Ok, I know this is a weird subject for a youth pastor to blog about, but we just went through this with our daughter. I know that most churches do some type of baby dedications, but there are a few things our church does that I feel are unique and could be a benefit to others.
We call them parent/child dedications, not baby dedications. This is because the focus is on dedicating ourselves to raising Addie in a way that honors God.
They do an orientation before the dedication. This walks us through the actual dedication, but also helps us understand the church's commitment to parents.
Our pastor writes a letter that we'll open when Addie makes the decision to follow Jesus.
They include a little booklet full of random wisdom from dads in our church. I thought this was really cool.
The intro and closing of a message are sometimes the most difficult parts to write, but they're some of the most critical parts of the message. The intro needs to pull people in from their world and connect them into what you're about to talk about. Needs to raise interest and curiosity - "You're talking about resisting temptation....so what?" We need them to understand WHY in the world they should listen to what we're about to say.
The closing needs to be memorable. The whole talk is now wrapped up in this moment where we try to get the whole thing to stick. However, we often wing the closing with a couple recap thoughts and a quick prayer.
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