Invited

Stan and Monica, I am inclined to agree with you on this issue.  I tend towards letting parents decide on whether their children ought to participate, and that some level of understanding and committment makes sense.   If a child is totally rebellious towards God, then parents ought to have the wisdom to discourage or forbid their child to participate, but otherwise a parent ought to give permission if the child loves the Lord.  Whether an infant who cannot yet talk or understand should participate should be left up to parents, and charity to all in this decision.  

The scripture passage about discerning the body of Christ is sometimes better grasped by young children, than it is by some older confessing members, since it really means to care about the entire body of Christ, the people of God.  Some older confessing members seem to care more about themselves and their own family, than they do about the family of God, and about Jesus himself, who died for us, and expects obedience from us, and consideration and respect for one another, regardless of wealth, position, and age. 

The implications of this for profession of faith is that profession of faith time is usually not when one joins the body of Christ.  Our present practice of formal Profession of faith is not the initial or perhaps not even the most significant profession of one's faith.  Perhaps it ought to be seen as a profession of membership, an agreement to certain confessions, to a certain church body,  and to scriptural moral behaviours and lifestyle.  It also puts one under a special potential for discipline under membership, as compared to a general christian admonition to and from other christians which exists outside of formal "membership".  I am thinking on paper here a bit, as a way of opening this thought more fully. 

I have thought for some time that the way we do profession of faith is very deadening.   It ought to be a time of sharing and rejoicing, but instead it is often a ritual, form-reading, and a time of inhibition, reducing our profession to something read by someone else who is not making the profession.  Often there is doubt about the full committment of those making the profession, due to the lack of involvement, as well as the ritualistic ceremonialism of the event.   Why not have the new members agree to the profession in the council room, after discussion, and then make a real verbal, extended, detailed committment in front of the congregation? 

In some cases, we could also have people make a witness to the church prior to their being ready to become formal papered members.   Those who have some minor disagreement with confessions of faith, or who are heavily struggling with unchristian lifestyles, could still make a profession of faith of where they are at, sharing their joy in Christ and progress in life with the body of christ in church.   Then the membership profession would not become the only possible testimony by default, and perhaps it would be taken more seriously.   Just thinking here. 

Since we believe our heavenly Father wants to spiritually nourish His children why then, many in the CRC are satisfied to partake of the Lord's Supper no more than six times a year? And by the way, it's one thing to say baptism brings infants of believers into the covenant family but quite another to suggest the baptismal ritual makestem members of the family of God. They're not. They must be born again.   

there has to be some level of understanding to participate, I am not sure how a young child examines himself carefully.

I appreciate the points you make but I still do have some reservations.  There is definitely a difference between baptism and the Lord's Supper.  Sometimes I think we impose a sacramental theology on the ordinances of Christ.  (We first define sacraments and then make the Lord's Supper and Baptism fit the definition).  In baptism God acts exclusively. He takes us into his covenant.  From that moment on the relationship is two fold:  God - Us.  And that obligates us to respond in faith.  But God acts first and alone in baptism.  The Lord's Supper, however, is communion with God.  We both act:  God speaks to us, and we respond believingly.  Christ gives himself in bread and wine and we take and eat. That is a major difference between the Lord's Supper and the Baptism of covenant children.  In baptism they do not act.  In the Lord's Supper they do.  And we do not commune with God by just eating the bread and drinking the cup, but only when we do so in faith.  Which is why I believe a profession of faith is necessary for participation in the Lord's Supper.  

When should a person profess their faith?  That is another question.  I have no problem with young children professing their faith and particpating on the basis of that profession at communion, but it is far from a cure-all for the loss of our youth or their spiritual formation.  Our Lutheran and Catholic neighbors having been doing that for centuries and they loose their youth even more rapidly than we loose ours.  I have seen the same thing happen among the Reformed in the Netherlands. And it becomes no less a formalistic thing than the old custom where it was almost a graduation from catechism.  Parents feel pressured to have their children conform to others.  And when you hold youth to the life style required by the Lord's Supper you get as answer:  it wasn't my choice, or  eveyone was doing it, I was just going along, or it was my parent's decision.  The Lord's Supper clearly does not automatically form faith.

I don't have the solution.  But there does have to come a moment where faith is conscious choice and not just "because that is the way I was raised."  Without that faith, you may be handed the body and blood of Christ, but all you eat are bread and wine.  A meaningful participation where a person's faith is strengthened happens only when there is an understanding of who Christ is and what he has done, what is being said through the Lord's Supper to us, and my believingly accepting it.

This is also a difference with the preaching of the Word.  You can hear the Word and not believe.  The Lord's Supper, however, requires faith for a real participation in the "sacrament."  So I would not have a problem requiring my children to attend worship and listening to the Word —I expect God to use that means to create faith.  But I would not require my children to consider taking communion until there is evidence that they have faith and that they have "come out" with that faith.
 

I appreciate the conversation here. I'd like to respond in particular to something Joe Serge writes, about the baptismal ritual making children members of the family of God. He's absolutely right that the baptism ceremony itself does not make one a child of God – it symbolizes an existing reality. We often use the langauge of "sign" and "seal." But I'm trying to process the assertion that children are not part of the family until they are born again. We hold that children of believers are holy (see 1Cor 7); we comfort grieving parents who lost a little one that they are now with Jesus. This suggests to me that children are indeed part of the family before affirming the faith for themselves. But that leaves us with some tension: What's the point of being born again, as Joe correctly emphasizes, if we're already part of God's covenant family? Or: If there is a point when a child needs to consciously decide that s/he is part of God's family (be born again), how do we know when precisely that has happened or should happen? These are questions I've wondered about.