Confirmation - what's it all about?

This article is taken from our own confirmation leaflet and is available in print from St Paul's, Oadby


Have you thought about being confirmed this year?

Most of us can identify with the idea of a faith journey. Over time, our awareness of God and our relationship with him can deepen and grow.

Perhaps as you reflect on your life, you might feel a strengthening of your relationship with God and a feeling that he is leading you on.

Don’t be shocked! Although our relationship with God can ebb and flow like the tides, it would be surprising if, over time, we didn’t find ourselves drawn to an ever-closer walk with him.

Many people at St Paul’s find encouragement and support through our services of worship, in housegroups and in friendships with other Christians.

This leaflet is intended for people who are wondering about what confirmation is all about. If this might be you, or someone you know, then read on…

Confirmation and Baptism (or ‘Christening’) are closely linked.

Baptism is the moment that marks the beginning of the faith journey as a follower of Jesus Christ. The New Testament contains many examples of people being baptised as they turn to Christ. The actual service of baptism takes place at a single moment in time, but it symbolises the longer journey of faith. When children are baptised, very little of that journey has been begun, so the service looks forward to the future. When adults are baptised, it includes a personal commitment as a response to God’s call, so the service reflects the past as well as the future aspects of the journey.

Confirmation follows baptism. For a person who was baptised as a young child, confirmation offers an opportunity to make a commitment for themselves. But confirmation is about more than ‘confirming’ our commitment. The service is centered on a prayer, which is prayed by the Bishop individually for each candidate. The prayer asks God to confirm the candidate by the power of the Holy Spirit. In this sense, confirm means empower, encourage and strengthen. It follows from the practice of the early church, described in the bible, in which Christians received the laying on of hands and prayer for the Holy Spirit.
Here are some examples of different people’s stories, which help to show how confirmation can work in practice:

Sam is 14. She was baptised before she could walk and has been a member of the church ever since. Recently, she’s begun to think more deeply about her Christian faith. She realises there’s lots more to discover but she knows deep down that this is the time for her to make a personal commitment. Sam wants to be confirmed because she feels God’s calling her to take the next step forward.

Tom is now retired. He went to church regularly as a youngster, then again for a short while as an adult. Now he worships at church most weeks.
But he was never confirmed. For some reason, he ‘missed out’. Now he’s thinking about confirmation again. It feels a little odd, because he doesn’t feel that much has changed. But confirmation feels like ‘unfinished business’ that he’d like to get on with.

Dave is a bit shy about going public about his faith. A lot has happened for Dave this year, not all of it good news. But among the problems, Dave knows God’s at work in his life.
Dave wasn’t baptised as a child. He wants to be baptised soon. His confirmation will take place not long afterwards but Dave’s not sure what difference it will make.

Gill has recently started coming to church, though she was baptised as a child. The difference this time is that she feels like she’s in a relationship with God, not just being a member of something. She is nervous about being ‘up front’ but can’t help feeling that God is nudging her towards confirmation.

At St Paul’s, there are two main routes towards confirmation:


For teenagers, we regularly hold confirmation courses, such as Youth Alpha or Youth Emmaus. These are highly interactive and allow young people to bring their special interests and issues. Joining the Youth Emmaus course doesn’t mean you have to be confirmed. It’s okay to just check it out and make a decision later.

A good reason to be confirmed as a teenager:

• you feel ready to make a personal commitment to following Jesus

A not-so-good reason:

• other people are putting pressure on you

For adults, the preparation for confirmation is tailored to suit you and your situation. It might involve joining The Alpha Course for adults, or another form.

It’s really important to us that we follow the pace set by God. We don’t try to fit people into our plans. Instead, we want to support people in the best way possible as they make their own journey.

The next step?

Talk to a friend or family member. You might ask someone else to pray for you (and don’t forget to pray yourself!). Contact Simon or another member of the clergy or leadership team.

Jargon busting: what is communion wine made from?

I get asked all the time. Well, okay, I get asked about twice a year. At St Paul's we use fortified red wine. The rules of the Church of England require that the wine is made from fermented juice of the grape, good and wholesome (Canon B17). There's no restriction on the colour of the wine - some churches use amber rather than red.

Jargon busting: Church Electoral Roll

There's sometimes a bit of misunderstanding about the church electoral roll - what it is, why it matters and who it applies to. So here goes with an explanation.

The first thing to clarify is that the church electoral roll is nothing to do with the local register of electors compiled by the Borough.

The church electoral role is a list of people who may vote at the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM). It's an important part of the procedures for church representation, so its administration is taken very seriously. We have an electoral roll officer in each church to take care of this for us. If your name appears on the roll, you are entitled to attend the APCM, to vote and to stand for office (for example, as a PCC or DCC Representative).

The rules which govern whose name may appear on the church electoral roll are a little complicated. A lay person is entitled to have his or her name included on the church electoral roll, if they fulfill the requirements shown here. In general terms, this includes being baptised, 16 years of age or over, a member of the Church of England, residing in the parish (or if not resident, habitually worshipping in the parish during the previous six months).

The electoral role is also important in the qualification for marriage in a church, following banns of marriage. Everyone is entitled to marry in their parish church, but they may also be entitled to marry after banns in another church, provided that their name is on the electoral roll of that parish.

The Church of England doesn't have a formal membership system as some churches do. In the absence of anything formal, the church electoral roll is sometimes used as a kind of membership list. We encourage everyone who regularly worships at St Paul's to join the electoral roll for the parish as it's part of the way people identify with the church community and vice versa.

At the time of writing, we've just completed a revision of the roll and there are 122 members of St Paul's on the church electoral roll, out of a total of 324 in the parish as a whole.

You can download a copy of the Electoral Roll Application Form in Word format.

Jargon-busting: What's a Lectionary?

It's easy to use jargon in church. It sometimes feels that the church has to dream up a new word for every familiar idea or object, just to confuse people. Well, we want to remove the confusion where we can, so here's the first in a series of posts which aim to do the jargon-busting.

A lectionary is a book or list of bible readings for use in worship. (A lection is a reading). At our daily prayer services in the parish, and on the main services on Thursdays and Sundays, the lectionary provides the basis for the readings we use. Before the time of Jesus, the Hebrew scriptures were read in a cycle, with readings being appointed for various festivals and regular acts of worship. This practice continued in the early Church, and various schemes for selecting and organising readings have been developed through the centuries.

The strengths of a good lectionary are:

• the discipline of using readings which are pre-selected, rather than chosen arbitrarily or personal favourites.
  
• the sense of belonging to a wider church that comes from using the same readings as other Christian communities.
• the breadth and balance of readings which prevent reading from being too narrow.
  

The Church of England has adopted a version of the Revised Common Lectionary, and you can find an online version of it here but The Book of Common Prayer also has a lectionary of its own. The Revised Common Lectionary is used for Sunday readings (with minor variations) by the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches, as well as the Anglican Churches. It works through a three-year cycle.

We sometimes depart from the lectionary readings when we follow a series of thematic studies in our services, such as the recent series on "Christian Character". If you want to know what the lectionary readings are, it can be quite tricky to work them out from the 'master lectionary' on the Church of England website. That's because certain feasts and festivals displace the 'normal' lectionary provision. It's easier to find out what the lectionary readings are for a particular date in the year, by using one of the annually produced lectionary booklets like this or this.