Having grown up in the church and gone to 2 schools that have programs to train church workers, I have seen several confirmation pictures on Facebook these last few weeks. Tomorrow my husband will have two students confirmed. I have some memory of my own confirmation.
What I'm about to say isn't something that hasn't been said before. I've even posted one or two things on my Facebook page from other people, but it seems like something that must be said over and over, so here goes.
Confirmation is an exciting time. Middle school/Jr. High students are learning the fundamentals of faith and then standing up and confirming that. They wear a nice white robe. There's a special ceremony. Pictures are taken with the pastor. Everybody is happy for them. They might have a party. It's great.
What happens the next week? Or the week after that? Over the next several years? Something I didn't mention about what happens during that ceremony, is that they are making a vow. A vow confirming their faith. A vow to continue to learn their faith. A vow to continue growing in their faith. This vow is more serious then your wedding vows.
It seems that many today don't understand this. To them confirmation is a rite of passage or a graduation from Sunday School and even from Church. Confirmation is sometimes looked at as an extra-curricular activity at Christian schools. You see many students go through confirmation, have the pretty ceremony, and then disappear from church. There are a few that actually continue attending church and growing at home, but a few may show up to the fun stuff offered at youth group (like a trip or game day/night) but not be in church or the more Bible study type events, and many just plain disappear altogether. Why? Because confirmation isn't taken seriously. Treating it as a graduation or rite of passage makes it look like the end of something. It's not just the students possibly not taking it seriously, it may be the parents as well. When the parents only take the students to confirmation class, but don't bring them to church (much less get themselves to church) they are showing confirmation isn't anything really serious. It shows them that confirmation is just about having a pretty ceremony and a party afterwards.
We need to stop treating it this way. It's not graduation or a rite of passage. We need to get parents to start taking faith seriously and then start teaching their children to do the same. We need to make it extremely clear to both the parents and the student that confirmation is a serious vow beyond even wedding vows. If a student shows that they aren't going to take the vow seriously, then it may be good to tell mom and dad, "Your child isn't at a point where they should be taking this vow yet, it's not time for them to be confirmed. We still want to have them and you to be in church. To keep receiving God's gifts here, but it's not time for confirmation for your child."
When we start treating it as this important vow, we may have smaller groups, but we will be having less students making a vow that they aren't ready to make/aren't wanting to make/don't even understand. We aren't doing it perfect now and we will make mistakes if we make changes (but some change needs to happen). We ask God for forgiveness in our lack of perfection (He sent Jesus to die for you and me and everyone else so we know He will forgive us).
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