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Thank You for Your Baptism Enquiry
at St Bartholomew’s Thurstaston or
St Chad’s Irby
Baptism is about saying that as parents you
affirm the Christian Faith and that you are willing to make promises to
bring up your child within the Christian Faith. If
you are not ready to do this, the alternative is to have a service of
Thanksgiving for the birth of your child, leaving the opportunity of
baptism at a later date when you feel ready to make these commitments or
when the child is old enough to make these decisions for itself. Please
speak to the Rector for more information about Thanksgiving services.
You are entitled to Baptism for your child
at St Bartholomew’s or St Chad’s if you live in the parish, or if
you are on the electoral roll of the parish, i.e. you have been
regularly (at least two Sundays
each month) attending one of the churches for 6 months and have
filled in a form to say that you consider this to be your church. If
you cannot fulfil either of these criteria, you will need to speak to
the vicar of the parish in which you reside, or you will need to attend
either St Bartholomew’s or St Chad’s for 6 months before we can
accept your booking.
In addition, in order to have your child
baptised, the rules say that as parents you should have been confirmed,
that is you have affirmed for yourself the promises made on your behalf
at you own baptism. In
reality, as long as at least one parent has been baptised, and the other
is willing for the service to go ahead, we will baptise your child.
In addition would encourage you to consider coming on a course to
think about confirmation for yourself.
When considering godparents, you need to
know that a godparent MUST have been baptised themselves, so please
check before asking them.
Baptisms take place within the main morning service at each of the two
churches, on the 3rd Sunday of each month at St Chad’s
(9.45a.m.) and the fourth Sunday of each month at St. Bartholomew’s
(11.15a.m.) The services at
St Chad’s are more informal and therefore more user-friendly for
people who are not used to being in church services; often many of your
baptism party will not have been to church for a long time. Due
to the size of the building, we are only able to do one baptism at a
time at St Bartholomew’s and therefore these services can book up very
quickly.
To book a baptism, please call in at the
parish office at (St Chad’s Church, Roslin Road on Tuesday, Wednesday
and Thursday between 9.30a.m. and 12.30p.m. in term time, tele[phone
0151 648 8169, e-mail: thurstaston.parish@btinternet.com.
Ask for a Baptism application form. On
receipt of your application form, the Rector will contact you to discuss
available dates.
Once the baptism is booked, you will be
required to attend a baptism preparation evening, to look at the order of service and what is
being asked of you as parents within the service. You will also be
encouraged to begin attending services (if you don’t already). You
don’t sign your child up for anything else in life without intending
to support your child’s development. If
you join the library because you want to help your child to read, you
will take them regularly to get books. If
you sign up for a sport activity because you want your child to learn
the sport, you will take them to the sessions. The
same is true of the Church. In
Baptism you are saying that you want your child to know about the
Christian faith and that involves being a part of the Church Fellowship
and coming to services.
Baptism is a joyous occasion, when as a
church we celebrate with you and welcome your child into our fellowship.
We look forward to meeting you.
1
This is currently very informal and
the Rector will come to your home at a mutually agreed date and time. It
is proposed that in the future we may get several parents together on a
set evening for which you will be given the dates when you book the
baptism. |
