Over the past year, there’s been a conversation around confirmation unfolding. I’ve been having it with a bunch of different people for a bunch of different reasons, but the question at the center is essentially – what is confirmation for? Why do we do it? If you grew up in a church where confirmation was normal, then this might seem like a silly question to you, but there are plenty of churches that don’t have confirmation classes, and there really is no standard for what these classes must include or look like. Traditions are very different between churches and between the many denominations of Christianity. In a church like ours, with people coming from lots of different church experiences, it may be confusing.

What’s confusing for some folks right here is that when we welcome members of any other age into church membership – our barriers are pretty low. You chat with the pastor about it and if you still want to be a part of this thing afterwards, then welcome to the family. Done. Our confirmands on the other hand, even though many of them have been raised here, go through a whole year of classes, do small amounts of homework, and are asked to spend time weighing this decision way more carefully than most people who join the church. And the question I’ve been hearing is, why? If we don’t do this for most people who join the church, then why do we give our 8^th graders all these extra hoops to jump through? Why are our expectations for them so different, and what is the purpose of it?

Now, speaking very generally, the point of confirmation is for people who were baptized as babies to choose the faith their parents raised them in. You can’t choose how your parents bring you up, but as you enter young adulthood, we know that faith is something we choose for ourselves. So, confirmation is like our church’s rite of passage. The church embraced you when you came to us as a baby, and the church helped to raise you in your Sunday school and VBS classes, and so in adolescence we celebrate who you are becoming as a result. By making you church members, we recognize that people of all ages belong and deserve to be heard within our community.

I actually have a very different experience. I was not confirmed as an eighth grader, but I was baptized as a 9^th grader at a southern Baptist church, where I did not become a member afterwards. I had already been baptized as a baby by the Methodists, and the Methodists did attempt to confirm me, even younger than we do, I think in 5^th grade. I said no to them, because I’ve always been stubborn and a bit of a skeptic. So, I don’t blame anyone, youth or adult, for being unsure in their faith and I don’t come to this position of teaching confirmation classes with a deep attachment to confirmation. But I do come with my own first-hand experiences of the value of Christian formation. Like everything that has to do with humans, it is messy and different for all of us, but we all need people and places to guide us as we grow. That’s what confirmation ideally is for, to guide us as we grow.

Unfortunately, it does create anxiety in some students, precisely because they already have a lot of new information to process. Eighth graders are right in the thick of putting together the puzzle pieces of this universe and deciding what they think about it, which is no easy task. There’s so much to learn, and there’s a lot of pressure that comes along with figuring it all out. Pressure to fit into expectations. Pressure to make their families proud. Pressure that adults sometimes forget. Even in my 30s, it’s hard for me to remember what it was really like being in 8^th grade. All I know is that you couldn’t pay me to go back. I’m still learning new things all the time, so I can understand why the idea of making public vows about what you believe may feel like an impossible ask, or worse – a weird obligation, and that’s not what I want for our young people, nor is it what I think our church truly wants for them.

One of the biggest reasons that I did choose to join the UCC was that we have room for doubts, questions, and differences. Our church members don’t all believe the same things. Everyone is on a unique journey, and we all bring unique wisdom from our lives. We come here to learn from the experiences of other people, and from the experience of being here with other people. We don’t expect anyone who joins us to declare a set of beliefs and never change them, and even after all their classes – our confirmands are no exception. Faith is a relationship, and relationships deepen with time, and they get stronger in community. Our goal, I think, is to make space for faith deepening and faith strengthening to happen here.

Being at an age where bigger questions are being asked and lots of information is coming together is a good time to dive deeper into your faith than you ever have before. That’s what I think confirmation is really for: taking a step deeper into the waters of the Christian religion and learning more about it through the people of our community. The challenge for us is to try to align our processes and traditions with those lower pressure goals. I want to make sure that confirmation is about more than just our anxiety over our teenagers. I want to give them space to be genuine as they process the Christian teachings I share with them, and to make sure they know that we want them to think for themselves here.

In our classes, my hope is that we equip the confirmands to wrestle with their faith even when they don’t understand it. It’s not about fitting them into UCC shaped boxes, but about giving them a foundation on which they can build beliefs throughout their lives. If you’re going to try to build anything for yourself, then you will need a set of tools to work with. Tools you can’t always get in Sunday school because they take a little more time and intention to develop. Tools like knowing the history of how our churches got here, or like hearing a Muslim person explain the way they pray, or like having a mentor to show you what being a part of this community is all about. The point is to equip them.

All that equipping does not and cannot guarantee what the future of their faith is going to look like forever. Life is much too messy and complicated for that. But when it does get messy, it’s good to know who was here before you, and what kept those people strong. It’s good to know what resources you have when you fall face first into the biggest questions of life. Life can take you to a lot of places. You must encounter and integrate new ideas everywhere. Sometimes the church is afraid of that. A lack of certainty about the future can cause the church to do some hand wringing. If their faith doesn’t look just like ours then we get scared things might change, but the fact is that things are always changing. We have never really had any control over what people come to believe, just how much of their true selves they are willing to bring here and to share with us. I think that if we are wise, we will make room here for more honesty, and more listening, for kids and adults, not less.

In the United Church of Christ, we are in covenant with one another. We do not control each another. We have no power but the power of people working together. Nothing we do here could tie you to us forever, but when you confirm your place here, we say a resounding amen, because all belong here, to live and grow and share in the beloved community of God. There is room here for beliefs of many colors, shapes, and sizes. There is room for people in progress. Have faith dear ones, that God is at work everywhere and in everyone. Sometimes we have to trust the process and trust young people to encounter God for themselves. There is no rush. The Holy Spirit is and has always been about the work of making meaning, giving lessons, and shaping who we will become. Let her take her time in revealing herself to each of us. Rest assured, these teens already know how to follow to Jesus. They care for their neighbors. They want room at the table for everyone. They seek peace and justice and know that we are the ones who must build them. In my opinion, that already puts them miles ahead of some who wear the label “Christian.”

Our confirmands are not just the future of the church, they are the church now, and that is what we will confirm today. That they already belong here, that they are a part of this family of faith, and that we will continue to love and support them as we have been, for as long as they are here growing, and learning, and deepening their own lives alongside us. For it is our job to be in community with each other. To build each other up in all the ways that we can. To share our lives and be vulnerable in our honesty in a world that is full of half-truths and deception. To love and be loved which always feels risky but is the only way we learn the deepest truths of all. No matter where our children go from here, we trust that our God is the good shepherd who goes wherever we go. No matter how lost we manage to get ourselves, our God does not leave us. God is the one who loves us, finds us, and brings us back home again. Amen.