The teenage years are an important time in a young person's life... it is a time of growing up... it is a time of becoming less like a child and more like an adult. ..it is a time of great changes. It is also the time that has traditionally been set aside by the Church for individuals to make public affirmation of their baptism. Affirmation of baptism is a life-long process; a daily recognition of and struggle with our faith. It is a process that publicly begins when young people stand up in the midst of the faith community and claim for themselves the promises their parents made for them at their baptism. From this point onward, personal responsibility for faith is passed on to the young person. This marks a passing of the torch from parents to children.

But let's back up a minute to those promises made at baptism. These promises stand at the heart of why the Church offers a program of Confirmation Study and why parents enroll their children in such a program.

A long time ago you gathered with family, friends, and a church family around a baptismal font to share with your child the gift of faith. God gave your child (as small or as large as they were) the gift of a new life with God; a life filled with forgiveness and the promise of eternity .It was out of Christian love that you presented your child for Holy Baptism. At that time you promised to faithfully bring them to the services of God's house, and teach them the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments... to place in their hands the Holy Scriptures and provide for their instruction in the Christian faith, that, living in the covenant of their Baptism and in communion with the Church, they [might] lead godly lives until the day of Jesus Christ.



At the start of sixth grade, youth are invited to enroll in our intensive spiritual growth experience known as Confirmation. This program provides a host of opportunities that equip youth for a lifetime of discipleship and more involved participation in the larger community of faith, the Church. Usually by eighth grade, students have met the expectations of the program and are ready to make the faith commitments of Confirmation. Each year on the Festival of Pentecost, we confirm those youth who are ready for the next stage in their faith journey.