The Johnson's: Week 34: Erik's Dedication

Earlier this year, Kent & I decided to dedicate Erik in a church ceremony. Our church, Forest Lake SDA Church, had implemented a new baby dedication service this year. Rather than having individual baby dedications at random times through-out the year, the church decided to hold 3 group dedications, one each for the first three quarters of the year. One of the main reasons for this change was to add intentional interaction between the pastoral staff and parents. In addition to having a group dedication service, the pastoral staff had a pre-meeting with all the families to discuss the dedication process and to provide us with parenting spiritual tools & resources. They also let us create a little video where we could talk to Erik about why we decided to dedicate him and our hopes/goals for his future. After the actual dedication ceremony, the church also hosted a dinner for the families where we received baby quilts, had family pictures taken and were able to interact with the pastoral staff again.

The actual dedication ceremony took place on Sabbath, March 24, during the 3rd church service at 11:30AM. Thankfully, Erik did great up on stage even though this is usually his nap time. There were a lot of people on the stage, including the church choir! There was a pastor or an elder on stage for each family; the elder that was assigned to us was Steve Sherman, who is the principal of our elementary school. He was very pleased by how Erik’s name was a nod to our Scandinavian heritage since he is also Scandinavian. The service included a video montage of pictures of all the babies that played while we were walking up on the stage, then one of the pastors gave a brief introduction of each baby and then our head pastor gave a short homily and then the dedication prayer. I started out holding Erik, but had to give him to Kent about half way through. Elder Sherman held Erik during the prayer and thankfully, Erik didn’t fuss or cry, though he did squirm quite a bit during that part.

One of the key elements of the baby dedication pre-meeting was to encourage us parents to choose a Blessing Verse for our children that we could pray for and with our child through-out their life. Kent and I chose Ephesians 3:16-19; after reading various translations, I found one that I especially liked - the God’s Word Translation. I liked it because it is in today’s language style and it sounds like an actual conversation between us & Erik:

“I’m asking God to give you a gift from the wealth of His glory. I pray that He would give you inner strength and power through His Spirit. Then Christ will live in you through faith. I also pray that love may be the ground into which you sink your roots and on which you have your foundation. This way, with all of God’s people you will be able to understand how wide, long, high, and deep His love is. You will know Christ’s love, which goes far beyond any knowledge. I am praying this so that you may be completely filled with God.”

Kent & I ask that if & when you pray for Erik that you pray Ephesians 3:16-19 for him. Pray that Erik will put his foundation in God and that he will know God’s love.