The Dedication of a Child

This week, family is arriving to celebrate the birth of our girl with us.

There are many strange feelings that come up. This time last year, I gave birth in a crowded hospital, with only my husband nearby—to absorb my physical pain, my emotional lows, but more than that, the joy of our girl.  

I’ve never been very maternal, so suffice it to say that I’ve been surprised by how enjoyable this year has been. Not because I was afraid I wouldn’t love her, but because I was scared I wouldn’t settle into motherhood. Most days, there’s still a tinge of awkwardness or shame as i fumble to care for her. But it is almost immediately overcome by the joy of her six-toothed smile, or her curly toes, which she loves to shove in her mouth. 

Perhaps one of the more difficult things of the past year (though there are many difficult things and many of which I won’t be sharing) is that we have had little opportunity to share her. A year of being mostly at home, or masked when we have gone out, has meant there are only a few who know the sound of her giggle. Who knows if she has one dimple or two. Who have seen her clap or say “mama.” And sadly, a good portion of those few have been her doctors and nurses. 

Now, in a strange act of grace with a particular means of provision, those who were unable to come and be with us during her first few weeks of life are now traveling to celebrate her first year with us. They will hug her and kiss her and love her, and we will all eat cake. 

Even more than that, this weekend brings into focus another special event: her baby dedication. It wasn’t necessarily our cognitive choice to wait a whole year before presenting her before our local body of believers and pledging her to them and them to her. Still, in COVIDtide, nothing is necessarily our choice.

On Sunday, we will stand before friends and family and fellow saints, and we will present a big ask. We will ask them to make a space in the pews beside them and in their hearts to hold our girl as she grows and grows and grows. We will ask them to be her advocate, to take her cares and afflictions before the throne of God on her behalf. We are asking that she be joined to them by the body and blood of Christ, that they would make room for her at the table of the Lord’s Supper as she grows and (prayerfully, hopefully) comes to know Christ in a personal relationship with him. We are asking them to pray to that end while expectantly setting the table for her with busy hands.  

A year ago, when I had my daughter, I was still concerned that there wouldn’t be a church for her to come into. Between working in a dying church for five years and having a daughter at the beginning of a pandemic, I couldn’t see the pathway paved in front of me. I had no idea what circumstance she would be born into-- if there would even be a church left for her after COVID waned. I didn’t know if the church we loved so dearly would survive or if our hand would be forced into moving on. I didn’t know if you would find us in Ohio or Tennessee or Texas or Timbuktu. My daughter felt destined to be a spiritual orphan amid all the unknowns, and I was fearful there wouldn’t be a family to receive her on the other side of the pandemic.

But I’m grateful. The Church at West Creek has already taken a significant role in her development and her growth. 

It is essential to me that my child have a place of belonging in this church. Children have a place within the kingdom of God, and my daughter is no exception. Lord willing, and Spirit moving, she will one day participate in the sacraments, in baptism and the eucharist. 

I believe that children have a place at the table God has prepared for the church. They have a place as infants, as toddlers, as kids, and as teenagers. Nevertheless, the church body plays an active role in not blocking off the spaces that God has set, instead opening those spaces wide and deep. The church must continue the work of place-setting at the table where God has pulled out the chair and invited a child to sit and take and eat and feast. 

Through a baby dedication, we ask each church member to commit themselves to her flourishing because belonging within God’s kingdom necessitates a mutuality of belonging; she belongs to the members as much as the members belong to her. 

This means that we’re asking the church to love her now while she is cute and wearing tutus, while her screams and cries are endearing and strangely sweet. It is also an exhortation to the assembly of saints that they continue that love and affection when she’s annoying, childlike, and growing into her personhood and personality. We ask that the church commit now to her flourishing, to loving her without discrimination or condition.

Each Sunday, we arrive early at the church, and whenever our pastor, Steve, and his wife, Kate, arrive, Kate immediately scoops-up our daughter. I’m typically busy with music, and Paul is usually busy with a myriad of other things, and juggling a child is less than ideal. It blesses me when Kate comes and holds her. It means the world to me that she would take on dirty diapers so willingly, that she would take on crying and whining on my behalf so that I can be freed up to serve the church in other ways. 

I could take my daughter and relegate her away because that might be most convenient for everyone. I could deprive the church of her, and I could deny her of the church, and I could try to take on everything myself, but that’s not how any of this is supposed to work. Belonging within the body of Christ is as messy as it is beautiful.

All of this works because I belong to the church and the church belongs to me. My daughter belongs to the church, and the church belongs to her. That is the summation of the local church body that is irreplaceable and irreplicable: we serve and belong to one another, yielding ourselves to the other to better the whole functioning body. 

So, a baby dedication is not something frivolous to me. It’s something that I take as seriously as death because it deals with the certainty of death and life and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I’m asking the church to help me raise this girl. I’m asking that they love her as if she is their own family because, in the sainthood and priesthood of believers, she is. I’m asking them to join me as we work together to continually share the gospel with my daughter, to continually point her to Christ, continually point her toward her belonging within the kingdom of God. 

I’ve been given an opportunity now, and it’s one that I don’t take lightly: my daughter is the first child dedicated at The Church at West Creek. My prayer is that she certainly won’t be the last. And this is that we emphasize the belonging of children within the church despite the way they change the texture and the taste of who we are and how we function. 

This baby dedication is putting into practice what this last year has robbed from us: sharing our daughter with others in all joy and all pain. In the practice of mutual belonging, we have the pleasure and privilege to share her with a community of likeminded believers. We are surrounded by blessings on all sides because of it.