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Quote:
Moroni 6: 2-3
“Neither did they receive any unto baptism save they came forth with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and witnessed unto the church that they truly repented of all their sins. And none were received unto baptism save they took upon them the name of Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end.”
I was thinking about this recently because my daughter was baptized in November, so we were looking for a sort of checklist to make sure she was ready (as ready as possible) as her parents. The first part “broken heart and a contrite spirit” was condensed down into her understanding of God and what God wanted for her with a focus on the Sacrament. My daughter is 8, she has no heavy sins to repent of, and is making progress on developing into a person with an eventual adult capacity for understanding and displaying developmentally appropriate behaviors. We are working on “Theory of Mind” – helping her to learn the mental/spiritual implications of putting herslf into the shoes of another, and how to recognize when she needs to give herself a “time out” to regroup and gain control of herself. My daughter has a belief in Jesus Christ that she talks about periodically – but what is more meaningful to me is the random times when she says or does something showing us that she is changing her behavior because of her belief in the Savior. Just last week she came up to me and told me, “I choose to be nice and play with my sister today because that is what Jesus wants me to do.” Of course, we know that 10 minutes after she had started playing with her sister she was more than ready to stop playing with her sister – she had done what she felt the Savior needed her to do.
At this point in life, I self-identify as a Christian (until proven otherwise personally) – and I can learn from my daughter what “having a determination to serve him to the end” means at my personal individual developmental level.
Nice Amy. I was thinking as I read your post how I expected too much from my kids when they were at that age (I’m not saying you are expecting too much) I realized now which it seems you have a better grasp on that I did at the time, that everyone especially young children are molded by everything around them and they don’t have to and won’t get it all into their spiritual minds like I thought they should. Heck I’m still spiritually morphing myself. I’m glad I broke out of the hardened shell I had formed around myself, and hopefully I don’t reinforce the shell on others. Reinforcing the good habits and the feelings that come with it… Thanks for your response, LDS_Scoutmaster. My faith transition started about 3 months before her baptism, so I struggled with what to teach her to prepare for this occasion while being as respectfully authentic in my belief stance as possible (especially since I ended up giving the combined Baptism/Holy Ghost talk at her request). I didn’t want to focus on some of the specific doctrinal details of baptism because a) I felt that she would get bored and it would have no meaning for her, b) I don’t have a concrete belief system in this area right now, so how can I teach her what I am not sure of, and c) she had lots of other people who could cover that.
For me, I focused on her baptism as an introduction into the community of saints, with a Christian emphasis on belief. I made sure that everyone knew that this was what I talked about because a) it was something that would resonate with her (and it was her baptism after all), and b) because we had invited non-members and less active members whom I wanted to make sure felt comfortable with what was presented. Mostly, I just spoke simply as her parent with what I wanted her to know about baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost – that baptism was a formal entry into a community of saints that she would be apart of, and that the gift of the Holy Ghost could be there specifically for her when she needed it.
I like your approach Amy. When our children were baptized we put on the invitations that they had chosen to follow Jesus Christ by being baptized.
It really was as simple as that.
I think you did great Amy. Sounds like it was very personal and tailored. I’ve struggled with the ‘this is a teaching moment for non members’ type of dissertation that goes way over the head of the youngster who is being baptized, and non members probably won’t remember every word that was said. I agree Roy, strip away all of the ‘appendages’ and it really is simple.
When I ordained my son, I focused on service rather than duty, and emphasised the priesthood as a vehicle for service in general.
Thanks all. I related baptism and the holy ghost to the “Chronicles of Narnia”. I pointed out that being baptized was similar to when the children chose to follow Aslan. I related that the gift of the holy ghost was similar to when Santa visited the children and handed them individually needed items that would help them on their future journeys. I had gotten the general themes cleared by our branch president ahead of time just in case it was slightly off topic. My best friend said “it was perfect”. My mother-in-law said it was a sweet service. My husband said it was “quirky” and could have probably been longer (it was 5 minutes tops), but that it was a good talk.
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