‘Tis the season of fall sign-ups! Parents and guardians of teens and younger are at it again, working out the complex matrix of drop-offs and pick-ups that often stretch from dawn to well past dusk.
In a perfect world, the designated person operating the matrix is entitled to a personal assistant. Coordination of kid schedules can be that complicated! (I can’t remember my password! Did I really miss the deadline? Weeping and gnashing of teeth!)
There is an abundance of pressure to sign kids up for a plethora of activities to “keep them busy” or “help them find their thing” or whatever was suggested in the latest book we read or advice we took.
Some parents and guardians will sign a teenager up for faith formation. In mainline Protestant churches we name this animal Confirmation.
Why add Confirmation to the matrix, usually an extra night of every week throughout the school year? Why Confirmation?!? Here are 3 potential parent/guardian responses to this question:
- I had to go to Confirmation, so my kid should have to go to Confirmation, even though I’m not exactly sure the point.
- I want the pastors to peel open my kid’s brain and drop some Jesus in there. It can’t hurt.
- There was an open spot in the matrix and teenagers need to be busy, busy busy!
Would someone please hit the annoying game show buzzer? These answers are LAME! Even so, I suspect these lame answers are the most common.
Consider this: Practice.
Anyone who has ever formally competed understands that before a performance, practice is required. Skipping out on practice is a recipe for disaster and injury.
Practice teaches our body the proper way to warm up and to move: how to act out that one scene, hit that note, or swing, throw, kick, shoot or hurdle. By the time we arrive at competition, our bodies and minds are likely to know what to do, at least much of the time.
The Christian faith is practice for life.
We practice faith through rituals such as prayer, worship, Bible study, and Confirmation, for example. Memorizing Bible verses (peeling open brains and dropping in a little Jesus) is a poor substitute for practice. Dropping a kid off at worship is a poor substitute for practice. (This annoys me every time.)
Faith is a practice meant to steady your life when it gets rough, as life tends to do. Rituals are a steadying tool.
I pray for Confirmation to be a ritual that steadies a teenager’s life especially when that beloved one feels left out, or like a failure, or hopeless, or angry, which also happen to be storms that frequent an adult’s life. Rituals steady all ages.
Life can be so stormy! Faith can clear away the clouds and make room for the Son to move in.
Faith is not one more thing to keep a teenager busy, it is a practice to keep a teenager steady. Potentially, even a household steady.
Confirmation is practice for the Christian faith. Faith takes practice. So much practice, as well as coaches, like parents and guardians, pastors and mentors, and an entire congregation of people praying cloud-clearing steadiness in the lives of these beloved ones.
Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash
Lisa Lewton 