Planning Worship for Confirmation

A pastor wrote: I'm looking for worship resources for receiving confirmands. I have The United Methodist Book of Worship, but I want to find some additional resources that speak to our combined experience together as disciples and spiritual explorers in language and imagery that speaks to early teens of the 21st century. Any help will be most appreciated.

I replied:

I would urge that you make best use of the Book of Worshipand United Methodist Hymnal resources for confirmation (Baptismal Covenant Service I) and supplement them with what you think will engage the youth and the congregation with event of confirmation.

I do agree that the ritual is not enough to carry the whole load. It is a critical error for many of us to think that the words of the ritual will carry the day. They don't, not even if we rewrite them. Better to invest time in creative and ritually powerful action and arts around the ritual. The action of the assembly and the leaders living out their faith in the power of the Spirit is what carries the worship into lived experience. Frankly (see my book Come to the Waters), I think we need to big up our will and hearts to recognize adequately the need to ritualize the process of journey with people seeking faith.

A Service of Recognition ten to thirteen weeks before confirmation: In that light I would recommend that you have some ritual moment in worship some weeks ahead of the day of confirmation where the congregation "recognizes" the youth who are becoming confirmands. Let such a service recognize that these youth are on a journey to adulthood and mature faith. During that rite, sponsors/mentors could stand with them. From that point on, the youth could be prayed for by name each week, even gathered before the congregation who stretch out their hands toward them as the pastor or a lay leader prays for continuing formation, faith, and conversion of heart and life. See prayers in Come to the Waters, pp. 145-146.

A few weeks before confirmation: Then a few weeks later, perhaps early in Lent (if confirmation will take place on Easter) or just after Easter (if confirmation will take place on Pentecost), include in Sunday worship a moment when the youth/confirmands again come before the congregation. Each one or their sponsor/mentors could share how the confirmand has been learning and growing, what struggles they still yearn to work through, and what they sense Christ Jesus to be asking of them. Again, prayer could be offered and the date of confirmation could be announced. Meanwhile the congregation is growing in relationship to the youth, caring for them and praying for them and already fulfilling the charge: "Do all in your power to increase their faith, confirm their hope, and perfect them in love," as found in the service of Baptism, Confirmation, and Reception. If you do projection, you could project their pictures and names for all to see. Certainly during these weeks the confirmands could be reading scripture, taking part in dramas, and other leadership roles in the worship.

While I sense that you want to rephrase and recast the language of the ritual for confirmation, I hope you will resist this. Rather, find ways to let the ritual language form and instruct, even letting it be a guide for formation and teaching over the weeks leading to confirmation. Do make room in the service for witness, testimony, and digital and graphic arts to interpret the action and the journey they have taken, and make the use of water and the laying on of hands/anointing with oil a prominent action. Use music that connects to the youth and the congregation. For example, see the songs under "Commitment" and "Confirmation" in The Faith We Sing Worship Planner Edition (pp. 158 and 159). "You Are Mine" (TFWS 2218) is especially poignant and touching for this action. Let music contemporize and add emotional depth and imagery to the action. Remember that the action is the crucial thing and that the words support the action. How you do the service is so important. Make it all a very high moment and keep the focus on God who is working in the lives of the youth and the faith forming people of God. It is not about us, but about the God who loves us and calls us to courageous and dangerous discipleship, loving justice and walking humbly with ever prompting Spirit.