we chose to baptize emily when she was about 6 months old. The decision did not come lightly. although its a tradition in both mine and Ricky's family to baptize babies, we didn't want that to be our reasoning. many people feel strongly about the issue actually. whole denominations of the church were formed based on this issue (kind of). we happen to be attending a church that would have discouraged us to baptize emily and in fact doesn't even offer it. they do baby dedications which are just a special but we decided not to do that. we had my father (a pastor) baptize her in new jersey at what we consider to be our home church.
to get to the point- we decided to baptize emily because we believe that she is apart of our family. we baptized her to include her in our faith. in the new testament you read accounts of one man coming to know jesus and then having his whole household baptized with him. his whole household was blessed through him. we chose that same blessing for emily- to include her now, because she is part of our household. when she is old enough to come to Christ on her own we hope she will choose to remain with us instead of joining us. as her parents, we believe we have the authority to do this and to bless her in this way. baptism is not salvation. she will choose that on her own. she may even choose to be baptized again someday (which is fine by me since there are examples of 2 baptisms int he bible).
anyway, we are a peace with this and in case you made it this far in reading ill tell you a little bit about her part-tay. it was in my parents backyard and a beautiful day. we didn't want it to be a big thing- just family and a few decorations. it was perfect. here are some pics for you all.
to get to the point- we decided to baptize emily because we believe that she is apart of our family. we baptized her to include her in our faith. in the new testament you read accounts of one man coming to know jesus and then having his whole household baptized with him. his whole household was blessed through him. we chose that same blessing for emily- to include her now, because she is part of our household. when she is old enough to come to Christ on her own we hope she will choose to remain with us instead of joining us. as her parents, we believe we have the authority to do this and to bless her in this way. baptism is not salvation. she will choose that on her own. she may even choose to be baptized again someday (which is fine by me since there are examples of 2 baptisms int he bible).
anyway, we are a peace with this and in case you made it this far in reading ill tell you a little bit about her part-tay. it was in my parents backyard and a beautiful day. we didn't want it to be a big thing- just family and a few decorations. it was perfect. here are some pics for you all.
this happened to be the same weekend we did my sister-in-laws shower so it was plenty easy to just keep the tent up for this. it looked beautiful, didn't it?
the typical "sign here" frame : the middle is the invite i designed and sent -via email- and probably the cutest picture of emily EVER! (i was going to hang this in her room but its currently behind her crib on the floor.)
basically the only this i did was create the emily banner you see here and the hanging pretty circle things...
| 
this cute favors with personalized ribbons, beautiful balloons, mood setting table clothes (can they set the mood?), and lots of food provided by my wonderful mother-in-law.
|
i forgot to get any pictures of the TONS of food that was provided by our family. (ricky's family has a tendency to bring a million desserts which is clearly NOT a problem.) emily wore a outfit given to her by my best friend from college and looked super cute. above is our family picture and below is the invitation i sent out...
RSS Feed