Confirmation/Memorial Day

Yesterday was Memorial Day, a day set aside to remember and honor our nation’s war dead. I wrote a little something about Memorial Day last year, and since you can reference that entry here in the blog (May 24, 2008), I’m not going to repeat myself. Thinking of Memorial Day, I recognize and salute the commitment of every man and woman currently serving in our armed services, and I pray that their training will help protect them from the dangers and enemies they face… but I’m not writing about them.

Instead, I’m going to write about those young men and women who, with only the most “basic” of training, are sent out to engage a fiendishly clever enemy who is only intent on their destruction.

This Sunday was Confirmation Sunday at Messiah Lutheran Church here in Yorba Linda, California. We follow the traditions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), so most children are baptized as infants, and then receive instruction in their faith as children in Sunday school (preschool through 6th grade). In 7th grade, they begin their Confirmation instruction, which is completed at the end of their 8th grade year. Confirmation instruction usually consists of (at most) a couple of hours, one night a week. In really committed families, that might include an hour of worship each week. Toss in some community projects, group outings, and other fellowship opportunities, and the most committed of them will have… at best… 6 months of training spread over 2 years. All of this culminates in a public “Confirmation” of their faith, the beginning of their adult walk with Christ, and the stirring up of God’s Holy Spirit in their hearts.

While our 10:15 service was in progress, they began to arrive, get into their robes, and mill about with the excitement and enthusiasm of youth. Having been the storyteller for Sunday school for a very long time, I knew most of these young people; I had watched them grow up in the church. A few asked me, and then were genuinely pleased when I told them I was going to attend the entire Confirmation service. It hit me that our fellowship community was making an impact, when I saw young people as excited to have members of their spiritual family come to their Confirmation, as they were about members of their biological family. Then it hit me that we couldn’t make an impact unless the Holy Spirit was active in our fellowship. Then I realized that God’s Holy Spirit is only alive in us when we are open to being led by the Spirit. These 25 young people were saying: “YES, I’m open to be led by God’s Spirit.”

These are young people who know who they are: children of God, marked by the cross of Christ, and sealed by the power of the Holy Spirit… ready to make their own decision to profess their faith and to begin their own adult walk with Christ.

How many of these young people realized that they have just been transported to the front lines of a spiritual war? A war they are hardly aware of. A war the enemy wages 24/7/365 with lies, propaganda, and empty promises. I looked at their faces before they filed in for the service and I saw the faces of children… ill prepared to face such a cruel and devious enemy.

But then, after publicly professing their faith together, each confirmand came forward with their family. As each confirmand in turn came forward, they knelt, and their family laid hands on them as Pastor Bob took hold of each one and asked God to stir up the Holy Spirit in each one of them. No doubt, God’s Holy Spirit can protect them far better than anything I can do, but I also know that in fellowship, God’s people are stronger.

What are we doing to draw them into regular fellowship at Messiah? That is a question we ask ourselves all the time, but I wonder… how relatable is our regular fellowship to those who are 14 to 25? Are we alive in the Spirit for everyone? How can we get the young people to be a part of fellowship on a regular basis? Hmmm… we just asked God to stir up the Holy Spirit in each of them… perhaps we should ask them?

Your brother in Christ,

Dave