Baptism is an outward symbol of forgiveness and acceptance by God when a person becomes a Christian. It’s a wonderful opportunity for the church to welcome the new Christian into God's family, and to be reminded of their own profession of faith.
Children are also baptised as an outward symbol of what God is willing to do in them because of their parents' faith in Jesus. Parents make promises on behalf of their child, and so the focus of infant baptism is not so much the child but their parent(s). It is necessary, therefore, that parents are aware of the statements and promises they will be making, before a date for the baptism is set.
If you would like to explore baptism for either yourself or your child, we would love to make a stronger connection with you and your family, and are delighted that you would like to have a connection with Jesus. We know this can be such a blessing for you or your child, and can be of great help in all that life brings.
Find out more by coming to church at 9:30am on a Sunday to meet our community, as well as one of our ministers.
At Sans Souci Anglican Church, we conduct infant baptisms (christenings) for the children of parents who are committed members of the church. The reason is simply that the kind of promises parents/godparents make in a baptism service are the kinds of promises that are very hard for people to keep if they are not committed Christians. These promises are not aspirational, but are a solemn promise made before God that the person intends to keep. Our community exists to help us all keep these promises we make.
However, we are always keen to welcome families with their children, and so we offer an alternative, which is a Thanksgiving Service. In this service, many of the elements are similar, but we don't actually baptise the child and the promises parents/godparents make are different. The Thanksgiving Service would still normally be part of our regular Sunday service, and we would pray for your children, the parents/godparents would come up the front and make promises, and you would be given an "infant dedication" certificate. We have found that this service actually represents a better option for most families in our community, and we are very eager to welcome families who wish to have such a service for their children. If this is something you’d like, then one of our ministers would be delighted to meet up with you to plan a thanksgiving service.
We understand, though, that some families would prefer to have their child baptised. If this is the case, what we ask is that you start coming along to church, and get to know us and our members. Every couple of months we run a course called A Fresh Look at Jesus, and we would ask you to attend all five sessions of that. But after the course, if you are convinced that this is what you believe, one of our ministers would be delighted to meet up with you to plan and prepare for a baptism service.