The URCiC offers both Infant and Believer's Baptisms. Should you not wish for a full Baptism for your child then we can offer a Dedication or a Blessing. Baptisms and Dedications are normally held as part of regular Sunday morning worship on dates previously agreed to suit the Church's progamme of worship. It is not the policy of the URCiC to baptise persons who have been baptised before.
At a recent Baptismal service St Andrew's on 25th June 2006 the Revd John Sutcliffe delivered the following Reflection on the meaning of Baptism. If, after reading his words, you feel that you would like your child to be Baptised in the United Reformed Church then please contact your Church Secretary or the Church Office on Cheltenham 575086.
At a Baptism our minds naturally centre on the children being baptised. We surround them with all kinds of hopes for their growth and development and for their happiness throughout life. It would be strange if it were not so; but there is more to a baptism than good wishes. Baptism has its roots in history and focuses us on God and, perhaps surprisingly, on the world. This can be seen in the symbolism of the Service.
First, baptism takes place in the congregation. The promises the church here made were made not just in the name of this church but of the whole church. Christ‘s people are a universal people. The welcome and care promised here, is promised in the name of Christ for the church everywhere, in this country and in the world - here, Korea, Malawi, Brazil, wherever, and the children baptised today have become part of a universal and ecumenical family. Many of us here will have experienced being warmly received when we have been abroad by Christians whom we had never met before. Baptism makes us members of every church.. An aim of Jesus was to create a new kind of world community in which God’s peace and justice and respect for people reign; he called it his kingdom. It is an international community which looks for the well-being of all people and seeks to give food to the hungry, homes to the homeless, freedom to the oppressed, and opportunity to those captive to poverty or fear.
A major contributor to this worldwide community is the family. In the family children learn to love. Through experiencing love we learn how to be loving, the gentler emotions are developed and children learn how to trust and how to relate to other people and to the natural world. The family is the basis of a stable and caring society. That is why family was integral to the promises we made.
But Christ’s loving community will never come into being without effort. The babies were marked with the Cross, the badge of faith that starts them on their Christian journey, a journey that will not always be easy. Children cannot go on a journey of growth and developing awareness unless they are given opportunity - to learn about Jesus, to question meanings, to pray, to engage in Christian service, to talk to others who are on the journey. Baptism commits children only to engage, to explore, to try out Christian life. It commits parents and the church to give them the opportunity to do so. Ultimately the children we have welcomed have to decide for themselves the values on which they will build their lives and decide what they want for the world. But they cannot decide without information, evidence and experience. The idea that children should have no input and that then as young people somehow make up their own minds in an informed way is nonsense. Children need teaching and we must be honest, the journey of faith can be tough. The cross was a cross of suffering. In every age there have been Christian martyrs. Look at the side of Westminster Abbey to see some of the martyrs of the last century. Children too suffer in their way: being ridiculed in the school play ground because they are part of the church; having to make choices about how they will use some of their time, and parents and the church have to explore Christ’s suffering and the child‘s experiences with them.
The water we used is a potent universal symbol. People are kept alive by water; the world cannot exist without water. With water we celebrate God’s creative goodness and we also recognise that water gives new life.
If you holiday in the eastern Mediterranean you are likely to see in ancient sites the troughs, perhaps twelve feet long and five feet deep that Christians in the first and second centuries used for baptisms. Baptisms often took place on Easter Sunday morning. Just before the rising sun crept over the horizon those being baptised would enter the water and be submerged, to rise again with the light of the sun on their faces. This deeply symbolised leaving behind the darkness of their old life to enter a new life of light. It picked up the theme of dying to selfishness and rising to love Christ’s life of love.
Using water we sign the children with a cross and give them their Christian name. Naming a child in baptism symbolises that his or her life belongs to God, that God believes in us and promises his gifts to all who seek them. These gift are evident in the life of his son Jesus. In Jesus, we see the kind of life which is God’s model for all of us, a life based on love, respect for others, a commitment to sharing rather than living a self centred life, an openness to people who are different, a willingness to forgive, a commitment to integrity that will not be diverted. God’s principal gift to us is of a quality of life and aim in life. Of course it demands effort of us, hence the sign of the cross. That is why our response to every question included the words, ‘with the help of God.’ And it is why we sang the blessing which faithful Jews have been singing for nearly three thousand years, ‘The Lord bless you and keep you…’ Our prayers are our ultimate sign of our spiritual nature, our dependence on God, the source of all life and love.
So Baptism focuses us on a forgiving, gracious and generous God; on the family as one of God’s building blocks for a stable society, on the new world-wide community our children become part of, the community God seeks to use to build a fairer and better world. In that sense baptism is a social and political act, as well as an act of faith. In our prayers we acknowledge that we come from God and return to God - and in between is the adventure of faith.
Revd. John Sutcliffe
St Andrew's URC, June 25th 2006