Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.
Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.
Deuteronomy 6:4-8
“We will not hide them from their children;
we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord,
and his might, and the wonders that he has done.
He established a decree in Jacob,
and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors to teach to their children;
that the next generation might know them,
the children yet unborn, and rise up and tell them to their children,
so that they should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God…”
Psalm 78:4-7
Happy Mother’s Day to all our moms, grandmas, and spiritual moms! The two verses above speak to two ways we nurture the faith of our children. The first describes life in the home, where parents recite God’s teachings to their children within the rhythms of everyday life. The second describes the worshiping community bearing witness to the glorious deeds of the Lord to the next generation, telling the stories of faith to our children. Both speak to the intentional, organic ways in which the faith is passed on.
This Sunday is our annual Dedication Service of Newborns. During our worship service we’ll follow the biblical examples of Hannah (1 Samuel 1:27-28) and Joseph and Mary (Luke 2:22) in dedicating our infants and toddlers to the Lord and dedicating ourselves to their spiritual formation and training. As a congregation, we believe that God has called us to be the spiritual family of these little ones and that it is our privilege to partner with their parents to support their spiritual development. Such a nurturing, “intergenerational community” is in part what we aspire to be in our Vision Description.
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