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Original poster

christening questions

12 replies

lalapo · 26/10/2005 14:10

how far in advance do you need to book the church? how many god parents can you have? its for my DD next year, so does that mean i can choose more god mothers than god fathers ...

also, can you only get lo christened at a church near where you live?

i am a complete novice where churches are concerned,tia for any advice!

OP posts:

Lasvegas · 26/10/2005 15:31

What religion do you want DD christened into? I have advise if it is RC.

PeachyClairBingoBabe · 26/10/2005 16:12

I had my first two Christened (changed my mind with ds3- Humanist but anyway!)

Church booking didn't take much time, many Vicars have specific dates set aside and they often combine famillies though (1 of ours did), so you need to ask.

As for the Church where you live part, I think Vicars CAN make exceptions, but ours wouldn't even though we had bought a house in the village he was practicing in, would be resident there by the Christening- and could prove it. So I wouldn't bank on it, personally, unless you have close link with said Church because my Sis got her lad Christened in a Church away on the basis that her MIL knew the Vicar well.

HerRoyalLovlinessMaloryTowers · 26/10/2005 16:17

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PeachyClairBingoBabe · 26/10/2005 16:20

Our Vicar would routinely refuse anyone she didn't know, didn't care less!

Didn't seem particularly keen on Baptising me either, despite the fact that at the time I was a regular attender AND ran the Church Rainbows.

Ho Hum.

Many are a law unto themselves, IME.

But quite right: Theoretically, they are NOT allowed to refuse!

HerRoyalLovlinessMaloryTowers · 26/10/2005 16:23

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WitchHazellnut · 26/10/2005 16:28

Have been going through the 'sortng out christening' over the last few months. I think that theoretically you have to get christened in the parish where you live so like getting married but suspect they area bit more lenient on this. However, very much depends on the vicar. At our local church they only do christenings on the second sunday of the month unless there is somethng important on then its the 4th so for us, we'd hoped to get dd christened in July and its going to be the end of November !! We also have had to demonstrate some commitment to going to the church - again this depends on the vicar but think, anyway, it will be nicer that they know us a bit by the time we get to the event !

As for godparents, as HRLMalory Towers says, traditional is 2 of the same sex, 1 of the other but as HRLMT also said these days, anything goes ! I know someone who had about 5 for their ds. We are going for 2 godmothers and 1 godfather. Also, our church actually said 'ideally one should be a christian' which I thought was pretty relaxed - but I know of churches where they insist on godparents being baptised themselves or even, in one case, confirmed (but don't think most churches would expect that these days).

Wow, have gone on a bit but have now exhausted my christening knowledge !! HTH !!

startingtobehalloweenylover · 26/10/2005 16:31

if you're a complete novice where churches are concerned then why on earth do you want your child christened?

HRHQoQ · 26/10/2005 16:31

ermm I belive they can theoretically say no - as they have to make sure that the person is getting the child christened for the 'right' reasons (although many don't seem to care). The same goes for weddings - a vicar can refuse to marry you if he/she feels it's not 'right'.

Our church has a baptism team, which visits the family before they book the christening, so that they explain what it means to have their child christened, and then they also followup afterwards, to encourage them to keep the part of the promise which says they'll try to bring them up to know God..........

HerRoyalLovlinessMaloryTowers · 26/10/2005 16:34

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WitchHazellnut · 26/10/2005 16:38

That is MT and QOQ our church was like that with the baptism team and I agree that it is more than reasonable to expect some sort of commitment to attend. After all that is the point (other than to get them into the local church school as well - )

Tortington · 26/10/2005 17:27

we are catholic - and i dont know if theres a law about this stuff but we only needed a coule of months to book the church. we had one set of godparents and i think you could have more for "show" depending on how arsey the priest is. however we were only allowed one set of "official" godparents. cant see why you would want loads anyway.

PeachyClairBingoBabe · 26/10/2005 17:57

We had less than the standard 3 Godparents, simply coz we didn't know anyone we thought was suitable!. TBH, we have all in all proved very bad judges on that front anyway!

MT< I see your point about babies they're never going to see again- but is it fair to judge the baby on the parents? I know loads of people raised with no religion who want to go to Church and feel awkward coz of not being baptised (That included me for a long time), I also don't know why she didn't want to 'do' me, as I WAS a regualar... apparently something like I could come to the Church not baptised anyway, but to make it worth her while arranging an Adult Baptism I'd have to do a lot more than the 2 hours Church stuff a week I was doing, I did try but I dropped out in the end- just no time due to kids/ dh's shifts- and frankly, it blew my Faith in her completely, which is why we had the Humanist naming for ds3.

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