Here’s my notes from this morning’s Metro Christian Centre, Bury service (31st May, 2026), as we celebrated a dedication.
You can also catch up with this via MCC’s YouTube channel (just give us time to get the video uploaded).
‘Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.’
— The Apostle Paul[i]
‘Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.’
― James Baldwin[ii]
READ: MK. 10:13-16 (NIV)
OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS
Becoming a parent is not at all like buying a toaster.
After nineteen years on this journey, I’ve at least worked out that much.
One of the fundamental differences—and there are more besides this—is this: When you bring home a toaster, it normally comes with a single set of instructions.
Our children lack this, and nothing—and I sincerely mean nothing—quite prepares you for the journey ahead. Nobody really tells you how to be a parent.
Sure, people try.
There are, at last count, somewhere in the region of four thousand books on the subject. Four thousand! Which, if you’ve ever tried to read even two of them, you’ll know is a problem — because books two through to four thousand spend most of their time disagreeing with book one. As well as with each other.
Advice and choices vary and abound: Sleep training or no sleep training; Screens or no screens; Structured routine or child-led anarchy. You pick a philosophy, you commit to it with great confidence … and then your child makes a nonsense of the whole thing, because no child has ever read the operating manual they supposedly came with.
Our instinct has good intentions. But I wonder; What if the goal of parenting is not what we sometimes assume it is? We tend to talk about being a good parent, a great parent, the best parent. I know the impulse. You love your child more than you knew it was possible to love anything, and so you want to get it right. We don’t want to mess our kids up.
But I want to suggest that the real goal isn’t to be the best parent. It’s something that is both simpler and more demanding: it’s to show S what it means to be fully human.
Not perfect. Human. There is a difference.
It means S gets to watch how you cope — not a curated Instagram highlight reel of all the moments you handled brilliantly, but the actual texture of a life being lived. She sees how you respond when things go wrong. She watches what you do when you’re tired, or when you’re frustrated, and when you make a mistake. She sees you at your best, sure. But more crucially, she also sees you at your worst, and she then sees what you do next in response to that.
She sees whether you own your mistakes or dodge them. Whether you apologise or dig in. Whether you get back up or stay down.
That’s the real curriculum. And it happens whether we intend it or not. Our children see it all.
As the American Novelist, James Baldwin observed:
‘Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.’
This remains true when it comes to faith. When it comes to following Jesus, the moments that will shape S most profoundly probably won’t be the Sunday mornings, or the times when everything goes smoothly. It’ll be the ordinary days — including the times when she sees you get it spectacularly wrong.
PERFECT AUTHENTICITY
There’s a line from the Apostle Paul that I think is one of the boldest things anyone has ever written. He says, and I’m paraphrasing slightly,
‘Follow me, as I follow Christ.’ (1 Cor. 11:1).
‘Imitate me,’ some translations put it.
On a first pass, it sounds almost arrogant. Who does Paul think he is?
But the more you read Paul, the more you realise that’s the wrong reading. Because this is also the man who openly admits he hasn’t “arrived” yet, that he is still a work in progress.[iii] The same man who describes an internal war between the person he wants to be and the choices he sometimes makes.[iv] The man who speaks about some persistent “thorn in the flesh” that never fully goes away.[v]
Paul is not presenting himself as flawless. He’s saying something honest and far more useful.
He’s saying: Watch me when I get it right. Watch me when I get it wrong. Learn from both.
And I think that this gets to the heart of what a dedication service really is.
Part of the reason we call this a dedication rather than a christening is because we are respecting S’s freedom, hoping that one day she will choose to follow Jesus for herself. Of course we will pray for her, bless her, and ask for God’s hand upon her life.
But primarily, today is about dedicating E and L (and R, as Godparent) to the task of showing S what following Jesus looks like in the actual unedited conditions of real life.
Like Paul, they are saying: follow us as we follow Jesus. Not because they’ll do it perfectly. But because they’ll do it honestly.
They are already aware of this, but it’s worth repeating.
S does not need perfect parents.
If she grows up believing faith is about never struggling, never doubting, never failing, what happens when she eventually struggles, doubts, or fails? She may wrongly conclude that faith is for people who have it all together. Worse, she may learn how to wear a mask, imitating the pretence. Worse still, she risks believing that God is only approachable once you’ve reached some acceptable standard, or that God is unavailable unless you pass some screening process.
This is the misunderstanding Jesus confronts in Mark chapter 10.
People are bringing their children to Jesus so he might bless them, but the disciples begin turning them away. Presumably, they think they’re being helpful. Jesus is busy. Important. There must be some sort of filtering process.
But thankfully, Jesus sees what’s happening, and Mark records that he is genuinely annoyed by this.
The disciples have accidentally turned access to God into something managed by bouncers.
Jesus tells his disciples, in no uncertain terms: ‘Let the little children come to me, do not hinder them.’
Sometimes, we hinder people in much more subtle ways. Not by telling them they’re unwelcome, but by presenting faith as though it belongs only to people who have it all together. Without honesty, without vulnerability, we quietly create the impression that the goodness of Jesus is a place where polished people arrive, rather than a place where broken people can turn.
But the whole message of Jesus is the exact opposite.
God has come to us in the middle of our mess, not once we’ve escaped it. Christ entered fully into human weakness, suffering, failure and death itself in order to remove every hindrance between us and God. The door is open. There are no bouncers.
And what S needs most to see this is not the performance of perfection, but the presence of authenticity.
She needs to see a faith that rejoices, and a faith that grieves. A faith that sometimes walks confidently and that sometimes limps. A faith that knows what to do after failure. A faith that returns to Jesus again and again and again. She needs to see that when things go wrong or when she goes wrong — and they will go wrong, because that’s just life being life — there is somewhere to turn, someone to turn to. Someone trustworthy, true and faithful.
E, L, R — S needs to see the real you in order to know how real God is.
And what’s true for S is true for every person in this room.
Some of you are here today because you love this family, but you wouldn’t describe yourself as someone of faith at all. Maybe you tried the “God thing” once and it didn’t quite land. Maybe you have given up on God, or feel God has given up on you. Maybe you’ve carried the assumption that faith is for people more certain than you, more “together” than you (whatever that means) and that you won’t make it through the screening process.
But the Jesus who said ‘let the little children come to me’ says the same thing to you.
Not: sort yourself out first. Just: come. As you are. With your questions. With your doubts. With your unfinished life.
Don’t let anything hinder you.
DEDICATION
Invite family to front (L to share some words)
Today, we give thanks to God, the maker of all things, the giver of life, for the creation and birth of S. And we celebrate S, and we dedicate E and L, and the family they are and are becoming.
And we commit — as parents, godparent, and a believing community — to showing S what God, and faith in God, looks like. In the good times. In the hard times. In the beautiful, ordinary mess of following Jesus together. She needs us to be real, so she can see how real God is.
E, L, R (Godparent): In presenting this child to the Lord, do you promise, in dependence on divine grace, and with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, and in partnership with the church, to teach her the truths and duties of the Christian faith; and by prayer, teaching and example, to bring her up in the knowledge of the Lord?
Response: We do.
Church: Do you, as members of the body of Christ, acknowledge and accept the responsibility, together with the parents, of teaching and training this child, so that, being brought up in the knowledge of the Lord, she may be led in due time to trust Christ as Saviour?
If so, will you signify your acceptance of this responsibility by standing.
Pray for S and family.
Then anoint S and pray:
The Lord bless you S and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. (Num. 6:24-26)
Amen.
Blessing of family:
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, forevermore, amen. (2 Cor. 13:13)
‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’
— 2 Cor. 12:9
ENDNOTES AND REFERENCES
[i] 1 Corinthians 11:1, NIV
[ii] James Baldwin, Fifth Avenue, Uptown, 1960 (You can read the reprinted article here: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a3638/fifth-avenue-uptown/)
[iii] Philippians 3:12-13
[iv] Romans 7:15-16
[v] 2 Corinthians 12:7-9
TRISTAN SHERWIN 
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