Praying for Our Children

(This is my daughter, just after we put her baptismal gown on her.)

I recently had the blessing of baptizing a baby for the first time and it was SO MUCH FUN!!!  In four years as a pastora, I've helped with many baptisms but had never actually done the baptizing.  This was a good-natured baby, he didn't cry or fuss the whole time, including when I paraded him down the aisle to let the congregation meet him :)  I think I took too long, because the organist finished her piece of music and stopped playing! 

What was almost as much fun as inducting a baby into God's family was leading the congregation through the baptismal covenant and listening to them promise to "do all in their power to increase his faith, confirm his hope, and perfect him in love" (United Methodist Hymnal 38).  That was cool because I knew that shortly we would be calling on the congregation to live into those vows. 

This Sunday, the second Sunday in January, when we read about Jesus' baptism and remember our own, we are starting a 31 day prayer calendar to pray for our children.  The calendar was created by a member of First Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, who gave us permission to adopt it for our use.  Because we are a church family, all the children of the church are all our children and we are going to pray for them daily for a month. 

If you'd like to join us in prayer, you can find the prayer calendar here: http://tinyurl.com/oumcprayercalendar