Sylvia Bull Webinar November 17, 2015 THE CONFIRMATION PROJECT IN CONTEXT: GRACE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH, BOONE, NC

GRACE LUTHERAN, BOONE ➤ Congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ➤ Located in the mountains of northwestern North Carolina ➤ Members: approximately 550 ➤ Avg. worship attendance: 220 ➤ Confirmation students: ➤ 9 boys, 2 girls ➤ 2 sixth-graders, 1 seventh-grader, 8 eighth-graders ➤ Meeting time: 10:00am - 10:45am Sundays ➤ 3-year program ➤ Year 1: Bible ➤ Year 2: Small Catechism ➤ Year 3: Discipleship

CONFIRMATION PROJECT LEARNINGS How we’ve applied them to Grace Lutheran, and how you can apply them, too!

LEARNING 1: EFFECTIVE CONFIRMATION MEANS KNOWING YOUR GOALS ➤ What are our goals for confirmation overall? ➤ What are our specific goals for the year? ➤ Do our goals guide our decisions about curriculum? ➤ Are all our leaders aware of and on board with these goals? ➤ Do we have a way to evaluate if we are meeting our goals?

➤ Do our students already know each other? ➤ Do our students already know the leaders, and vice-versa? ➤ What can we change to enhance our focus on relationships? ➤ Example: How do we handle absences? ➤ Example: Is any evaluation done? How? LEARNING 2: EFFECTIVE CONFIRMATION IS HIGHLY RELATIONAL

➤ Are parents involved? To what degree? ➤ How can we engage parents more? ➤ Example: Do parents make a commitment to the program? ➤ Example: Are parents expected to attend any class sessions? ➤ Example: Do parents help teach? LEARNING 3: EFFECTIVE CONFIRMATION ENGAGES PARENTS

➤ What level of engagement do we expect from students? ➤ Is this expectation communicated to students and parents? ➤ What is our attendance policy? ➤ How do our teaching methods match our expectation for student engagement? LEARNING 4: EFFECTIVE CONFIRMATION HAS HIGH EXPECTATIONS

LEARNING 5: EFFECTIVE CONFIRMATION ENCOURAGES QUESTIONS ➤ Is the confirmation class a space where students feel safe to ask questions? How do we know? ➤ Do leaders honor and respond to questions? ➤ Is the curriculum attentive to or guided by student questions? ➤ Example: In planning, do we seek out student input? ➤ Example: When questions arise, how do teachers respond? ➤ Example: Is the curriculum flexible enough to be adapted in response to student questions?

➤ Do students in confirmation have opportunities to get to know other members of the congregation as part of confirmation? ➤ Is formal or informal mentoring a part of confirmation? ➤ If not, which is a better fit for our context? LEARNING 6: EFFECTIVE CONFIRMATION INCLUDES MENTORING

➤ Is confirmation guided by the mission and vision of our congregation? ➤ Is confirmation connected to other ministries in our congregation? ➤ Are students expected to participate in ministry? ➤ Are congregation members expected to know about and participate with confirmation? LEARNING 7: EFFECTIVE CONFIRMATION IS A CHURCH-WIDE EFFORT

➤ Does confirmation include a camp or retreat? ➤ If yes, what role does camp have in confirmation? ➤ Does the camp or retreat connect our students with confirmands from other churches? LEARNING 8: EFFECTIVE CONFIRMATION GOES TO CAMP

➤ What is the culture of our church? Our neighborhood? Our city? ➤ Does confirmation (the structure, content, and teaching methods) show an awareness of our cultural context? ➤ Just because we’re mostly white, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pay attention to this! LEARNING 9: EFFECTIVE CONFIRMATION KNOWS ITS CULTURAL CONTEXT

➤ How do our students learn best? ➤ Do we use a variety of teaching methods? ➤ Examples: discussion-based, action-reflection, experiential, lecture, exploratory ➤ Do our teaching methods fit with our goals? ➤ Do we incorporate technology into any of our teaching? ➤ Examples: videos, flipped classroom, apps, projects LEARNING 10: EFFECTIVE CONFIRMATION USES A VARIETY OF TEACHING METHODS (AND TECHNOLOGY!)

CONCLUSION ➤ CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT!!! ➤ Be creative: How can you adapt strategies from other places so that they will fit your context? ➤ Prioritize ➤ Leave room for growth ➤ Pray ➤ Have fun!