Christening and alternative naming ceremonies (merged)

Savvy_Sue

Lillibet wrote:

Pretty much, yes, although you don't promise to take them to church. A Godparent is responsible for over-seeing the childs religious & spiritual upbringing. I belive that technically a christening is a religious naming ceremony held at a church & a baptsim is a ceremony to enter the child into the faith & incorporates the naming but unless you can find a chuch which still disguinshes between the 2 (ours doesn't) then you will get the part about entering & practising the faith.

So is that Catholic? Because I thought in the CofE you could ask for a service of Thanksgiving for the gift of a child. Which might suit jellyhead?

I know that some vicars are happy to offer infant baptism to anyone who asks for it, and others prefer to offer the service of Thanksgiving to families they don't know. I did know one family who, despite being practising Christians themselves, only wanted the service of Thanksgiving, and the vicar declined on the grounds that "people would wonder why you're not having them baptised", so theirs never had any public ceremony.

Ours were only thanksgivened, actually it was thanksgiving, blessing, naming and dedication of godparents, I think, but that wasn't CofE. Can't quickly find a link to that service or I would post it.

Not a lot to add to anyone else's comments on the post-ceremony procedure!

Lillibet_2

Savvy_Sue wrote:

So is that Catholic? Because I thought in the CofE you could ask for a service of Thanksgiving for the gift of a child. Which might suit jellyhead?

Nope, thats High Church of England, which is slightly different than regular Chruch of England, although not much (mostly more incense & kneeling!). Never heard of a Thanksgiving service but it sounds lovely:D

jockettuk

wait till the baby is 18 get him christned as a adult then all go down the pub and have a great time lol.. oh and make him pay for it all lol... oh if only.. i got my daughter christened because being brought up as a catholic i believed that if your child died before being baptised then they wouldnt go to heaven,, i lost my mum to cancer during my pregnancy so i was grieving and worried that if anything happened to my child my mum couldnt look after her.. my daughter is now 11 doing my head in but love her to bits.. and she asked me the other day abt her baptism and i showed her the pics and the video others took.. she said at least i went to that even if i cant remember it lol.. she was miffed when younger she missed the party at her dads and mine wedding lol..

Spendless

I've heard a lot of people say that they won't have their child baptised will wait for their child to make that decision when older but do many adults do that does anyone know .


Our vicar has told us to be a god-parent you have to be baptised yourself and to be married in church at least one of you has to be. When the in-laws got married the vicar said MIL had to be baptised first.They had DH within a year and I was surprised they didn't baptise him so he wouldn't be put in the same position MIL had been. When I asked FIL about he, he said "oh we thought he could sort himself out when older"

DH wouldn't be baptised as an adult as he'd feel too embarrassed.

bargainaddict

At our Church we have a ceremony called a dedication. The parents and godparents thank God for the safe arrival of the baby and ask for His help to bring the child up on the right path. Its very simple and moving and leaves the child open to make his own baptismal promises at a time they decide is right for them. My friends 15year old ad just been baptised. We are not high Church, we are an Anglican Church that is very relaxed and family orientated.

jellyhead

i don't want to hijack lilibet's thread, but as it's been mentioned, spendless i wasn't christened because my parents didn't go to church and were married in a registry office. they thought a church christening would be hypocritical and meaningless but they did get my brother baptised in hospital because it was standard procedure for babies who were at risk of dying, 14 weeks prem was a big deal in 1980. i started going to sunday school at around six, without my parents, i went with a girl from school. this was salvation army and before joining properly in uniform (after a year or two) i had a 'dedication' ceremony under the flag. none of my siblings had any kind of ceremony, they didn't join any churches. i suppose i'd have to have been baptised properly if i'd wanted a church wedding but i wouldn't have done it, not for the sole purpose of having a church wedding, i'm not a churchgoer.

my sister is planning her second marriage this year, it's in church and she's marrying someone who was raised catholic. neither of them go to church but the vicar will marry anyone.

Savvy_Sue

Lillibet wrote:

Nope, thats High Church of England, which is slightly different than regular Chruch of England, although not much (mostly more incense & kneeling!). Never heard of a Thanksgiving service but it sounds lovely:D

That makes sense ... it would tend to be the 'lower' end of the CofE which would offer the Thanksgiving.

jockettuk wrote:

i got my daughter christened because being brought up as a catholic i believed that if your child died before being baptised then they wouldnt go to heaven,, i lost my mum to cancer during my pregnancy so i was grieving and worried that if anything happened to my child my mum couldnt look after her..

That's so sad. I wonder if belief in limbo (where the unbaptised babies go) will ever die out ...

Spendless wrote:

I've heard a lot of people say that they won't have their child baptised will wait for their child to make that decision when older but do many adults do that does anyone know .

I guess it depends on their upbringing. We didn't have ours baptised, because we believe that nothing anyone else does on your behalf can bring you into the family of God. Many of their contemporaries at church have now been baptised but mine haven't.

I think if you leave them to make their own minds up without making any effort to share your own beliefs or give them anything to believe, then it will be more difficult for them to find their way. But if they're brought up 'in the faith', then far more of them will respond. At some point.

Spendless wrote:

DH wouldn't be baptised as an adult as he'd feel too embarrassed.

Fair enough. To me it wasn't about embarrassment or how I felt, it was about doing what God said. Some people believe it's right to have their children baptised, so they do it regardless of whether the rest of the family agrees. Other people refuse to have any ceremony, regardless of what the rest of the family wants. If you don't have any convictions, it's hard to act on the strength of them! Give me convictions (whether I agree with them or not!) any day!

jellyhead wrote:

this was salvation army and before joining properly in uniform (after a year or two) i had a 'dedication' ceremony under the flag. none of my siblings had any kind of ceremony, they didn't join any churches. i suppose i'd have to have been baptised properly if i'd wanted a church wedding but i wouldn't have done it, not for the sole purpose of having a church wedding, i'm not a churchgoer.

The Salvation Army is a wonderful example of pragmatism! It would have been too shocking when it started for women to do things regarded as sacraments (like baptise babies or lead communion services) - so they just don't have any!

jellyhead wrote:

my sister is planning her second marriage this year, it's in church and she's marrying someone who was raised catholic. neither of them go to church but the vicar will marry anyone.

The joys of the CofE!

hobbesy_2

As a follow on from the fab christening thread further down i wanted to know what experiences people had of 'naming' days as an alternative to christening. Our family is now complete, our son will be 3 this weekenda nd our daughter is 10 weeks. We in no way christian, husband was brought up mormon and myself CofE, no offence to those who are but it is something we have moved away from. If anything we follow Buddhist principals but if pushed would not give a religion at all. There is no buddhist form of christening that i know of although our son was blessed by a priest with just the 3 of us there when he was 1 at a Thai festival.

We would really love to have a day to bring all our family and friends together and commemorate the fact that our family is now complete and officially welcome our children into the world especially as after our first we were told we couldnt have any more children. I have seen you can have a civil ceremony done at a register office which would be a nice thought if it was done at the same as where we got married (Guildford) but it costs over £300 and the room can only seat just over 30 (i have that many with just family on my side).

We have also seen that you can get a humanist person to perform your ceremony which also sounds lovely but i can see half my family turning their nose up at this being 'silly', chances are they will be bad enough with the fact we are doing something different anyway but its important to me they are there. They may be pains but they're my pains!

Other option i guess is getting a hall and doing everything ourselves which is looking most likely at the moment. The biggest thing with this i think is finding the right balance between a little bit of a ceremony and a nice party after.

I spose what i'm asking is just for peoples experiences if they've been to anything like this. What worked well, what didn't

many many thanks

Keri -x-

Alleycat

Hi Keri,

We had a Naming Ceremony for my daughter in August last year when she was 6 months. It was an absolutely fabulous day and something we would definately do again. We did look into having a ceremony at our local registry office and then a meal/buffet afterwards but felt that this was more our style - personal to us.

We hired a room in a boating club, with bar (sounds posh, but was a really good deal!) on the river Thames, did a buffet (made by ourselves) and asked my dad to lead the ceremony. We bought a beautiful cake (handmade from a lovely shop just north of Manchester), had pastel balloons on all the tables and a guest book. We bought the book from the Humanist Society (I would highly recommend it!) and used parts of that to write the words.

We asked my two sisters and my partner's cousin to be Supporting Adults and explained to them what exactly it entailed (basically being there as guidance to our little one as she grows up, a shoulder to cry on/talk to if she felt she could not come to us at any point) and they made promises to that effect during the ceremony. Myself and my partner also wrote promises to Jessica from ourselves and read them out to her. One of my sisters and my partner's cousin also read out poems. My fav was called Being Small. I shall have to dig it out and post it. My dad then formally welcomed Jessica into the family and community with a toast at the end.

I understand what you mean about getting a balance right. We started the day with people mingling, having a drink etc. Half an hour in we had the ceremony which took about 20-30 minutes, then we opened the buffet and had a nice afternoon party for the next several hours. At the end we nabbed all the balloons, took them outside and released them into the sky. They did get caught round a tree so my ridiculously tall cousin had to climb up and untangle them!

A lot of relatives especially the older ones were a bit confused about what it all meant thinking it would just be a bit of a party. However they were all really pleasantly surprised and all commented on what a wonderful way it was of welcoming our daughter into the family. All in all it was a really special day, made all the more special as we were able to write the words ourselves and see family we hadn't seen for ages. We did think we might just have a party but felt a ceremony was important as it marked it as more of an occasion. Don't worry about family thinking it is 'silly' just because its not the more traditional christening/baptism.

Alleycat

I found the poem, its called Being Small by John Maguire (hope there is no copyright probs, if so I can delete it).

“Sometimes I just hate being small,
When everyone else is tall,
I think the world is most unfair
With me down here and them up there.

It’s awful when a juicy peach
Is in a bowl far out of reach
Or parents have safely put away
The toys with which I want to play.

It’s terrible to have to stretch
For everything you want to fetch
While bigger people help themselves
To things from off the highest shelves.

Perhaps it might be less unfair
If they were kind of stuck up there
And had to wait till I came round
To give them things from off the ground;

But no, they can easily bend,
To fetch and carry, make and mend,
While if I want to reach that cup,
I have no way of bending up!”

Made me all reminiscent so had to post a cutie pic as well!