Connecting your child with their new Church Family.
Firstly, congratulations on becoming parents and thank you for considering St. Oswald’s Church for your child’s Christening!
Just to explain, a Baptism and a Christening are the same thing — the first step of an amazing journey with God. At a Christening, water is poured over your child’s head as he or she is baptised in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. This signifies how those who are baptised have been welcomed into God’s love.
During a Baptism service, both parents and god-parents will be asked to make various promises over their child’s life; one of which is to raise their child as part of the church family (community). In order to get to know your church family, therefore, we normally ask for all prospective baptism families to come along to two or three services, before we book any dates.
This will help you get to know people and be fully welcomed into the church body. We love having children in the church, so please don’t worry about ‘having to be quiet’ during the service — it’s just their way of speaking to God!
Once we have all the necessary details, we will arrange a visit with you to prepare for the Christening, explain what happens during the service, and to explore what it means for you and your child.
If you live outside of the parish, we encourage families to contact your local parish church for a Christening; we are happy to help you make contact with the right person within your parish to begin that journey. We recognise, too, that there are occasions where families do not live in this parish and are not on the electoral roll, but who do have strong and established links to St. Oswald’s. We will be pleased to discuss this with you. For help finding the nearest church to you or which parish you live in, please click here.
For more information about Christenings in the Church of England, please click here.
Sunday Morning Christenings
Christenings or Baptisms usually take place on a Sunday morning, right after the regular Morning Worship & Communion service around 12:30pm.
If you prefer, you can also have the Christening take place in the Morning Worship Service which begins at 10:30am. Please let us know if you would rather this format and we can arrange to make that happen.
Adult Baptisms
We are also delighted to hear about Adults who wish to explore Baptism, Confirmation, and the beautiful commitment that entails.
If you wish to discover more information about this, you can find out more information from the Church of England’s website by clicking here. However, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you wish to discuss this further.
“Over the years to come, a [Christening] is a journey you’ll share together with your child by being there for them;
Church of England
to talk about the bigger questions in life: questions about faith, hope, and love.”
God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear son.
Ephesians 1:5-6 (NLT)
Image credits: header by AD Today written by Paul Wirth; font by Pixabay; children running as from CofE Christening site; flowers by Michi-Nordlicht; children banner Header, © Shutterstock; One-page profile, and Church of England Christening; mother and child at beach by sasint; bible by debowscyfoto on Pixabay. Adult baptism photo: 841-05785885 © robertharding / Masterfile Model Release: No Property Release: Baptism in Lake Leman, Geneva, Switzerland, Europe.
Welcome to St. Oswald's Church 