As you live into the Messy Reality of Young People and Faith, here's a resource for meeting your youth where they are at.
John Roberto's book, Faith Formation 2020: Designing the Future of Faith Formation, includes this chart of four scenarios. See the strategies for engaing in faith development for each person, no matter where they are coming from.
Further Reading:
Bet you've got your head down now! We know you are working hard on getting all kinds of things ready for "Back to School."
Including Confirmation.
At FirstThird.org, we're going to use this month to keep pushing what you might be thinking about how you are going to approach this critical ministry with your youth. It's critical not because of what you do together on any individual Wednesday night (or whenever you have your time together). It's critical because
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The Story of Stuff
From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us to create a more sustainable and just world.
www.storyofstuff.org
Youth Energy
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By Keith Long, MDIV CYF graduate of Luther Seminary
Something is amiss in how we engage and educate young people in their lives of faith. It is disheartening to witness the disappearance of youth and families from the church. Decreased attendance leads to less risk-taking, which in my opinion, leads to apathy and boredom. As a result, I think we have lost a tremendous amount of passion in passing on the faith and what matters most in our lives as Jesus followers. Conviction and belief ought to be
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By Paul Cannon, MDIV CYF graduate of Luther Seminary
The LDS (Latter-Day Saints) church is often referred to as the quintessential American religion, and despite misgivings about the faith on the part of many mainline Protestant Christians (MP), the description is apt. Regardless of how you feel about the beliefs, structure and mission of the Latter-Day Saints, their success is quite undeniable. Though the LDS church is perhaps known best for their missionaries, wealth and rising political
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Interview of Paul Cannon, CYF MDIV graduate
Interview of Karen Gieseke, CYF MA graduate and CYF Prize Winner 2012
Read Karen's full paper:
- See Karen's Blog Post Here
For more ways to expand your thinking about pushing forward Karen Gieseke's ideas about the vocation of parents as leaders in the faith of their children, be sure to order:
It is filled with both helpful content/reading and also applicable praxis.
Parents are the most important factor in the healthy development and faith formation of their children and adolescents.
The Fall 2011 issue
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Here’s the next installment in the FirstThird summer reading series. Our second CYF Prize winning thesis for 2012 was written by Karen Gieseke. Karen is currently serving as a Children Youth and Ministry Coordinator for the Southeast Minnesota Synod of the ELCA.
We’ve all been in conversations about the power of parents in faith formation, but Karen pushes us further by introducing us to idea of the Christian Parent-Leader as VOCATION in her CYF award-winning
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By Dr. Nancy Going, Director of Children, Youth and Family Distributed Learning Program at Luther Seminary
Let’s take one more stab at the question related to the confirmation process.
Think about all the time and energy we spend in churches working to get the confirmation program just right. And the results of all that work are in: Over 80% of ELCA churches are losing 50-75% of their confirmands after the rite.
But now think about how your own faith has been formed.
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