At Valley View we believe the Bible is clear that a person choosing to accept Jesus Christ must be mature enough to understand their need for a savior, know and believe in Jesus Christ as that savior, repent of their sins, and confess all of the above. Obviously, very young children and infants cannot make such decisions. Still, Christian parents often want to make a comitment for and with their kids. For that reason, twice a year we perform child dedications.

Child dedications is the opportunity for the parents of young children to publically commit themeselves to raise their children in a Godly home, to dedicated them to the Lord, and for our congregation to commit themselves to to support the family in that pursuit. The ceremony itself takes place at the beginning of each service on Sunday (families choose which service to dedicated their child, they don't have to be here for all 3) The ceremony is conducted by our church elders, and concludes with a laying on of hands and prayer for each child and his or her parents.

Dedications occur twice during the year, once on (or near) Mother's Day, and once in November. Actual dates are publicized about a month to 6 weeks out from the event.

In order to have your child dedicated, you must meet two basic requirements. First, you must be members of the church. Second, you must complete our basic parenting class. These two items are required, essentially, because our church family is making a commitment to this family and child, and as part of that commitment we expect parents to know and understand what God says about raising kids.

Membership is achieved by completeing our 101 class, which is offered the first Wednesday evening of every month. Parenting classes are typically scheduled a month to 6 weeks prior to the date of the dedications.