2) Senior Dinners: Once a month, we meet at a different senior’s house for dinner and discussion. The idea is that youth group fun and games are not relevant in the life of a senior who is leaning into a life outside of the home. Instead of pretending this isn’t happening, we say it out loud and then craft dinner discussions that will allow students space to wrestle with their faith and hopefully make it their own.
The assumption is that up to this point their faith is mostly a shadow of their parent’s faith or the youth ministry’s faith. But for them to have a faith that will last into adulthood, they must make their faith their own. On our road trip, we brainstorm ideas and topics for these dinners and then roll them out in a way they can build upon themselves. Some topics are repeats from their time in youth group, but all of them are spun with an application toward their life a year from now. Some of the topics we wrestle with are:
- How to read/study the Bible
- How to develop convictions
- Peer pressure
- Navigating a world with no rules
- How to make new friends (It is amazing that they don’t know how to do this.)
- Finding a church/fellowship
- Wrestling with evolution, sexuality, politics, other religions
- Love and relationships
- Worry, doubt, anxiety
Most of these topics are their topics. The only ones I make happen every year are a challenge to read through the New Testament and how to develop convictions. Most students have been told their entire lives what is right and what is wrong, but have not been given the tools to discern from the Holy Spirit what is right and wrong. These then set the foundation for the rest of our topics.
3) Celebration Sunday: Every June, our seniors take over the worship service at our church and lead our congregation in worship. It is a sweet time where our youth band leads in singing worship, and then our seniors share their testimonies. Since the goal of senior confirmation is helping them make their faith their own, I make every student write a testimony about where they are at in their walk with God.
Some of them are really amazing testimonies of God’s goodness and grace, and some of them are a watermark of their seeking understanding and meaning. We let students from the entire spiritual spectrum share. As I meet with them, I do allow them to share whatever is honest about where they are at and what they are going through. The only part I make them reflect on and add is to write a paragraph about how our church has been part of that process and to say thank you.
It is tiresome to have a never-ending stream of students be angsty toward the church. The truth is that our church and many churches out there invest thousands and thousands of dollars into the faith development of their students. Even if students choose to walk away from their faith, I want them to reflect on how the church has loved them and affirm that the church will be there for them. For the students who do choose to walk away from their faith, I want to make the easiest onramp back as possible.
When the service is just about over, I take the reigns back from the students and hand them over to our lead pastor. We wrap up our service with an intentional blessing and commencement as we recognize as an entire church that these young adults on stage are not children anymore, but adults and invaluable parts of our church body.
We invite our entire senior class up front. Then their parents, friends, family and the rest of our youth group is invited to come up and put their hands upon them as they are consecrated and launched. It is a powerful service and a fitting end to a confirmation track.
What Is Your Plan? If we want our students to have a fighting chance to maintain their faith into adulthood, into college, then we must be intentional with the ways in which we prepare them. There are a ton of great resources and ideas out there. Which ones do you use?
