One of the joyful and fruitful youth ministry efforts the NALC has developed in recent years is our Online Confirmation Program. What began as a practical response to a real need has become a meaningful way to help congregations form young people in the Christian faith.

Across the NALC, we have many small congregations, congregations without pastors, and congregations with only one or two confirmation-age students. In many of these settings, offering a full confirmation program can be difficult. Yet the need remains the same: young people must be grounded in God’s Word, taught the faith faithfully, and prepared to live as baptized children of God within the life of the Church.

That is where the Online Confirmation Program has proven to be such a gift.

Four years ago, we launched this ministry with just seven students. Last year, that number grew to thirty-five. This growth reflects both the need for the program and the value it has already shown in the lives of students and congregations.

The NALC Online Confirmation Program is a two–yearcourse of study that meets weekly during the school year. Together, students work carefully through the Bible and Luther’s Small Catechism, building a solid foundation in Christian faith and discipleship. Classes are held on Zoom, allowing students from many different places and time zones to learn together regularly.

But this program is about much more than convenience.

From a Lutheran perspective we know, confirmation is not simply a graduation from Sunday School or a cultural rite of passage. It is part of the Church’s work of catechesis, teaching the faith into which young people have already been baptized. In Holy Baptism, God places His name on us, forgives our sins, unites us to Christ, and gives us the Holy Spirit. Confirmation instruction helps students grow in the knowledge of those gifts so that they may trust God’s promises, confess the faith, and live as disciples of Jesus.

One of the strengths of the NALC’s online program is that it connects teaching, mentoring, and congregational life. In addition to weekly class sessions, students are expected to meet regularly with a mentor in their congregation and to serve actively in congregational life at least twice a month. This is deeply important. The Christian faith is not learned only in a classroom; it is lived in the Church. Students need not only instruction, but also relationships, encouragement, and opportunities to practice serving others in Jesus’ name.

This is one of the greatest benefits of the program: it supports the work of the local congregation rather than replacing it. Even though the teaching happens online, students remain connected to their own congregation through worship, service, and mentoring. In this way, online confirmation becomes a tool to strengthen congregational life while also providing consistent and faithful instruction.

Another strength is the team-teaching approach. Each class has a minimum of four instructors, allowing students to hear from different NALC pastors and lay leaders. This gives students the benefit of different teaching styles and voices while still receiving instruction that is rooted in the same Lutheran confession of faith. It also reminds students that they are part of something larger than their own congregation. They belong to the wider Body of Christ.

Students themselves have spoken about how valuable this experience has been. One student shared:

“Online Confirmation has been an incredible experience. Even though our confirmation class at my church is small, having the opportunity to meet online with other students my age from different places has made it feel much bigger and more connected.”

That same student also appreciated hearing from different teachers:

“Hearing from different leaders gives us a variety of perspectives and helps me understand my faith more deeply.”

Another student, who is the only young person in their congregation, reflected on the relationships formed through the program:

“Through participating in Online Confirmation, I have been able to connect with other people from different areas… I have learned a lot about God’s Word through online confirmation and I really have enjoyed the past year and a half of learning and building connections.”

These comments capture an important part of the program’s value. For students who may feel isolated in their own congregation, online confirmation provides not only teaching, but also fellowship. They are reminded that they are not alone. They are part of a larger church body, learning and growing alongside other young Christians.

In a time when many youth are surrounded by confusion, competing ideas, and shallow understandings of faith, clear catechesis matters. Students need more than vague spirituality. They need the Scriptures. They need the Catechism. They need to know what God has done for them in Christ and how that shapes their lives.

As Lutherans, we confess that the Holy Spirit works through the Word of God to create and sustain faith. That remains true whether students are gathered in one classroom or connected across many places. What matters most is that they are being drawn more deeply into the life of Christ through His Word, His promises, and His Church.

And that is exactly what this program seeks to do.

We will resume classes for returning students in September. At this time, we are planning to offer the second-year class on Monday evenings and the first-year class on Thursday evenings. We encourage congregations to begin considering whether this program would be helpful for their students. We would also like new students to register by the end of August.

If you have questions or would like more information, please contact:

Pastor Teresa Peters
Director of Youth and Family Ministry
tpeters@thenalc.org

With the Delta variant reminding us that this pandemic will be around at least into 2022, many congregations are facing the fact that they will not be seeing a significant percentage of their members returning to in-person worship this fall.  And the longer some members continue to only worship online, the more likely many of them will rarely, if ever, return to worship in your sanctuary.

 As I have been coaching church transition teams and call committees over the last eighteen months I always ask what their current attendance is compared to 2019.  In almost all cases the answer is that average in-person worship attendance has dropped 30 to 50%.

Needless to say, this is a serious congregational ministry crisis that needs to be addressed.  But what can be done?  I suggest two strategies.  One is to provide an on-going, quality member-care ministry for every member who worshiped regularly in 2019 but has been consistently absent from in-person services since then.  The second strategy is to institute ways these online worshipers can be engaged and discipled by and through your weekly online sermons.  Only a combination of these two strategies, in my view, will significantly reduce the number of online worshipers who will eventually be lost to inactivity.

Your member-care effort should include phone conversations, every two to four weeks, with lay volunteers who have been recruited and “trained” for this ministry.  These conversations would be to see how this person is doing, and to ask if he/she has any personal prayer requests.  The volunteer would not only offer to pray personally for the member; he/she would volunteer to pass the prayer request on to the congregation’s prayer team.  Ideally, each of these online worshipers should be contacted, consistently, by the same volunteer. 

Now for the second strategy: Striving to engage online worshipers through your weekly sermons.  One example is how one LCMC congregation in suburban St. Louis used a sermon series on the Gospel of Mark to encourage both in-person and online worshipers to read the entire Gospel.  Members were asked to read a chapter each week in preparation for the following Sunday’s sermon.  The chapters were broken down into daily devotional reading texts to encourage members to develop a daily Bible-reading discipline.  Another idea would be to invite online comments regarding the next Sunday’s sermon theme.  This feedback could be in the form of survey questions where their answers—sent in via email—could be incorporated (anonymously) into the following Sunday’s message.  One more idea is to offer a mid-week online, interactive Bible study for members who are on Facebook.  This would make it possible for live “classes” where participants could make comments in real time.  The result would be a discussion-oriented Bible class/devotional time.  And finally, why not have your congregation host one or more weekly Zoom Bible studies?  This could achieve a group dynamic which would be almost the same as gathering in person.  I have done a lot of work these last eighteen months on Zoom.  I find these Zoom meetings to be very discussion-oriented; especially when the total number of participants is not more than six to nine people.  And since the beginning of this pandemic a great many more Americans have become comfortable with and open to the idea of gathering and conversing online. 

All the above suggestions would help prevent increased inactivity among those members who are not yet able—or comfortable enough—to return to your in-person worship services and classes.  However, please note that the second-strategy ideas above presume that you will continue to offer online worship; at least as long as this pandemic continues.  You will want to do this not only for your members, but also as an outreach to the unchurched in your community.