Part of the Confirmation tradition at the churches is that the kids have to write faith statements. There’s a specific format (mostly to help the kids write it):

Paragraph 1: Your Baptism: what happened and what brought you to this place?
Paragraphs 2-4: Looking at the Apostle’s Creed, explain what you believe about the Father (Paragraph 2), Son (Paragraph 3), and Holy Spirit (Paragraph 4).
Paragraph 5: How do you live out your life as a Christian?
Paragraph 6: How are you connected to the Body of Christ?

I get to start reading these in March and I’m wondering if *I* could write a statement like this. Religion and faith are notoriously hard things to talk openly about in our society and I might have to write something like that for the faith section of my personal website.

Anyone want to take the challenge my confirmands are getting and write one too? Post your answers (and links) in the comments.

One of the exhaust hoses on our furnace came loose and leaked water all over the laundry room and furnace room floors, so I decided to hold Confirmation upstairs around the kitchen table yesterday. It’s been a balmy -42F with windchill, so Jon decided that it might be nice to offer the kids hot drinks when they came. (They like him now and my 2nd year kids hate me less.) We were talking about some basic New Testament facts, Christ’s death, and Christ’s resurrection.

The Good
-Getting through the lesson for both classes with some discussion time.
-My 2nd year kids being very good about the announcement that they have to help with the Passover Seder
-Two of my 2nd year kids volunteering to be readers
-My 2nd year class actually seeming like they were having fun.
-My first year students actually being willing to discuss things.

The Bad
-My first year students wanting to discuss embalming and the medical reasons for the crucifixion killing Christ. Eating has not been pleasant for the last 24 hours. 🙁

The Funny
-One my students singing VBS songs for certain terms we were discussing in the 2nd year class. (It was kind of distracting but quite fun.)
-Responding to the “Jeremiah was a bullfrog” that she was singing with “yeah… he was a good friend of mine”.

I think that our opening song should be something like “Pharoah, Pharoah” or “Father Abraham”. I know that the kids would probably not do it because it would mean looking like fools in front of their friends, but duuuuuude… it would be *FUN*.

For those of you who lifted up high holy hands in prayer that the snow would wait until AFTER the installation, thank you muchly. We had no problems getting to either church and both services went well. The hymns were familiar, so I was being very un-Lutheran and singing audibly. (I was sitting next to one of my confirmands at one service and she was worshipping much the same way. God bless former churches where people love to sing!) There was a potluck after the second church service and some people from the first church came over to eat with us. I chose to sit with the president of the call committee, who decided to ask me why I wasn’t sitting with Jon and the assistant to the bishop. I explained that I had decided that we were going to spread out and besides, I could be anti-social if I wasn’t sitting with Jon. I think I shocked him — that warm, bubbly, little Jen likes to be anti-social. I’m guessing that he doesn’t see me as an introvert?