What is Confirmation?

The ELCA’s definition of confirmation:

“Confirmation ministry is a pastoral and educational ministry of the church that helps the baptized through Word and Sacrament to identify more deeply with the Christian community and participate more fully in its mission.”

The ELCA’s hope and vision for confirmation:

“Confirmation ministry is an opportunity for congregations to renew the vision of living by grace, grounded in Baptism. This vision is especially important for ministry with young Christians, but it has lifelong implications. Through identity with the baptized community, we grow in mission, discipleship, and our vocations in daily life.”

The Confirmation Ministry Task Force Report – adopted by the third biennial Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA on September 1, 1993.

What does this mean?

In the ELCA, we talk a lot about being called to live out our baptismal covenant. We do this by proclaiming the good news of God who loves us, claims us as God’s beloved children, and calls us to love our neighbors, as well as to love ourselves.  We proclaim this good news by learning about the story of God’s presence and work in and through us and by hearing about the story of God at work in the lives of others, both past and present. We are in God’s story and we are called to recognize that others are in God’s story, as well.

We are called to live out that story daily in word and in deed. We live out that story when we worship together on Sunday, when we care for our loved ones, when we visit someone who is ill. We live out that story when we sit with a grieving friend, when we bring a meal to our neighbors who are experiencing homelessness, when we stand with others in our communities to call out injustice.

Through us, God is at work in the world.  As the ELCA motto goes: “God’s work, our hands.”