baptism preparation evening?

[btheb]

Hi! We're having dd christened in a few weeks and have to attend a baptism preparation evening. Has anyone done one of these or know what it might involve?

We had one for each of our DCs. It was mainly going through what would happen during the service, times and what hymns would be played.

Catholic or CofE?

We've just finished our (catholic) prep course. Basically, it was practical stuff and info about the symbolism of the ceremony. I enjoyed it.

It's CofE. Bit nervous as dh isn't really very religious and was hoping it wasn't going to test his bible knowledge or anything!

Ours was CofE and we didn't have anything like that just going through the service and what it meant.

We had a baptism recently in our church and the whole sermon was based around the fact that the CofE will baptise anyone who comes asking for it: there are no barriers to becoming a member of the church, no entrance test... all are welcome. The preparation will be just to tell you what will happen during the service and what it all means. Enjoy!

they won't test you on.the bible

in our church, you get a home visit anx tgey show you a video about the fact that baptism is a lifelong journey with christ and it's important for the family to support the person bejng baptised.
and I tgink we get a small jesus book too.

Actually, that does depend on the church. In the CofE nearest to us, the vicar insists that the parents attend his church for a period before agreeing to baptise their child. If they are non-church goers, he makes them attend a Christianity Explored course and then lets the parents know when he thinks they are "ready". I suppose he means they are ready to commit to raise their child in the Christian faith.

The parents of one of DS' friends had this happen to them. When after a few weeks, the vicar had said that he felt that the wife was ready but not the husband , unsurprisingly, they went to a church in a neighbouring village to have the baby baptised. They were welcomed with open arms and are quite active there now.

The idiot vicar has similar stipulations for couples who wish to be married in that church. They have lost lots of members since he took over ten years ago. It is worth stressing though that he is very much the exception rather than the rule.

some churches do insist on regular attendance first, but then you'll find that once they've had the baptism, they don't go again.

It's the wrong message - like TUO said further up, the child should not be punished for what the parents have done in their faith life.

Still, at least most families don't leave halfway through the service immediately the baptism has taken place...

In most CofE churches it will just be to make sure you have at least some understanding of what baptism/christening is, what it isn't, the kinds of things the vicar is going to say, and the kinds of things the parents and godparents are going to be expected to say. I mean - the vicar will be explaining that stuff, nobody is going to be setting a test to pass or fail you.

A few people have absolutely no idea, beyond something like "MIL insists we have one", or "We've already booked the pub for a big party", so clergy like to feel they have at least tried to get a few basics of christianity across before the day itself.

It might just be you and the vicar, or with other parents if they do quite a few. It was us, the vicar, and two other sets of parents, and the backgrounds were pretty varied.

Our baptism families do a six week course, similar to our confirmation preparation course.

We also heavily suggest they come on our Alpha course (evening) or women's bible study (mornings).

The baptism preparation course goes through the basics of the Christian faith - who Jesus is, why he died, who is the Holy Spirit, and the relevance in our lives today.

We take baptismal promises seriously, so all parents and godparents need to understand what they are getting into.

C of E churches vary dramatically and some priest can be totally and utterly unreasonable. Some priests do not understand that people have jobs, childcare commitments and other responsiblities. It is hard to get to a series of baptism classes at 6pm when dh is not back from work at 8pm and you have to find a baby sitter for 2 children.

We attended our baptism classes at our old church and then were expected to attend a service of thanksgiving. Dd had diaohhera and vomiting on the day so we stupidly thought that the church would understand. We were told that we would have to attend another set of baptism classes (inspite of having a 90% attendence rate for the past ten years).

I think you can guess why we left that particular church. DD was baptised without any fuss at our new church with the need to jump through stupid hoops.