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Update 41 pages 10-11.
In Update 41:
Burning Boats?
CW Baptism
For infants?
Not out of mind
Baptism & Unity
Praxis Pack
What is Baptism?
Initiation initiatives
Praxis: Pastoral Services Training Pack
Thanksgiving for the Gift of a Child section, reviewed by Andii Bowsher
This whole training pack is aimed at helping those who will be using the pastoral services to understand them. It is designed to help pastoral visitors and lay preparation teams etc. to prepare people for participating in services. It contains OHP masters for acetates with key summary points on them.
There is an introduction to the understanding of how these services might fit into pastoral practice drawing on ritual theory and ideas about staged rites. This looks fairly helpful but you’d need to be careful about introducing terms like “pre-liminal” to some congregations I’ve known and loved in the past!
In reviewing the Thanksgiving section I declare my interest as someone who extensively used the previous Thanksgiving service with pastoral amendments as allowed by canon B5. I was pleased to see the revised service has taken on board the kinds of things that we had been saying about the actual pastoral needs of families at this point, and has brought in a blessing for the child, a role for family friends, and a ‘reception’ of the name of the child. It was also good to see comments that I and/or others about the level of literacy required to read the opening prayer have been addressed. All this means that the service itself is a great help in the preparation.
I was heartened to see that where it is asked who one would use this service with, the first answer is “those involved responding to initial enquiries about ‘christenings’.” It was just a shame that the big bold type heading to the section has “Thanksgiving for the Gift of a Child. Using the pack with ... Baptism preparation teams” which seems rather to prejudge the issue. Later on it is recognised that the service might be suitable for those who intend to leave baptism to their child’s own discretion in later years so perhaps it is really broader than “baptism preparation” teams; it is also conceivable that initial enquiry processes and baptism preparation processes might be different. The title norms baptism in a way that might not be always helpful even if it is the usual situation [still]. In the next reprint I hope they might consider calling it something like: “using the pack with ... teams responding to Christening enquiries.”
The graphics used with the OHT’s are cute and the layout of the sheets seems clear and suitable for talking round. There are helpful discussion questions on each sheet which will help pastoral teams to get to the heart of some of the main issues raised by the use of the service as a preparation for- or as an alternative to- baptism. These questions would allow you to be able to respond in ways that fit your own situation. The pack really does serve rather than prescribe a particular line in responding to “christening” requests.
I think a good piece of work has been done on this section and I could see me using it in appropriate circumstances to train pastoral visitors or the like. It is helpful, doesn’t make too many assumptions but seems to acknowledge the main uses that the service might gain without marginalising the understandings and uses that baptism reformers might have or make. I could even envisage it helping some readers/users to see the potential of the Thanksgiving to mop up some of the pastoral issues behind a Christening enquiry that aren’t actually baptismal; that would be to the good. The only criticism in this respect is the way the title page is set out with a presupposition of baptism or that only baptism preparation teams need apply.
Rev’d Andii Bowsher, Bradford.
The whole pack is available from Sarum College, 19 The Close, Salisbury, Wilts SP1 2EE, 01722 424815, praxis@sarum.ac.uk
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