Confimation Sunday: Spring 1992

(Retrospection)

This is the photo from Confirmation Sunday, Spring 1992. I'm first row, third from the right.

Despite attending Confirmation classes once a week for two years, if you were to ask me what exactly this class was, I'm not sure I could tell you. I mean it was a class where we learned about God and the Bible and stuff, but I don't remember what made this class any different from normal Sunday School or Wednesday night youth group.

(For anyone interested, the home page of the Evangelical Covenant Church has a page on their Confirmation class here, which is supposed to explain the purpose of this class. Unfortunately the whole thing is written in "Jesus talk" and uses a whole bunch of religious sounding words to essentially say nothing useful. For example:
Begin to understand some of the major doctrines of the Christian faith
Develop meaningful relationships with pastor(s), friends, and members of the congregation
Facilitate parent-adolescent sharing of the Christian faith in conversation and action (service)...Again I'm still not sure what the difference between this and normal Sunday School classes is supposed to be.)

Anyway, it seemed like a big deal at the time. After the two year course, we got up in front of the church in our best clothes (I'm not 100%, but this might have been my first time wearing a necktie in my life) and recited the apostles creed, and afterwards we were eligible for Church membership.

I've mentioned this before, but growing up my siblings and I were all sent to Christian Reformed schools during the week, and attended Covenant Church on Sunday and Wednesday night. As I've grown older, I have increasing mixed feelings about private religious schools. (I think it's dangerous to segregate ourselves religiously in America. Plus I appreciate the value of local neighborhood schools).

Nevertheless, I do have to admit that Christian schools did give me a thorough knowledge of the Bible. And confirmation classes was the first time I realized the gap between myself and the other kids in youth group. I couldn't believe how little they knew. I remember particularly being appalled when we covered the entire period from the Judges to the return from Exile in one single class.

I wish I could say I handled this revelation with Christian humility, but I'm afraid at that age I still believed in showing off my knowledge. (Actually I'm not sure I've changed.) I made a point of repeatedly announcing to the youth group leaders in Confirmation class that I had not learned anything new the whole year. (Which was more or less true, but perhaps I could have been a bit more discreet about it).

Furthermore one of the youth group leaders once stated in class that during the divided Kingdom the tribe of Benjamin went with the Northern Kingdom of Israel. I made a big deal about correcting him in front of everyone. He didn't believe me at first, so I had to look up the passage in the Bible and show it to him.

(The second year of confirmation, which was taught by the Pastor of the church, and got a little into Church history, was somewhat new to me).

Link of the Day
My old roommate Rob is officially a father now. Go over to his blog and congragulate him.

Also from Media Mouse: Realities of the Recent Vote for War Funding
According to the National Priorities Project, if the $456 billion would have been spent locally:
*5.7 million people could have been provided with health care coverage each year since the war began; AND
*1 million affordable housing units could have been built; AND
*430,000 school teachers could have been hired since the war began; AND
*4.7 million students could have received tuition and fees for four years at a state university.