How are the children blessed?

Question:

Recently we have become Christians and we were baptized in a baptist church. A boy was born in our family and we know that in baptist churches it is common to ask God to bless the children. We want to know more about the necessity of the blessing, its sense and how it is made. Thank you.

I am glad that you believed in Jesus Christ and you chose to become His disciples. You confirmed your choice through being baptized and you were established in as disciples of Jesus Christ, according to His commandment. Yesterday I asked a lady if she is a disciple of Jesus and she told me that she is, but when I asked her if she is baptized, she said that she will do this later, because she thinks that the most important thing is to repent, and the baptism has no such a big importance. I told her if she doesn’t hurry to be baptized then her repentance is not true and it is not valid, because who truly repents and experience being born again will hurry to confirm this thing through the baptism, as Jesus ordered. By the way, if there are persons like those through the readers of this article, I tell you that next Sunday, September 13, at Biserica Buna Vestire from Chișinău, which I lead, will be a New Testament baptism and on Saturday, at 11:00 we will interview everybody who wants to be baptized. For more information contact us by the phone: 069043143.

In baptist churches and in other evangelical churces, the newborn babies are not baptized, because this practice is contrary to God’s Word. God teaches us in the Bible that only the person who believes in Jesus Christ can be baptized and the person testifies this with his own mouth.

The babies’ blessing is not a baptist custom, but it is a commandment left by God from the Holy Bible 

In the book of Numbers from the Old Testament God left the people of Israel this commandment:

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, The LORDbless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” (Numbers 6:22-27)

I know that someone can object saying that the commandment was given for the people from Israel. We believe that this is available for all the people who worship God and for all the babies, because we all want to have God’s blessing upon us and upon our children. As you see in the quote text, this blessing was given by God and as in baptist church, as in other churches that are following the good precept of The Holy Bible it is read when a child is blessed.

Announce your pastor

Together with your husband set the Sunday when you will have the blessing of the child and announce your pastor about your wish so that he will plan this event. It will not be a problem if you bring the child to be blessed and you do not announce (at least at ”Buna Vestire” church it will not be a problem), but it is much better to announce.

Invite guests

Invite your parents, relatives, friends and anyone you want to be at this event to come to the divine service at the church and to take part at the child’s blessing because this is one of the most important moments from his life when he is brought before God to receive His blessing.

Prepare a festival table

After officiating the blessing in church invite all your guests at home to celebrate your child who was brought before God and who received His blessing. Don’t be like those who “save to much” (not to say stingy) and who don’t even have a meal on this occasion. What kind of celebration can be without guests and a table at which to get?

Invite the church minister

Invite at this table the pastor who officiated your child’s blessing. Maybe you are thinking this is strange, but there are people who believed that the pastor is too busy to be invited. You have at least 2 reasons to invite him. The first is that he officiated your child’s blessing, and the second is written in the Bible:

We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13)

Some parents manifested their love and respect for the pastor who lead them and officiated the blessing of their child offering a honorarium.

Take care of the spiritual food

When people with common sense invite guests they care about a table with tasty dishes. No less important is to prepare the spiritual food which will be given to guests. If you don’t know how to do it ask you pastor and he will teach you. The time that you will spend is a great occasion to build spiritualy all the Christians and to evangelize the nonbelievers guests. Let this table be one of love, as the first Christians used to do. Make sure that there will be a consistent spiritual message, songs, testimonies and poems.

To keep God’s blessing upon your child

It is important to teach him systematically and consistent from the Scriptures because so teaches God all the parents:

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)

 In the New Testament there is also written:

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

The first and the most important obligation of the parents is to teach their children the Word of God. Do not ignore this obligation. Teach them from the Bible in a creative way when they are preschool children, also teach them to read from the Bible, when they will learn to read use exceptional materials of Inductive Bible Study for children, which can be bought in Chișinău from the Christian Library ”Precept upon precept” and on site http://www.precept.ro from Romania. When our children learned how to read, we studied these courses within our family bible study, and if you chose to do homeschooling with your children, focus on Bible study.

Show to your children a beautiful example of Christian living. Make efforts to have a serios program of bible study with children in your local church. Motivate teachers to be prepared at the highest level. If you are already involved in such a ministry or if you want to teach at the Sunday school, I invite you to the faculty for religion and Sunday school teachers within the Inductive Bible Study Institute from Moldova. The next session at this faculty will be in the period of 2-14th of January, 2016 and it will be tought in the church “Harul” from Chișinău.

I invite parents who have already had the blessing for their children to share in the comments their experience and the things they consider important to be known.