HOW DID WE GET HERE?
WHAT NEEDS TO BE REVISITED TO IMPROVE FAITH FORMATION
OF OUR YOUTH?
There are, as with so many such questions, multiple answers to that question as I see it. Primary among them, I would propose, that the whole process has been hijacked.
Hijacked, in significant part by clergy. Supported, it seems by congregations.
I have no idea of when, how, why…but I know it is true.
Hijacked from original design for youth faith formation, which placed that responsibility
squarely, and solely, on parents.
Search the Scriptures. Find there the number of references to the faith formation of the young one that charge clergy with that. Also, check references to the role of parents…
Search Luther. Have we noticed what the top of the page for each of the Six Chief Parts of the Small Catechism says is to do the teaching of these to the children?
It is not “Clergy”. It is “Head of Household”…Parents…
Baptism Service Event. “In Christian love you have presented this child for Holy Baptism…As s/he grows in years, you should place in his/her hands the Holy Scriptures and provide for her/his instruction in the Christian faith, that, living in the covenant of his/her Baptism and in communion with the Church, s/he may lead a godly life until the day of Jesus Christ..” (Addressed to the parents of said child) Response: I do!
The process has been hijacked from its Scriptural and Lutheran intent to be the parents’ responsibility, and taken over by clergy. Why, how or when would be interesting questions to pursue, but rather irrelevant if we are attempting to correct it.
When that is corrected, different outcomes do result. This Faith Formation corrects that.
Secondly, near zero attention has been paid to the development of the child involved in this Faith Formation/Confirmation regarding beginning and ending age appropriateness. Simply stated, and further discussed on pages 3, 4, & back of folder, the present “Traditional Process”, and most of the modified ones afloat, both begin and end during the most turbulent and unsettled years of the child’s life! Pubescence is, as we well know, a time of transition from childhood to young adulthood. When we both begin and end the process during these years, knowing they are years of almost total uncertainty on the part of the child as to anything about which they are certain is almost a joke in any sense of “strategic planning” for the most significant commitment in the faith the child will make. The problem is systemic and of our creation; not the fault of the child who is simply being what children are during this age span.
We are doing it to ourselves, and we keep on, blindly pressing on; blaming the child for our poor and irresponsible choice regarding the age that is “right” for what we call Confirmation.
Lutheran Confirmation 