People were christened from the earliest times in the Church. When Christ gave the Great Commission for all men to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Christian church took on the message to spread salvation to the whole world.
When families read passages like Acts 16, they begin to come to an understanding of the importance of baptizing the whole household. The whole household also means children. Children need to be baptized, per biblical instruction, and this is called infant baptism. Some call it pedobaptism, paedobaptism, a christening, or a child baptism. Whatever the term, the practice remains remarkably consistent across diverse cultures and time periods that have partaken of the Christian faith.
It used to be that families gathered in home churches in the very early Church. Church worship was concealed and suppressed because the authorities could get angry and place Christians in prison. For that reason, church worship went underground into regular homes. Church services were more congregational, less formal, not hierarchal, and fully involving of all the members of the church, usually in a home. The best thing about christening invitations is that they can resuscitate this sense of togetherness and camaraderie by bringing together all members of the Christian faith.
As time wore on, people gathered into churches with a head priest. They were able to do this because authorities no longer took the time out to put Christian worship to the test with persecutions, floggings, beatings, hangings, and other forms of persecution, peril, and plight. Since people could now gather into churches, the priest began doing all the baptisms. He performed baptisms on children too. The baby is sprinkled with water, a few phrases are said over it, and the baby then has some symbolic or literal effect take place in his life.
The family members of the baby are grateful to the priest and the other members of the church in attendance. Because ceremonies were public, infant baptisms started happening more frequently. Beforehand, there weren't facilities or priests to perform the rite. For this reason, it is mostly the Roman Catholic Church, and associated hierarchal, extremely structured churches, that perform the rite.
The practice really took hold after the 2nd and 3rd century A.D. The 1st century saw little infant baptism, and centuries afterward increased it tenfold, then hundredfold, then a thousandfold. Eventually, most churches were taking on the practice for their church procedures. Now, you can spread the message to friends and family with christening invitations.
Jeff Fain is an author for Dependable Printing. Please visit Dependable Printing for a great selection of wedding invitations, wedding anniversary invitations, bridal shower invitations, christening invitations, and much more.
