I love the proximity of our blessing of infants and children (Mother's Day) and Baptisms (Pentecost). They communicate a spiritual formation continuum that is very important to us at Broadway. We understand that our shepherding commences from the very beginning. When we offer our children to God and seek love and wisdom for their journey of faith, that is the first step in which loving mentors help our beloved children to discover their spiritual destiny.

By the time they pass through preparation for baptism and baptism itself they have embraced the beginning of owning their faith, a dramatization of dying and rising in Christ. This drama continues throughout life and the transformation never ends.

I love rites of passage, what they symbolize and in many ways create: A moment in time when we signify to ourselves and the whole community, from infants to youth to adulthood to old age, that the God that made us carries us still. And for that I always give thanks.