Confirmation begins at St Andrew on January 8^th.  This year we will have four youth who will take part in the confirmation journey for the first time.  As the process begins we will help these youth indentify a St Andrew adult whom they would like to invite to journey with them as part of this process.  In addition, all of the youth who took part over the last two years are planning to take part again this year.  These returning youth want to be part of the process again, as part of their own faith journey, as well as be present to support their younger friends.

So what exactly is confirmation?....

In the first half hour or so of our Sunday evening confirmation meetings we eat together and we reflect on that day’s worship.  We bat around questions like – What caught us today?  Where did we feel like we were really participating?  Where did it feel like we were being called to give ourselves to someone else?  A couple of weeks ago dinner was coming to an end.  The group seemed to agree that worship had been engaging even though there was nothing too out of the ordinary to explore and then the question came up – “what are we doing here again….?”

There’s this thing that started happening when I was younger.  I associate it most clearly with my early teens.  This thing happened after I had learned the meaning of a new word especially words that were fun to say like serendipitous or nuance or naiveté.  It would happen when I was absolutely sure that I had never heard the new word before.  After I had been introduced to the word it would suddenly start popping up all over the place, and I mean all over the place.  I would hear it in conversation, on TV, in stories, on the radio.  People who I was absolutely sure had never used the word before would casually drop it into their speech.  The word would appear in ordinary places, places that it had just never been before.  Then after it had appeared in about six or seven different locations it would seem to disappear as quickly and wonderfully as it had come, but ready for me to pull it out should I need it in the future.  I remember this satisfying sense that there was some kind of cosmic language arts teacher just making sure I really understood what this new word meant before we moved on.  It thrilled me as a child.  It was this secret thing, just for me I believed.  It made me smile and let me think that I was being taken care of by the universe. 

As I have grown and let people know about this secret and wonderful thing, I have learned that I am not alone in the experience...