Dean Fredrick Coleman Dedication

Invitation to Parents

Will the parents of Dean Frederick Coleman bring him forward for dedication to the Lord?

(The parents ascend the platform with him in arms and Todd and Sondra Maxwell)

The psalmist rejoices over children, saying:

“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,

the fruit of the womb a reward.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior

are the children of one’s youth.

Blessed is the man

who fills his quiver with them!” (Ps. 127:3–5a)

Today you have come with a fresh arrow for your family quiver, and the sense of divine blessing lingers in your hearts. It is fitting that you bring your child before God’s people in joyful and solemn dedication. May the trajectory of this new arrow be graced as he courses through the years.

Parental Covenant

To the Katelyn Rhea Coleman and Blake Fredrick Coleman:

The purpose of this dedication is to help you as parents fully embrace the sacred call to raise up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And so, in keeping with that purpose, will you now respond together to the following covenant (saying we do):

• Do you now present your child before God in solemn dedication? We do.

• Do you consecrate yourselves as parents to bring up your child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? We do.

• Do you promise to instruct him in the gospel of Jesus Christ and in the practice of prayer and to guide him in the development of a Christlike character? We do.

• Do you promise to try, by God’s grace, so to shape the home life of your child, both by example and family devotions and by your word and conduct, that at the proper time he will come to an open confession of Christ and membership in his church? We do.

Inasmuch as you have promised before God and his people to raise your child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, we charge you to set yourselves to that task by the grace of God.

Congregational Covenant

FBCL, please stand and affirm your commitment as much as Kaitlyn, Blake, and Dean will participate in our church community of believers.

Pastor Jason:

“Do you, the body of Christ, promise to receive this child in love, pray for him, help instruct him in the faith, and encourage and sustain him in the fellowship of believers?”

Please respond,

Congregation: “Lord willing, we do.”

Prayer

“Our Father and the Author of life, our hearts well with gratitude for this beautiful child who was knit in his mothers’ wombs—his tiny valved heart, the complex rainbow tapestries of his veins and nerves, his exquisite hands, hinged and so wondrously wrought.

And all of this, Father, is just a hint of the subtlety of his person—the immense intelligences just now learning to communicate, the poetry and art in his soul, the God-sized capacity for you, Father God, as he has been created in your image.

Father, on this the day of his dedication, we pray that in the years to come, the prayers and love of his parents, his families, and this church would be used by your Spirit to open his heart to you, so that he shall serve you all of the days of his life. In Jesus’s name.” Amen.