Grassroots: Reaching out when celebrating a new baby

What are the outreach opportunities for churches when a couple wants to celebrate the birth of their child?

On the outside, it might seem that a service of thanksgiving or an infant baptism is a great opportunity. The church is crowded with friends, families and neighbours—many of them not Christians. If the couple are already believers, they will be longing to use the event to reach out to their unconverted friends. If the family has little or no connection with the church, the opportunity may seem even bigger. But what is the nature of this opportunity—and how can we best use it?

Peter Ackroyd, minister of a village church near Bedford, get’s a lot of “traffic” to his church with those wanting to celebrate the birth of their new child. Some come because of family expectations to get their baby baptised. Others come with a stronger sense of what dedication or baptism means. Facilitating these celebrations "is just part of the deal of being the main church in a village with a defined community.”

He feels that “hatch” opportunities are a mixed blessing, however. “At best, it’s an opportunity to sit down with a couple and start to think through what is important for them in their family life. When I visit, I take a copy of Mark’s gospel, and start straight in with the gospel message. We’ve seen people drawn into the church as a result. One of our core couples initially came to us through a baptism enquiry, and went on to a Christianity Explored course,”

"People arrive with weird expectations of church, and often they are pleasantly surprised."

"The occasion itself is more variable. You get a huge range of people arriving who are not that used to churches—they are on their phones, talking during the sermon etc. We do thanksgivings and baptisms as part of a normal service—we don’t change the preaching series, but try to tailor the content to recognise that there will be a larger than usual contingent of non-Christains present. People arrive with weird expectations of church, and often they are pleasantly surprised. If you do a good job with the couple you build credibility with the family.”

Inner city

Simon Smallwood, minister of an inner city church in Dagenham, said: "We don’t offer infant baptism, but we do five or six thanksgivings a year. We decided a long time ago to take these celebrations out of the main Sunday service—it was too difficult for our regular church family; they were overwhelmed by the 40 or 50 guests that came. On a Sunday afternoon we have a tailor-made thanksgiving service with a core in it that contains a gospel talk. There is a huge amount of goodwill generated by these occasions." Simon has seen some long-term fruit from this ministry: "They don’t turn up the following Sunday, but as we are doing regular ministry in the schools locally, on the doors, holiday clubs etc, we pick up on some of them as their children grow."

Trevor Archer, Training Director of FIEC and former Pastor at a large independent evangelical church, is less enthusiastic. He said: “You’ve got to avoid the feeling of people being got at. When they come away from an event like a thanksgiving feeling like they have been used as a target, it’s actually detrimental to evangelism. I get the feeling that some ministers salve their conscience by being rather too ‘robust’ with the gospel at these opportunities. We’ve got to remember that these events are part of a package—they build up a picture in people’s minds of what church and Christians are all about. It’s almost subliminal."

With all that in mind, here are some ideas for making the most of these occasions:

• Give a gift of a Bible at the ceremony. Make it clear that good parents feed and exercise the bodies and minds of their children. They also need to feed their souls. Some thanksgiving/infant baptism liturgies include a “charge” to the parents and godparents. Underline how important a promise it is that they are making.
• Give a suitable gospel leaflet to all the guests. Parents/grandparents and relatives will often treasure and keep things given to them on these occasions. It stands a chance of being read in years to come!
• Send a card to parents on the anniversary. The actual ceremony may have developed a good feeling towards your church, but a warm persistence in keeping in touch will build a strong bridge for the gospel in years to come. This is a great little ministry to delegate to an older member of the congregation, or perhaps a couple with children who might be able to get alongside the family and befriend them.
• Run parenting and marriage courses. All parents need help at different stages. You could try Wonderfully Made as part of a toddler group, or Putting Parenting to Bed for parents with older children. Reach out to people who you have made contact with in the past—they might not have been interested when baby was a few months old, but a couple of years down the line they might be glad of it!
• Review your church IT and communications. You could develop an email list of fringe contacts through a program like MailChimp—this means you can easily email them periodically about holiday clubs, family events etc. Or consider starting a church Facebook page, and encouraging parents and godparents to “like” the page — and so receive your future communications.

What have you found works best for these occasions? Share your thoughts below to encourage and equip others for this ministry.

Life that lasts forever: a short evangelistic booklet that might be given to guests at a thanksgiving or a baptism. It is part of a series of booklets to use at thanksgivings, weddings and funerals. Give us a call on 0333 123 0880 and we will send a sample copy of each of the booklets to you.

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