Halley Rossler

Today is our family’s 2nd birthday (adoption day)  and we are excited to announce that both of our boys were also finally officially dedicated at church today.  December 1st will forever be both our family birthday and the boys dedication day.  

What is a child dedication and why would it be important to you and your family? A quick Google search of baby and child dedications will result in several answers revolving around a ceremony dedicating an infant to God and welcoming the baby into the church. During the baby dedication the parents also dedicate themselves to raising the child as a Christian. We have watched child dedications at our church for several years and always felt a bit sad that our boys will never get that opportunity because they are older. We were very wrong about this assumption. 

I remember about a year after our boys were with us, we asked the church if we could dedicate out boys in the church but we weren’t allowed because we were not officially their adoptive parents, which made perfect sense.  Since the day we officially adopted our boys on December 1, 2017 and in the church we have watched several child dedication ceremonies. A couple of weeks ago when we heard our pastor talk about child dedications on 12/1/2019 (our family birthday), we knew that it was the time to move forward and ask about our boys being dedicated. Dedicating your child at church is an act of submitting your child to God’s will and a promise to raise your child according to God’s word and God’s way.   Our boys ultimately belong to God and we felt that dedicating them to God was 100% the right thing to do for our family and for our boys’ lives.  

Once church ended that Sunday we knew we needed to talk to someone because this would not be a traditional dedication with an infant who was born into our family. We wanted to make sure that this would be possible for our boys.  We decided to ask our dear friend Rachel who is the campus pastor’s wife and our friend Andrew who is our campus worship leader. We weren’t sure how a child dedication would work with older kids who are adopted. Their response to our family made us feel so incredibly loved and welcomed to participate in the ceremony. They remind us that our church loves adoption and supports this type of child dedication and celebrates families who have also adopted.  

So on this beautiful Sunday, December 1, 2019 exactly two years to the day that we officially adopted our boys, we dedicated our boys to the God and promise to raise our boys to seek God in all ways and for us to model what it means to love God with all of our hearts. When we stood in front of the church today we felt so incredibly loved and grateful for the friendships we have made at our church.  We truly feel like we are part of a community and we love how our church family loves our boys. 

If you have adopted children and you did not get the chance to participate in an infant dedication with your adopted child, I highly recommend you reaching out to your pastor and asking to participate in a child dedication ceremony for your child.  The act of becoming a parent regardless if you gave birth to a child, adopted a child at birth, or adopted a child at 10; It is an honor and a gift that God gives us. God is ultimately the one who is the Father of our children as He is also our Father since we are all adopted into the body of Christ.  That is why dedicating any child at any age is always the right action to take and should be welcomed with open arms in churches across the world.