usually done as part of a special baptism service on a Sunday morning twice a year. Dedications and Thanksgiving services can be done anywhere at any time. We can provide rooms on site or will happily come to your home.
Please contact the families team if you would like to discuss this further.