Sicilia

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December, 2000 - Vol. XXIX No. 3
All About Confirmation

"Confirmation at Trinity"
by Mary Sicilia

There is no youth confirmation class per se at Trinity. Dean Thurston and the Chapter believe that confirmation should be an adult decision, made by those who feel the life style described in the Baptismal Covenant is the direction they wish their adult lives to take.

We do have several "rite of passage" programs, however, which are vital to youth formation:

At sixth grade, our kids take a year to participate in preparation for a Service of Affirmation in which they, their parents, and the entire congregation acknowledge their passage from childhood to young adulthood. We call it YA which stands for Youth Affirmation. We do not use the Leader Resource curriculum, but the concept is similar. We have developed our own program using the StoryLine method: they literally create their own church, with its own name, members, liturgies, rites of passage, etc., and then prepare to lead the service the day of their Service of Affirmation. This program involves three "working" overnights as well as a year of Sunday mornings and about eight social service projects which they do with their adult mentors.

In seventh and eighth grade they participate in FIGS (Friends in God’s Service). One year focuses on how to be a friend to yourself, your God, and your friends. The second year centers on how to be a friend to the world, with a focus on world and local issues, and what Christians can do to respond. Students have plenty of opportunity to plan and participate in social service projects in both of these years. FIGS takes place on Sunday mornings. Most FIGS participants also enjoy membership in our Guild of Acolytes and our Junior High youth group.

Our ninth grade program, called Venture, is described as as "Anglican intensive year," during which youth explore the fundamentals of the Christian faith from an Anglican perspective. Using the baptismal covenant as a starting point, each young person continues in conversation with a spiritual elder, with whom they take field trips and do social service projects. Venture participants are usually also members of the Guild of Acolytes and can participate in either the Junior High or the High School youth group.

In tenth and eleventh grades, they MAY elect to participate in CREDO, which we can best describe as a kind of junior EFM (Education for Ministry, the program from Sewanee). It focuses one year on comparative religion, and the other year on the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Both years include a fair amount of theological reflection. CREDO meets at a time other than Sunday morning, requiring students to make an additional commitment to the program. CREDO is in addition to Sunday Youth Forum, the Guild of Acolytes, and youth group. In general, about 25% of our kids opt to participate.

If, after they have completed all the Rite of Passage programs, young people choose during their senior year to go through our regular adult Catechesis program, they may, but the understanding is that 1) they don’t have to do this to be members of the church; 2) this is not something they should do to please their parents; and 3) they have thoughtfully considered the Baptismal Covenant and want it to provide a foundation for their adult lives.

Our Catechesis class runs four and a half months. Persons responsible include the Director of Education (me), all three of our full-time clergy, and the Canon Musician. It begins with a day-long retreat, in which participants explore their spiritual journeys. It continues with weekly two and one-half hour classes covering church history, basic principles of spirituality, fundamentals of scripture and the Book of Common Prayer, and an introduction to both basic theology and Christian ethics. It ends in a day-long retreat focused on the Baptismal Covenant. We don’t use any set curriculum – each of the leaders is responsible for how we form our assigned segment. Nothing is done differently during the Catechesis program when high school seniors choose to participate. In other words, it is the same program for youth and adults.

The rites of passage classes are led by lay leadership teams working either with the Director of Youth Ministries or the Director of Education. We have a youth ministries intern who is working specifically with the YA program.

In terms of numbers, we "folded in" the rite of passage programs over a five-year period, and have been running the full program only for the last two years (though pieces of it have been around for five years). During that time, we have had about ninety kids participate in one or all of the programs. Five have ultimately chosen to go through the Catechesis and be confirmed as seniors, though the vast majority (80%) of the kids who start the YA (Youth Affirmation) in sixth grade continue to be active at Trinity throughout middle school and high school. Of the five seniors, all of them have continued to be active in an Episcopal church throughout college – except for the two who are studying in England where they are active in the C of E! Our "record" with the kids who do not choose to be confirmed is much more mixed, although a surprising number (45%) are active someplace religiously (not necessarily the Episcopal church), and most report feeling that Trinity is their "spiritual home."

About 30-50 people every year participate in the Catechesis program, and most choose to confirm or re-affirm their faith, or to be received. Incidentally, a significant number of the participants each year (over the last eight years I have been here) are folks who were confirmed in the Episcopal church as young teens. To a person they have said something on the order of "it didn’t mean anything to me" or "I didn’t get much out of it…" which is why at age 30 or 40 or 50, they are going through Catechesis, having come back to church after a long absence. This says two things to me as an educator: 1) confirmation may be "wasted" on young teens; but 2) something must have clicked someplace along the way in their formation, because they feel comfortable coming back!

Mary Sicilia is Director of Education at Trinity Cathedral, Portland. You can contact her at marys@trinity-episcopal.org