DH wants DS blessed - how do we go about this?

[Paranoid1stTimer]

DH is one religion, I am another. We do not want to choose one of our religions for DS so instead of a baptism/christening ceremony, we are thinking of having a blessing. We looked into this when DS was a tiny baby but just never got round to it. DH has started talking about it again recently so I thought I would ask for some advice here.

We didn't want to do a naming ceremony as we would like our parents to be part of the celebration of us being blessed with our little boy and none of them would attend a naming ceremony as they are religious people. My father in particular is very against naming ceremonies as he see's them as pagan or antichristian for some reason. I have no problem with them personally. Each to their own I guess.

Anyway, there are a few churches/chapels in our area of different types and they would only consider us if we did some kind of baptism course but we just want LO to be blessed so we can be thankful to God for him.

Any help? Sorry this is waffly but I am hopeless at being concise.

Thanks very much in advance

You need to approach the churches and ask. You might be pleasantly surprised. I'm a member of a church of scotland and we believe in infant baptism, but we offer blessing/thanksgiving type services too. And they can be tailor-made to your requirements. It's lovely that your DH wants to give thanks for this precious gift and to acknowledge your DC's arrival in a special way. i hope that you can find a church that'll help you with this.

FWIW I think the best thing is to go along to a church (try to pick one that seems to be family friendly) for a week or 2 and mention it to the minister at the door. If you're lucky he/she'll arrange a time to have a chat with you about where you're coming from.

x

In the C of E, you can have a service of "Thanksgiving for the Gift of a Child", this does not replace baptism and your son could be baptized at a later date, if you/he wanted to. You don't have to make the same promises as you would for baptism.

Depending on the church, its not always easy to speak to the minister after the service, as usually lots of others are trying the same thing. If you could phone him/her and ask, maybe make an appointment, I'm sure they'd be accommodating.

Doing a baptism course doesn't automatically mean you'd then have to have your DS baptised - many churches recognise that some parents want a blessing at this stage and leave baptism as a choice when he gets older. But there will be an assumption that you want (or ought to want) to continue to be involved with a religion/denomination and bring your child up with some understanding of it, which is why they will want you to do a few weeks of "what we mean by baptism", "what are the beliefs of the church" etc course.

I think it depends why you (or rather your DH) want the minister of a religion to say some words over your DS - what do you think you are doing by this? If it's just so you can say thank you to God, that's something you presumably do for yourselves quite often anyway, as believers you're likely to feel that way and God will know it.

Is it just so you can do "something" with your families? I take your point that they will not go to a non-religious naming ceremony - I think they're daft, but up to them if they don't like the idea I suppose. But if you want to just take your child into a church, have the minister say some words, and all go out never to come back, then I think you're being a bit unfair to the church. Churches have this strange idea that you are starting out on a road which includes their religion, and would like you to at least show a little bit of interest in it.

The main issue with the whole thing is that we are of 2 completely different religions and we do not want to choose one or the other for our child and send them off down that path. It is a case of keeping a lot of people happy.

I understand that you do not have to go to a religious building with a bunch of other people to announce your faith or give thanks but DH really wants a priest/minister/religious official to bless LO so it is kind of "official" and he can have our immediate family be there but neither of us attend a church building of any description and honestly would be very unlikely to afterwards, so yes you may think this is unfair to the church.

We do believe in God and want to give thanks but DH just doesn't feel it is enough to be thankful in ourselves and privately pray. He does want it to be something that our family can be involved in.

Apoligies if I offended with my OP but I am looking for advise on how to go about this. I guess you are saying not to bother the church with just trying to find "something" to do. Thanks for advising me against taking him to a church for a blessing. I suppose it would be frowned upon as I imagined. Also, we are not married so I guess that is equally as offensive.

That actually has made me quite angry so I am just going to take previous posters advice.

No-one in my church would be offended that you're not married. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to have a church blessing - I'm just trying to give you the perspective from the churches side, that the reason they are all saying you'd have to do "some kind of baptism course" is because it matters to them that you have thought about what it is you are going to do and say by having this service in church.

It's quite likely that your faith, and reasons for wanting this, are far better than many people who go along to have their baby baptised simply because "having the baby done" is expected of them. But most churches will take the opportunity to talk to you about faith and what it all means, rather than just having you and the family turn up on the day and say things you haven't thought through. I'm not saying you haven't thought it through, but they don't know you.

I also think you need to go and talk it through because, assuming you're not a Christian, you may or may not have a problem with the things the minister is going to say in a Christian church. here is a text of the Church of England service for thanksgiving for the birth of a child. It has a lot of references to Jesus Christ in it. When you thank God for your child, do you want to thank him for Jesus as well, or ask for a blessing "through Jesus Christ our lord"?

Go for your blessing, don't be put off. You would be welcome with your baby at our church too, and I certainly wouldn't condemn you for not being married - not my place to judge! You certainly wouldn't be bothering the church!

I started going to church again when one child was 2, the other just a few weeks old. They were both baptised together, when the younger was 2 months old. I am now a minister in the church, but I certainly never envisaged that when I first went along to the church! At the time they were baptised, I hadn't got any clear idea about commitment or anything, but the church welcomed me anyway, and that welcome made all the difference. I think if I had been judged, I'd have left, sadder but wiser.

The Interfaith Foundation train ministers who offer ceremonies for people of "all religions and none". Their ministers can often provide blessings for those of mixed religions.

Their website can give you contacts in your local area.

I think the problem with a religious blessing for parents with mixed religions is which religion are you going to bless in?

I take it one of the parents must be christian because of the hostility towards a naming ceremony (which isn't a blessing anyway).

Parents not being married isn't a issue. I know CE do blessings and I think methodists do them too and I know there are other christian churches that do dedication ceremonies, which I think are similar.

Sorry it's not of much help.