What would you do if one of the children in your children’s ministry group graduated from college…at age 11?
When most children are excited about the school year finishing and they are ready for summer break and the beach and summer camps, this 11 year old is graduating from college.
The latest Children’s Ministry Think Tank question is about baby dedications in church. Here’s the question:
What is your church’s practice of baby dedication? Does it integrate with a family ministry strategy? Are there membership requirements for the parents? What do you include in the ceremony?
Here’s my response:
Baby dedication in my current Children’s-Family ministry is offered to parents and families on an individual basis. The ceremony becomes more personal to each family when it is their choice of time, not at the same time as other families in the younger preschool small groups. A professor once told me that a baby dedication service with multiple participants looks like a cattle herd – get ‘em in, get ‘em out. That’s not personal at all.
Parents choose to dedicate their children usually before the child’s first birthday; although, some parents wait until their child is close to 3 years of age. They consult the pastor on times. If there are other families desiring a dedication service, then those families are encouraged to work out times in which they are the only family participating on a particular day; therefore, each family is secured a personal service and not hurried through the ceremony. The service is performed in the spirit of Hannah dedicating Samuel in the Old Testament.
In my children’s ministry experience, I have not been given the responsibility of planning a service or an order of worship. I have only organized the special day with details of the family names, ages, guests, other information, and special lunches afterward to assist the senior pastor. Without planning or having input into the elements to include in a ceremony, I consulted some senior pastors about what they normally include for the families.
One pastor in Maryland said at his church they hold their baby dedication service for multiple families. He shares an informational sheet of questions with parents who are interested in a baby dedication service. If they can sincerely answer “yes†to each question, then he invites them to begin the planning process for a service. The following questions are included on the informational sheet:
1.   Do you confess your faith and commitment to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord?
2.   Do you acknowledge that your child is a gift and a trust from God, and that you are responsible to God for his/her Christian nurture?
3.   Will you pray for your child’s salvation and teach your child the way of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ?
4.   Since your child will learn by both your word and example, will you set a Godly example in prayer, Bible reading, church attendance, giving, and serving others in your church home?
5.   Do you, at this time, present your child before God, saying that whatever God might want your child to do or be, you are willing to release him/her to His perfect plan?
The following is a draft of a typical baby dedication service:
Pastor: The purpose of baby dedication is to establish the partnership between the parents and the church in passing on the faith to their children and their children’s children.
The pastor speaks to the congregation: reading Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and Psalm 78:1-8.
Each family has read the scriptures and more and are impressed to make a public proclamation to dedicate their children and to bear witness of their intent to pass on their faith to their children.
The pastor then introduces the families and speaks to these families, saying the following:
God gives clear commands to parents to pass on their faith to their children. The church is your faith family that will walk along side you with love, support, and prayer in this endeavor. We do this by promising to equip you as parents for this task, by praying with and for you, by providing solid, biblically based developmentally appropriate programs, for you and your child to learn, and by giving you opportunities with and in the family of God to worship, study, fellowship, service, and witness as a family unit in the larger community of faith setting. We want to be the best friend a parent can have as they seek to pass on their faith to their children. We want to be available to you and your family.
The pastor asks each family participating in the dedication to respond by saying “I will†to each question if they agree before God and the church family. The questions are the same questions that were asked of each family on the informational sheet in the initial meeting between pastor and family.
Dedication is a serious public declaration of your intent to commit to obey God’s word, and pass on your faith to the next generation. At the same time it is also an affirmation that you are not alone in this awesome task; the body of Christ is standing with you.
The pastor finishes the service by asking the congregation the following question:
“Church, are you willing to take on the responsibility to love, care, and support these parents as they work to pass on their faith to their children. Promising to love them, equip them, pray for and with them, supporting by example and involvement in their lives as they work toward this end. If you agree to that please stand and say, ‘I will.’â€
Then, the pastor closes in prayer.
Here’s the link for responses from other children’s ministers.
The church in this article is inviting “responsible handgun owners” to bring their guns to church to celebrate the 4th of July and the 2nd Amendment. According to the article, they will promote gun safety.
hmmm…Interesting. That would be a difficult lesson in Children’s worship. At school the students are not allowed to make guns out of the Legos or blocks or even point their fingers like guns. Oh, when questioned about their Lego creations, they have a safe answer: “It’s a wand or I’m a police officer.” Something safe like that.
Of course, gun safety can be taught at church and in children’s classes, but it definitely would be a creative lesson, deserving much study and preparation time.
I don’t think that’s the route I need to take in children’s worship with the children in attendance at my current church at the current time.
Studies show that the old thought of math being harder for girls than boys is not true. Some classrooms are pushing boys to excel in math more than girls though because of that old thought. Read on from this article from FoxNews.
Just as boys tend to gravitate to toy trucks and girls usually prefer dolls, the gender differences in math performance have more to do with culture than aptitude. That’s according to a new review of relevant studies.
Such findings challenge the century-old idea that males are innately more capable than girls in mathematics. More recently, the gender bias showed up in the 1990s when Mattel introduced a Barbie doll that said, “Math is hard.” And in 2005, Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard University and current economic adviser to President Barack Obama, brought the debate into the spotlight again.
While speaking at an event, Summers stated that males are intrinsically smarter than females in science and engineering. “I have to say that Larry Summers’ comments in 2005 inspired me,” to complete the current study, said Janet Hyde, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of psychology.
Math around the world
Hyde and Janet Mertz, a UW-Madison professor of oncology, analyzed studies from around the world on math performance along with gender inequality as measured by the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index. This index measures the gap between men and women in economic opportunity, educational attainment and other socioeconomic factors. The researchers knew that if guys were born with math on the brain, so to speak, the gender difference in mathematical ability should be somewhat universal. But some countries showed a larger gap than others. Countries with low gender equality showed a greater gender gap in math.
For example, India and Iran ranked low on gender equality and low on the percent of females scoring high in the International Mathematical Olympiad, a competition for those with exceptional math skills.
American girls
In the United States, which scored relatively high for gender equality, girls perform on average as well as boys on standardized math tests. Girls in the United States are now taking calculus in high school at the same rate as boys, and the percentage of U.S. doctorates in the mathematical sciences awarded to women has climbed to 30 percent in the 21st century, up from 5 percent in the 1950s. However, more boys than girls are identified at the upper rungs of the mathematically gifted in the United States. The researchers say this gap is narrowing.
Summers suggested that guys inherently show more variability than gals in math ability, resulting in some guys with soaring math skills. The variability, he pointed out, could account for the greater number of males with award-worthy math skills. (No woman to date has won a Fields Medal, the Nobel Prize of mathematics.) But the study results, detailed today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that girls’ math scores are just as variable as boys’ in some countries and in some ethnic groups in the United States such as Asian Americans.
While many scientists are beginning to recognize boys are not innately math whizzes compared with girls, Hyde said, some people might be surprised at the new findings. “There’s a gender stereotype that boys are better at math than girls are, and stereotypes die very hard,” Hyde told LiveScience. “Teachers and parents still believe that boys are better at math than girls are.”
The researchers provide several possible cultural factors keeping females from excelling in math, including classroom dynamics in which teachers pay more attention to boys, while even mathematically gifted girls are not nurtured. In addition, stereotypes may drive guidance counselors and others to discourage girls from taking engineering courses.
In some regions, where women role models in math-intensive careers are scarce, the girls themselves may steer clear of such a path.
PHILADELPHIA  — A U.S. court says a kindergartner’s mother cannot read Scripture during show and tell, even if the Bible is the boy’s favorite book.
Monday’s ruling is a victory for the Marple Newtown School District in suburban Philadelphia.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says the school’s decision does not violate First Amendment rights given the nonpublic nature of the classroom and the tender age of the children.
The mother, Donna Kay Busch, argues the students heard stories related to Passover, Christmas and other religious holidays.
The appeals court says there is a “significant difference” between identifying those holidays and reading from Scripture.
—from FoxNews.com
