Commissioning Service

“Devote” means to concentrate on a particular purpose.

These people standing here are going to concentrate on the particular purpose of Christian teaching here at our Church. They are making a promise to you, to the congregation and to God, to devote themselves as your Christian Education teachers and leaders.

What does it mean to devote yourself to doing something? It can be a big responsibility. Do any of you have a dog or special pet? That’s a big responsibility! Every day you have to walk your dog and feed her. Maybe you took a puppy class to learn how to teach her to behave, and when you go out of town, you have to find someone to take care of her for you. You may get some help and support from your family or neighbors. But you can’t just wake up one day and say “I don’t want to take care of a dog today”, because you chose to be a dog owner and because your dog is depending upon you.

Now, these people up here aren’t going to treat you like a dog, but they are promising to be your teachers this year. They are devoting themselves to be here on Sunday, to prepare the lessons, to do their best to teach you, to find substitutes when they are gone, and to care about you!

So, now the teachers are going to make their promise, and the congregation is going to promise to support them in their service, and we need to promise that we will be good students, too!