With God's Help

With God’s Help



            As the son of a United Methodist minister, my sister Amy and I were in church every time the church doors were open.  For us, the churches that my father served became to be like a family for us, and we would often time have “adopted Grandparents” in the various churches that he served.  Whether it was through those relationships with those adopted grandparents, or through the love we received by our Sunday School teachers, going to church was something that my sister and I anticipated each week.  A few years ago I was invited back to preach Homecoming at one of those churches that my father served when I was a little boy (Concord UMC, near Graham), and the people there were still telling stories about the mischievous “Preacher’s Kid” who tried to climb out the window of the nursery one Sunday morning.  Surely, they must have been referencing my sister.  But the fact that they actually remembered me (or my sister) truly meant something to me, because it meant that relationships were actually formed during our time there.  Those relationships that were formed as those people proclaimed the good news to us, and they lived according to the example of Christ.  They surrounded us with a community of love and forgiveness, so that we could grow in our service to others.  They prayed for us, that we would be true disciples who walk in the way that leads to life.  In other words, they lived out the vows that they made at our baptism.

            Each time that a child is baptized in the United Methodist Church, we are reminded that baptism is not an event that is purely singular in nature:  it is communal.  It is the parents presenting a child to a community.  It is the community vowing to help raise the child in such a way that one day they will confirm the vows that are being made of their behalf.  It is many people, completed unrelated, becoming a family together.  And it is a family that is bound together by the love, grace, and mercy of God.

            This Sunday, we have an opportunity to live up to those vows that we made at the baptism of the children within our church.  On Sunday, many of our children will be participating in leading us in worship at both the Pathways and Traditions worship services.  They will lead us in song, and they will lead us in prayer.  They will read the scriptures, and they will help us to give back to God.  At the request of the children, they will also be able to offer us the body and blood of Christ through the sacrament of Holy Communion.  As one of your pastors, I can only say that I am so proud of the community that Orange UMC has established: a community that takes her baptismal vows seriously – with God’s help.



Will you nurture one another in the Christian faith and life and include these persons now before you in your care?

With God’s help we will proclaim the good news and live according to the example of Christ.  We will surround these persons with a community of love and forgiveness, that they may grow in their service to others.  We will pray for them, that they may be true disciples who walk in the way that leads to life. 

-from The United Methodist Hymnal, “The Baptismal Covenant II,” p. 40