On Baptizing Our Children

I added a picture to the post on the church blog about Hannah's baptism. Sunday night was pretty special as Hannah, 10, was the first grandchild in our family to make a decision for Christ. We're all elated.

I feel strongly about not pushing our children to make a decision too young. We want these kids to make a mature, lasting decision and we want, as parents, to be effective in guiding and mentoring them in their faith. What we want to avoid is the all-too-common "my friends were doing it" or "I want to please the grown-ups" kinds of decisions that well-intentioned children sometimes make. Too often, these decisions fade to irrelevancy as the child enters adolescence, causing the supposedly "safe" child to drift from the faith or to create an internal crisis when the Holy Spirit actually does move in their hearts.

There's no exact science here. It's a careful, case-by-case, ongoing evaluation that requires sensitivity and trust in spiritual matters that can't be measured with certainty. But as parents and ministers, let us prayerfully discern what can be discerned and teach what can be taught. To treat the spiritual formation of these children with any less care seems reckless.