Remember Your Baptism

This Sunday is the Baptism of our Lord Sunday. It is also the Sunday on which we had our son Jonah baptized 3 years ago. For a lot of reasons Stephanie and I wanted to find a way to celebrate this w/ Jonah each year. The main reason is quite simple, really. In baptism we are told most clearly who we are. And so, at least as much as we celebrate anything else w/ our children, each year we want Jonah to hear about the great love God has for him and that God has called him to be a part of God's family.

So I wanted to share w/ ya'll what we do in hopes that it might be helpful to anyone else out there who is wanting to be able to teach their children to "remember your baptism!"

We usually do this at lunch or dinner on the Sunday that corresponds to the day he was baptized (for Jonah it's easy because he was baptized on Baptism of our Lord Sunday).

We light a baptismal candle (that you can find at almost any Christian bookstore) and then we do the following:

Read Aloud:

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into to marvelous light. Once you were not a people but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9)

Say to your child:

(Child’s name), (number of years since baptism) ago you were baptized, welcomed by God into his family of great love. At your baptism God declared before everyone that He loves you and that because of Jesus you have many brothers and sisters who will watch over you, pray for you, and show you how to live as part of God’s family. Let’s say a prayer for our family…

Pray Aloud:

Father of Love, you have called us, in baptism, to be your true children. We ask today that you would help us to live lives faithful to the name into which we were baptized – the name of your son, Jesus Christ. We ask especially today that you would continue to draw your child, (child’s name), into your life and love, that he/she would never know a day outside of your loving embrace. May he/she indeed declare your wonderful deeds, even now. We ask this in the name of the living God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.