This past June, Shannon gave birth to our second boy…Mason Lee David Qualls.  While Mars Hill Church doesn’t believe in Infant Baptism, we do have baby dedications.  This Sunday (Christmas), our church will be having baby dedications.  If you aren’t familiar with baby dedications, this is where the parents present the child to the church, the church and the parents promise to raise the child to know about Jesus, and they pray for the child and family.

There isn’t anything magical about a baby dedication. It doesn’t make the child a Christian (only Jesus can do that).  It’s actually more for the parents and the church.  This isn’t to try to secure the child a place in heaven, but it’s to set in the heart of the parents and church how the child should be raised. If it doesn’t save the child, why should you do a  baby dedication?

Well here are the three reasons, Shannon and I are doing it.

1. It’s Biblical

You see in the Old Testament that God gave Abraham a sign to show that he and his family were dedicated to the Lord (circumcision).  As we entered the new covenant, we see that this particular symbol was done away with as the sign. Baptism replaced it as the sign of someone that has believed in Jesus for their salvation.  While some would now say that we should now baptize infants because of this, I don’t see enough in scripture to support baptizing children (another topic for another time).  I see baptism consistently happening when someone comes to a personal faith in Jesus.

What I do see constantly in scripture though is parents being dedicated to raising their children to know Jesus.

• Deuteronomy 6
• Proverbs 22:6
• Luke 2:22-24

2. It’s Counter-Cultural

Where I live in Albuquerque, NM, it seems like you generally have three options when it comes to the subject of dedicating your child –   Abandonment, Religion, or Spirituality.  The majority of kids in Albuquerque will grow up without a dad in their house.  They will never know what it means to have the daily influence of a man in their lives.  They will grow up having daddy issues that only Jesus can save them from.  By the grace of God, my boys will not have to experience that.

To say that Albuquerque is steeped in Catholic tradition would be an understatement.  While I believe there are a lot of Catholics that love Jesus and I’ll be hanging out in heaven with, there are a lot of Catholics in this area that feel they have get in to heaven free ticket.  They will site that they were baptized as an infant and took their first holy communion at such and such an age.  There faith is based in a ceremony and not in Jesus.

If you’re not abandoned or religious in ABQ, then you’re left to be raised in some vague spiritual system.  Children are raised with a mix of various religious, spiritual, and demonic rituals.  This leaves the child finding their righteousness in anything and everything…other than Jesus.

I want Mason’s dedication to be a counter-cultural witness to the saving grace of Jesus alone.  We are dedicated to Jesus alone, and we dedicate Mason to Jesus alone.  By the grace of God, we are raising him to trust in Jesus and not religion or spirituality.

3. It’s Familial

Shannon and I want to build a legacy.  We want the name Qualls to decrease and the name of Jesus to always increase. When I hear the name Graham, Wesley, Spurgeon, and Edwards, I think of Jesus.  I want the name of Qualls to be synonymous with Jesus.  The sad thing is that it only takes one generation for this to stop.  Therefore, it is my hope that some day I will get to be at the baby dedications of my grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  But it must start with me.  So this Sunday I am pumped that we get to dedicate Mason Lee David Qualls to Jesus. Come join us if you are in town.

Because of Jesus’ standing as fully God and his role as the agent of creation, Paul naturally displays Jesus’ preeminence over all of creation. Paul tells the Colossians that Jesus is “the first-born of all creation” (Col. 1:15). Some might see this as confusing and think that Paul was saying that Jesus was created. Paul’s Jewish readers would have understood exactly the point he was making. “’Firstborn’ was a Hebraic-Jewish way of saying ‘specially honored.’ In the Old Testament the nation of Israel was called ‘firstborn’ (Ex 4:22). So was David (Ps 89:27). In such contexts, the reference is not to physical birth but to position of honor before God. Paul is saying that Christ has ‘pride of place’ over all creation.”[1]

Paul goes on to tell the Colossians that Jesus “is before all things” (Col. 1:17). Jesus “is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent” (Col. 1:18). John MacArthur Jr. comments on these verses, saying, “As a result of His death and resurrection, Jesus has come to have first place in everything. Paul summarizes for emphasis in verse 18. He wants to drive home the point as forcefully as he can that Jesus is not merely another emanation from God.”[2]

In the same line of thought, Paul focuses on Jesus authority. Jesus is “the head of all rule and authority” (Col. 2:10). The Father “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Col. 2:15). Ultimately, Jesus reigns over all of creation as he is “seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1). Paul emphasizes the authority of Jesus by continuously using the title of Lord [kurious] for Jesus.[3] The word kurious ascribes to Jesus the place and position of might, power, master, and owner and is “the NT Gr. Equivalent for the OT Hebr. Jehovah.”[4] As Paul is writing to the Colossians, it is clear to see that he wants them to see Jesus in his rightful place, high and exalted in complete preeminence and authority over all of creation.

[2] MacArthur Jr., Colossians and Philemon, 52.

[3] Col. 1:3,10; 2:6; 3:13,17,18,20,22,23,24; 4:7,17

[4] Zodhiates, The Complete Wordstudy Dictionary, 900.

So this is how my week has been so far. Towards the end of last week we received a mdical bill…from the emergency room…from before Asa was born. This was only days after we had finished clearing up all of Asa’s medical bills from his birth.

Saturday we received a letter from our mortgage company saying they had to drain our escrow account to pay the property taxes for the first half of 08. This is because the title company wasn’t intelligent enough to find out they weren’t paid before we bought the house. Now if we don’t get the seller (the government) to refund our escrow account, our monthly payments are going increase drastically.

And now I’m sitting on the cold concrete sidewalk outside of a Chevron as the guy is hooking up our van to tow cause the transmission died on it. This is our only vehicle and we really don’t have a lot of spare cash laying around to fix it.

This trend seems to happen pretty often in our family. Just when life seems to be going semi-smooth, Murphy shows up with all his friends and has a kegger in my living room.

But here is the other cool trend in my life, God always shows up a few days later and kicks Murphey’s @$$.

I must say things are really crappy right now, but I look forward to seeing what God is going to do in the days to come.

Nothing of the actual birth here…just some video that I took the day he was born.

Video from Asa’s B-day

He is a total rock star!

Asa turned three months old this last thursday.  The boy is really starting to grow fast.  He has already doubled his birth weight and is over 12 lbs.  All his clothes were starting to get tight on him.  So, we had to pull out all of his 3-6 month clothes that we had stored for just this day.

I can’t remember if we bought this Rock Star outfit for him or not, but we just had to share the picture with everyone.

He is really starting to show his personality.  He is a morning person (unfortunatly for mom and dad).  Afte we feed him in the morning he loves to smile and play.  Most morning he actually greats me with a smile as I come into his nursery.  Oh and he is sleeping through the night now.  Every now and then we’ll have to change his diaper at 4 am, but that’s about it.

Asa practicing for his graduation pictures.

He isn’t enjoying tummy time to much, but we keep working with him.  He does love his Bumbo though.  For those of you that don’t know a Bumbo is a special chair that lets pre-sitters be able to sit up.  He’ll sit in his for hours if you let him.

He is also starting to eat a lot more.  The boy puts down 6 oz easily every feeding.  Mom and Dad didn’t realize if for about a week, but he was really fussy because we hadn’t been feeding him enough (you couldn’t tell from all the baby chub he has).  But we uped his formula and the boy is happy now.

Well that is just about it for now.  We’ll try to keep this site updated as much as possible.  Hope you enjoy.

photo by: laffy4k

So I realized today that I haven’t given a baby update in awhile.  So here is your update.  We are currently four weeks from our due date of June 1st.  I have to say that there are elivated levels of excitement and fear.

It’s kind of crazy to think that we are about to be parents.  In no time at all, I’m going to be losing sleep and changing diapers.  But I’m also going to get to use all the cool stuff that we’ve gotten for the kid.

We have the nursery pretty much ready to go (we still have to get a few minor items) thanks to two baby showers that were thrown for us.  I’ve been having fun the last few weeks/days setting things up.  I even have the car seat base already in the car. I know…I’m a nerd.

It’s also been fun getting to feel Asa move.  He is already in posistion (head down) and has been really active.  It’s crazy to watch Shannon’s stomach rise and fall.  And from what we’ve noticed of his activity, we are going to have a night baby (he takes after his daddy).  So, it looks like I’ve got a lot of late nights in the near future.

Speaking of the near future.  Don’t forget to put in your guess for when our bundle of joy is going to enter this world.

Well that is pretty much it in baby world.  We’re just getting ready here on the home front.  Preparing the nursery and taking birthing classes.

Here is one question for all the parents out there.  What was one thing that you think every new parent should have that they don’t typically get beforehand?

photo by: Bethany L King

So here is how it is going to go. This is pretty much you typical baby pool. You’re going to leave a comment below with your prediction for the baby’s due date, due time, and weight. There will be one prize for the person that gets the closest in each category (with the other categories being the tie breakers). The person that is the closest to all three will win a grand prize. I’ll give out a grand and runner-up prize for the people that are closest to the delivery time (weight will be used in the case of ties).  The person who is the farthest off from all three will win the grand un-prize (my kids first dirty diaper).

Do you want to know what the prizes are? Well tell them Bob….

Ok so I don’t have that figured out yet, but I’ll get together with Shannon and I’ll update you in the future.

Grand Prize: $10 Starbuck Gift Card
Runner-Up: $5 Starbuck Gift Card

(Sorry it’s all I have)

To answer a few questions in advance:

The due date is June 1st.
No this isn’t an April Fools joke (I just happened to come up with the idea today).
No you can’t exchange you’re prize for something else.
This isn’t The Price is Right…you can guess over.
You must predict all three, or you will be disqualified.
If you don’t put am/pm, it will be assumed you meant am.
Any other questions can be sent to me via my contact form.

Alright…get to guessing.