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Confirmation Ecology: What We Found During Our Qualitative Research

Last week on our social media channels, we posted the details of what we discovered about ecology, one of the four dimensions of confirmation (and related practices) that surfaced in the key learnings of our qualitative research.  We share those details here, along with a portrait of Peace Lutheran Church in Tacoma, WA and their Feet to Faith Confirmation Ministry in Tacoma’s Hilltop area, which illustrates the importance of taking ecology into account in the confirmation process.

Ecology: Confirmation is one aspect of a larger learning, discipleship, and communal whole.

Congregations where confirmation is vibrant recognize and tend to the dynamic relationship between the congregation’s culture of discipleship (and in some cases denomination’s culture of discipleship) and confirmation’s ability to play an important role in youth discipleship. In this way, confirmation was one intentional dimension of a larger faith formation ecosystem. This ecosystem included creating connections between confirmation and the congregation, parents and households, and the world. This multi-dimensional ecological understanding situated confirmation as more than a program or rite.

 

Portrait: Peace Lutheran Church in Tacoma, WA and Feet to Faith Confirmation Ministry

One definition of ECOLOGY is “the totality or pattern of relations between organisms and their environment.” Check out this portrait of Peace Lutheran Church in Tacoma, WA and their Feet to Faith Confirmation Ministry in Tacoma’s Hilltop area. They’re a great example of a church that takes ecology–and relationships, and tending to the needs of the whole person–into account in encouraging and carrying out confirmation!

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