Christening Etiquette?

[laughloseya]

A friend and I have been invited to another friend’s son’s christening. We aren’t close friends with christening parents, and haven’t known them long but we do really like them and are pleased to be invited.

My friend has suggested we skip the ceremony and just go to the party afterwards. I have said absolutely not, that’s rude as fuck and I like the ceremonies anyway. My friend says I’m behind the times and it’s perfectly normal now.

AIBU? Do people really do this?

We don't have any collection in the service. I thought most churches were like this nowadays.

We want people to commit to regular giving, eg through the Parish Giving Scheme. It's hard to budget if you don't know what you are getting week to week.

I hope that wasn't CofE.

no catholic.

CofE have set wedding, baptism and funeral fees set by the Diocese. Then the parish can add on organist, verger, heating etc.

It comes nowhere near paying for the running costs of a rural parish church. We’ve hosted 7 weddings and 4 baptisms this year so far already. We rely on extra giving at these things. None of them come to regular services. If the villagers want the building there for the future we need to fund it! All local people.

Two people missed our wedding ceremony but came only to the reception.

It is the absolute height of bad manners.

It's set by Church House, not the diocese, and there isn't a fee for baptism. Not within the service or without. Baptisms are meant to be, traditionally, in the service and a priest could decline to do one at another time but they often will do them separately and they shouldn't be charging a fee in either case.
It's totally illegal but a lot of priests do what they want in their own fiefdoms and fly under the radar.

Your friend is a idiot the ceremony is the main part of course it's rude to just rock up to the after-party

I invited a group of friends who all had toddlers. They skipped the service and came to party. I was surprised but I didn’t mind really. They were more there as mine and DDs friends so the religious aspect didn’t really apply

The Church of Scotland has them as part of the normal Sunday service and the congregation is asked to take a vow to help the parents keep the vows that the parents have just taken and to encourage the child to grow their faith (we stand to confirm that we agree).
The only times I have known it not to be during Sunday worship was during COVID or when there were special circumstances that made it impossible.

Or the Church of Scotland.

Yes it confuses a lot of churchgoers as well. The answer lies largely in the difference between income and assets. The church, like a lot of people, think of people who live in million pound houses, has a lot of assets but doesn’t quite have enough income to do what it thinks you ought to be doing. If it were to sell its assets to pay for the maintenance of churches, and remember some of them are hundreds of years old, it would have even less money to pay for clergy and church work. It’s all a balancing act. That’s why people who use the church, even for one off services or visits are asked to contribute to the maintenance of the church.

Nobody has to make a donation, but, if you can afford it, it is a nice thing to do.

You can't just 'sell off' an older Church building for development - there are rules and regulations. So you end up with a congregation of 12 - 20 people, often pensioners, trying to maintain the beautiful buildings we have up and down the land so that people can use them as beautiful backdrops for weddings, and that some people can use them for funeral services, Christenings, and a rousing Carol Service or nostalgic nativity service at Christmas. I'm fairly sure there are decisions about finance that could be made differently, but if you have a fiver you could spare, then it would generally be very much appreciated by most Churches, including those (which I think is probably the majority now) that don't pass a collection plater round during the service. There will be a plate (and usually a card reader) somewhere if you ask. You don't have to, but it is nice to be nice.