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An all-age, living-faith Christian community - English speaking - between Marbella and Gibraltar

Christ's love underpins this church and we guarantee to welcome you wherever you are on your journey

 The Church of England's Diocese in Europe WORKING with the UK Methodist church		 The Church of England
The Methodist Church
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Sunday 16th December

San Pedro 10am

Nine Lessons and Carols

Sotogrande Midday Methodist Worship

Nine lessons and carols

Sotogrande, Friday 14th Dec 7.30

Planning

Jesus’ baptism was nearly 2000 years ago. And that was a very significant event in Jesus’ life. It was the beginning of a journey of ministry, mission, healing and service eventually leading to his death and resurrection. Every baptism mirrors that beginning of a journey and so, is very special. You will know, early on, if the date is available and who, from the church, will make up the preparation team. If the preparation is early enough you may like to discuss your song/hymn choice with the team.Your baptism will be a collaborative event with the church community.  Preparation is usually a single, one-and-a-half hour event with the parents and as many of the godparents as possible present.

Faith

People choose to be, or have their children baptised for lots of different reasons.  God’s presence and love are key as you and your godparents make lifelong promises, sharing the moment with your friends and family.  One way or another God has prompted you to do this and so is overseeing the preparation, the service and will be walking this new journey with you. 

Children

We welcome children.  We are committed to children being an equal part, with adults, of our worshiping community.  We hold Sundays’ Cool most weeks at the same time as the church worship so that families can feel comfortable that their children are doing their own activities.  Consequently children can, if they want, join that group on the day of the baptism and then come back into the church at the end of the communion. 

All our workers with the children are fully checked through the child protection schemes and the church has its own child protection officer.

 In all services there is also a carpeted play area with lots of toys.  If children want to stay in the church then you are welcome to make use of that area during the service.

Sharing

Families are sometimes tightly constrained on possible dates for a baptism, for whatever reason, so from time to time two families ask for the same date.  We want to accommodate requests whenever possible so we may ask you to share the event assuming the total number expected in the congregation comfortably fits the church.

Godparents and supporters

Godparents can be key in the life of a child, having the spiritual development of the child in their heart and their prayers.  Consequently the Anglican Church (and most other churches) requires godparent to have been baptised themselves.  Ideally parents will also have been baptised but if you, or your proposed godparents, have not been baptised then we would be delighted to baptise you at the same time – to make it a family event – which makes sense because the promises you make on behalf of your child are exactly the same promises you would make for yourself at baptism.  Traditionally each child has three godparents with at least two of the same gender as the child. 

If you have in mind asking someone of another faith, or of no faith to be associated with the child's life then we welcome individuals to be "supporters" for that child and there is a form of words - promises - that we will ask them to say. 

Photography and video

Because this is a sacred moment and baptism is a sacrament of the church we limit photography.  We will be focusing on life-long promises and on recognising God speaking, leading and supporting us.  Photography is not part of that, but a photographic record is still essential.  So we ask no photos, please, until the end of the service when we can all ‘pose’. 

Videos of the ceremony itself are more complicated – some people at the event are likely to be sensitive about appearing on video.  Recordings are governed by copyright and privacy laws and performance rights, and to post it on-line requires permission of all those whose image is included – so forgive the reality check but  If you do want to run with a video, that could be difficult.

Fee

Baptism and confirmation are free and your baptism is recognised as being valid by most of the major Christian denominations (including the Roman Catholic Church) throughout the world.