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Update 45 page 11.
In Update 45:
Still an issue,
Godparents,
S.E. London,
Perry,
1662 Confirmation,
Funerals,
Liturgy,
Hooker,
Andrews.
Write your own thanksgiving liturgy?
George Newell, minister of Aylsham Methodist Church,sent us a homespun liturgy, following the focus on Thanksgivings in the last issue.
Most of us have love-hate feelings about the words in service books, so it was nice to receive a service sheet from George. His Service of Naming and Thanksgiving and Anointing with Oil, has pleasantly new ways of putting old thoughts, and is for use with a non-Christian couple and guests. It goes like this:
• Welcome & Thanksgiving prayer
• Mark 10:13-16
• Prayer for the child
• Three questions to the parents
• “Children learn what they live”
• Question to support-parents
• Prayer by parents & support-parents
• Anointing of child with oil
• Giving of certificate & candle
• Thanksgiving prayer & blessing.
There’s no explicit sermon or stage directions, but one presumes an interleaving of address and explanatory words. The minister would take the child in his arms at the “Prayer for the child” part. The questions frame non-spiritual aspects of looking after a child (very similar to the old Grove Booklet questions), and there’s a familiar secular reading in the middle which makes a useful bridge to today’s society. There are a number of down-to-earth gems, e.g. (to introduce the “prayer for the child”) “Jesus loves him, and in response to that unconditional love we bring him to this occasion of thanksgiving and blessing”.
In all a useful reminder that it is not beyond the wit of ordinary clergy to write original words to express what we want to say to God.
Go to the index of other articles to do with Baptismal Integrity.
This web page was last updated on 26th November 2002.
Go to John's Brinkster Home Page.