A custom of presenting infants to the Lord in a simple dedication ceremony during a regular worship service in the church. The practice seems to have developed gradually among the church pastors, without official action by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The purpose is to acknowledge with gratitude the goodness of God, who has brought the children into Christian homes; to help parents recognize the serious responsibility of teaching and training the children from earliest years for the service of God; and to acknowledge the claim the children have upon the prayers and the services of the church.
A typical dedication service might take the following form: Appropriate scriptures, such as Deut. 6:4–7 ; Matt. 18:10 , 5 , 14 , are read as the parents stand before the pulpit holding their child, or children, and the minister says: “Do you now present this child [or these children] before God in solemn dedication? Do you seriously resolve that, guided by the Spirit of God and seeking the grace of Christ, you will bring him or her up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and always regard this as your constant duty and sacred trust? Do you seek so to order your home, your words, your deeds, that this your child shall at all times be encompassed about with pure thoughts, holy living, and Christlike example, so that the child will most naturally come to an open confession of Christ by baptism at the proper age, and thus into the fellowship and the service of the church of Jesus Christ?” Parents may respond in the words of Jesus: “And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth” ( John 17:19 ).
Then the minister prays for God’s blessing to be with both child and parents. At the close of the service some ministers present a certificate of dedication to the parents.
The child’s name may be officially recorded in the back of the church record book, not as a member but as belonging to the “household of faith.”