The best part of all. A new group of confirmation kids has descended upon me. They are small. They are cute. They are smart. And, their numbers are growing. This was to be a small group this year, although I think I will stop believing the church leaders that tell me that. Each year they say, “Oh this will be a small group,” and each year the numbers keep expanding. In the course of one Sunday the group went from 10 to 15, that’s a huge exponential jump. Regardless of how many of them there are, together we will work out what God has in store for us.
We start out slowly, so that those that join in later can catch up, by learning what it means to be in confirmation. We will explore what it means to be church, and what history has to do with all of this. What it means to be United Methodist, and what’s up with worship, the hymnal, the Book of Discipline and the Social Principles. And then from there we explore who God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus are, and who they are to me. Through this process we will engage in Bible study, missions and fellowship together. We will attempt to finally be the confirmation class that beats the youth in kickball. In the end, sometime next March or April I will ask them if this is the type of life they want to lead, one that puts God and others at the forefront. If they want to call themselves Christian.
So when people say “the church is dying,” I will have 15, maybe even more, reasons to tell them they are wrong.
searchingforthinplaces 