P: Today we celebrate those who are taking another step in ...



Graduation Blessing

P: Today we celebrate those who are taking another step in their life and faith journey, as they graduate from High School.

Will our High School Seniors and their parents please come forward?

(Parents please stand behind your graduate.)

P Parents, in Christian love you presented your children for Holy Baptism. In their Baptism, sacred promises were made: that you would “faithfully bring them to the services of God's house, teach them the Lord's Prayer, the Creed and the Ten Commandments, place in their hands the Holy Scriptures and provide for their instruction in the Christian faith.” You have fulfilled these promises.

But, there is more.

Now we ask you to make a new promise for the ongoing support of your child as they continue their faith journey. Do you promise to continue to support your child in the faith and lift them up in prayer? If so, please answer, “I do, and I ask God to help and guide me.”

Parents:  I do, and I ask God to help and guide me.

P Congregation, do you promise to support and encourage these parents in the keeping of these sacred promises? If so, please answer "We will, with God’s help." 

C We will, with God’s help.

P: Graduates, congratulations on the completion of high school. God has been present and faithful in your life and promises to continue to be so. In response to God’s promises, do you intend to continue in the covenant God made with you in Holy Baptism: to live among God’s faithful people, to hear God’s Word and share in his supper, to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people, following the example of our Lord Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth? If so, please answer: 

“I do, and I ask God to help and guide me.” 

Graduates: I do, and I ask God to help and guide me.

P Graduates, will you please kneel. Parents will you please place your hands on the shoulders of your child as I pray.

Before you were even formed, God knew you.

While in your Mother’s womb, God named you.

At your birth, God’s breath filled you with life.

Today we celebrate what you have become

at this moment in time.

And so we pray,

God of our beginnings,

We thank you for the gifts of these graduates;

their excitement, their awesome wonder and curiosity,

their open speech and encouraging words.

Their contributions have blessed and challenged us,

and we have become a richer and more diverse community because of them.

As they step forward into the world that awaits,

comfort their fears with the full knowledge of your divine presence.

Strengthen their resolve to walk in the footsteps of Jesus

as modern-day disciples in a world that needs their spirit.

Guide their feet as they move through life,

protecting them from the pitfalls of darkness

while they help to lead future generations

into the warmth and promise of your light.

We ask this blessing upon each of them,

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

AMEN!

(Applause)

Final blessing.

 

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