Joint wedding and baptism service?

In the UK 44% of children are now born to unmarried mothers. The Telegraph has reported that the good old Church of England has come up with a solution. You can get two for the price of one in that you can get married and as part of the same service have your child born out of "wedlock" baptised at the same time.

"Our clergy are noting that, for some unmarried couples, the baptism service now fulfils a desire for a public event that demonstrates and rejoices in their commitment to family life. Both sides of the family turn out in their Sunday best, take photos of the event and celebrate with parties afterwards that are not dissimilar to wedding receptions."

Maybe as clergy we need to notice that people need much more than a nice picture picture event to help them. And squeezing the two events into one will not make much difference unless when they do attend we introduce them to the only person that matters - JESUS!

Church was never meant to be the ornate picture perfect backdrop to marriage and children. The Church is here to introduce people to Jesus.

So at worst keep the two services separate and it give you two chances to tell them about Jesus.