baptism & confirmation resources

two weekends ago i was at our national Christian education reference committee, where I'm involved in a few ongoing projects. one is the next gens project, which is about the church's ministry with people in the 'first third' of life. the website hasnt got much on it but thats about to change.

we're also forming a task group based in Adelaide to work on developing new resources for preparing older young people and adults for confirmation and baptism. i was involved in shaping the last set of stuff, called "The Belonging Kit", along with cheryl lawrie who was the writer and editor of the resource. i remain really proud of this resource.

but after about a decade its time to refresh and recreate. last time we worked in the ferment of a whole lot of clarifying of the nature of confirmation by the UCA. unfortunately most ministers and congregations are still working from an outdated notion that confirmation is about church membership. it isnt. it's a repeatable reaffirmation of baptism, which is itself the rite of church membership.

last time we framed confirmation education in terms of discipleship, not just belief. we also recognised that faith is developmental, so that it was as much about people exploring and clarifying their current place on the journey of faith, as it was about 'receiving' the faith of the church, so to speak.

i look forward to the work of the group and to hearing your ideas as we develop it.

 

Comments

[Christine Bayliss Kelly]

Hi Craig,

I am trying to rework some confirmation stuff which is more 'user friendly'. Would love to have a conversation with you about this.

Christine Bayliss Kelly

[craigmitchell]

Hi Christine. What stuff are you re-working? What age group are you aiming at?

[darren]

Only just getting to this

I'd argue that the stuff coming out of Assembly re membership is only reinforcing the older model which means baptism/confirmation = membership...

I wonder if a lot of our confirmation stuff is able to cross over into a cross cultural setting, it'd be good to develop a process rather than educational material...