Attn: Parents of Kindergartners - Blessing is this Sunday

During the worship service this Sunday, September 18th, Dr. Haddix and Mrs. Garrett will be presenting our EPIC Kindergarten students with a new Bible. This is a special time for our kindergarteners, their families, and all of us at All Souls. This is also a nice time to acknowledge once again the great gift our children are to us all. We ask the parents of our Kindergartners to participate with us in a blessing for these children.

The idea of parents blessing their children as part of the service of worship came out of our experience in blessing our youth on the mission trip to Honduras in 2001. At that time we realized that there are critical times when publicly blessing these gifts of God is valuable for the child, the parent and the congregation. We believe that as your child begins his or her school career, we have arrived at another opportune moment. We hope you agree.

Below you will see the text of the blessing we intend to use in worship. Parents of Kindergarteners simply need to come to church with your child. At the designated time in worship, we will ask the parents and children to come to the front of the meetinghouse. We will line out a part of the blessing and have you repeat it to your child. We place our hands on the heads of our children in baptism and confirmation and now as we bless them. We will invite you to place your hand on the head of your child to confer the blessing as Abraham did Isaac and Isaac did Jacob and Esau and so on and so....

Blessing of the Kindergarteners

(Child's Name)

God gave you to us to love and help grow to be the man/woman God intends you to be.

May God make you brave and strong so that you can do what is right even when it is hard.

May God make you kind so that you notice when others need help and you help them.

May God make you faithful so that you remember to pray asking God to help you when you are at school or at home or at play.

You are a special gift from God and we ask God to bless all of us as we grow together during all your years at school.

At this point we then have the parents give each child his or her Bible to begin the study of God's message to us.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the church office.