Jeff, With in our churches we will find many psychological needs. Much preaching today has left the Bible and has gone that way. Good psycology class but bad worship. I did a marriage this weekend. We made a covenant before God and family. It is an institution ordain by God. Baby dedications may be seen as earning some grace and therefore something we need to avoid. Just my thoughts, Harry Jeff Scanlan <jscanlan@...> wrote: Neil and Harry, Hmmmm. That is how I am coming to think about it too. But if there is some perhaps psychological need here should we not address that? I mean we have it would appear the need to have celebrations and so we use Easter and Christmas both to celebrate and remember some very important events. God bless, Jeff >-----Original Message----- >From: Neil Whitcombe [mailto:Neil.Whitcombe@...] >Sent: Tuesday, 6 April 2004 3:56 AM >To: soundofgrace@... >Subject: RE: [soundofgrace] On Presentations of Infants and Baptisms > >Hi Jeff > >It seems that this sell out of paedo-baptistic practice is strong here in >the UK too. I recently declined to attend a meeting at the fellowship I >attend over this issue. > >Neil > >-----Original Message----- >From: Jeff Scanlan [mailto:jscanlan@...] >Sent: 04 April 2004 22:01 >To: soundofgrace@... >Subject: [soundofgrace] On Presentations of Infants and Baptisms > >It has been a little quiet lately so I am going to pose a question here >in relation to the above. > >In my country after the second world war it became the practice in >Baptist Churches to dedicate infants. As I recall it, it was initially >low-key. Baptisms were similarly always low-key. > >However it seems to be that lately such events are becoming occasions >for family celebrations and are even appearing as performance. > >Presentations of infants are now really not much more than christenings >without water. My own sister and brother-in-law refused to have their >children presented in church because my brother-in-law believed that his >non-Christian family would just see it as a christening. > >And yesterday at our church there was such an event with family, >non-Christian and Christian, gathered specially for that event. I have >even heard that there are private dedications, which to me is the >antithesis of what a presentation should be because surely it is meant >to me something of a covenant between the church congregation and the >parents. > >As for baptisms it seems that for them too the family has all to >congregate in the church and it seems that we have to applaud the >spectacle after the event. At my last church there was once even a >celebratory baptismal cake! > >Any thoughts on this will be gratefully received. > >God bless, >Jeff > >-- >Read the Sound of Grace pages at >http://www.soundofgrace.com > >To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: soundofgrace-unsubscribe@... > >To view our online archive go to our web page at >http://www.associate.com/groups/soundofgrace > >-- >Read the Sound of Grace pages at >http://www.soundofgrace.com > >To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: soundofgrace-unsubscribe@... > >To view our online archive go to our web page at >http://www.associate.com/groups/soundofgrace > -- Read the Sound of Grace pages at http://www.soundofgrace.com To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: soundofgrace-unsubscribe@... To view our online archive go to our web page at http://www.associate.com/groups/soundofgrace --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway - Enter today -- Read the Sound of Grace pages at http://www.soundofgrace.com To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: soundofgrace-unsubscribe@... To view our online archive go to our web page at http://www.associate.com/groups/soundofgrace