A Special Day

Today my ten-year-old son was baptized. He began talking to us about wanting to be baptized over a year ago. He had seen several baptisms already, but he began to talk more concretely about it after hearing the Godly Play baptism story a couple of times. 

When we were sure that he was ready, we planned to have the baptism at a lake in Berlin, not knowing for what the weather would do in late September. It had been raining in torrents earlier in the week, but today turned out to be a perfect autumn day. My son's special day began with some worship songs that he picked out for the service. 

 Then, he gave a short interview to let us know 

why he wanted to be baptized. 

And then it was into the water with Dad (who is a pastor)!

Just as they got ready, the sun came out and shone right on them.

Trying to light the baptismal candle - not an easy task in the wind!

With his baptismal candle.

Being prayed for by his godparents, religion teacher, 

and children's church teacher.

A bunch of ducks starting quacking during the prayer, so they evidently wanted to join in the prayer as well!

And afterwards there was a celebration!  With a special cake . . . 

and lots of friends! 

Godly Play: Baptism / Die Taufe

Two weeks ago, we heard the Godly Play story about baptism. This story is from the genre of liturgical stories and combines teaching about the Trinity with what happens when a person is baptized. 

This is the second time I've told the story and it is always a hit with the kids, because it involves water and they can "baptize"the dolls afterwards.

In our church tradition, we don't baptize babies (instead we have a "blessing" in which the parents commit to a Christian upbringing. Rather than using a baby doll for this story (which most GP storytellers use), I use a dollhouse figure. Last time, I had an adult woman figure. But this time, I decided to use 2 figures of older children, a boy and a girl, to see if the children would identify with them more.

Although I asked my daughter beforehand if it was okay to use her dolls, she had a bit of a crisis when I started "baptizing" the dolls. So I ended up having to tell the story a second time, since the other child present couldn't concentrate because of her interruptions. (This is why it is good to have a "door person". I have a door person for larger groups at school, but not at our church brunches.)

There is no official "wondering" time with this story, but the kids wanted to hear the story of my baptism, since I was the only one present who had actually been baptized.

When our group is this small, the kids don't usually play much with the story materials, but go straight to the art supplies. This time, though, the combination of water, sand and candles was too much fun to pass up.

I will be curious to see what conversations come up in the next few weeks about baptism!