Baptisms

What is baptism?
Baptism is the beginning of a journey – a journey of faith. This journey involves turning away from the darkness of self-centeredness, and turning towards Christ and becoming a member of the local and worldwide Christian family.

Baptism is a sacrament
A sacrament is a visible sign of God’s love and grace. In baptism, we are thanking God for his gift of life and publicly acknowledging his love.
We are acknowledging that we all need to turn away from the darkness of evil and to make a new start with God.

Baptism makes us a Christian
In Baptism, God takes us and makes us one of his children. We become a member of the Church. Baptism is not just for children, adults are baptised too. But adults are only baptised when they have been regularly worshipping with the Church for some months, and have undergone a period of instruction.

Godparents help on the journey of faith.
The people who are chosen to be Godparents must also believe that worship is important.
The godparents you choose for your child must be at least 16 years of age. You must have one godfather and one godmother, but you can choose to have more, though we encourage a maximum of four godparents, so that they are seen to be really special people.
In Baptism the parents and godparents make three decisions for the child:
• to reject evil
• to repent of sin
• to turn to Christ
They also make three decisions, that they:
• believe in God, who made the world
• believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead
• believe that God sends his Holy Spirit to us all to help us in our daily lives as we try to live as Christians
If parents and godparents do not play their part then the child will not get far on the journey of faith.

A memorable event
You will want to cherish the memory of what happened on the day, but it is important that everyone plays their part during the service. We do not encourage the taking of photographs during the service and perhaps you could explain this to your family and friends. However, at the end of the service you will have plenty of time and opportunity for people to take some pictures.

A free gift
Baptism is God’s gift to us, and the Church makes no charge for administering the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. We do need to be able to keep our churches open though, and this is becoming more costly each year. A donation towards the upkeep of the Church is always appreciated.

Please contact us if you would like further information or advice. The relevant contacts are: