Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand

How do we invite and celebrate our young people belonging to God and to one another in Christ?

Traditionally the Pressie Church has done Confirmation and Affirmation of Faith services. Here, Chris & Mary-Jane Konings share ideas of how to go about putting together a ‘belonging’ service for your young people.

Preparation:

• Meet with the young people and take them through what’s involved in believing and belonging – use the PYM Believe and Belong booklet or the Uniting Church ‘Belonging Kit’ as a guide.
• Through the sessions, you will help your young people map out their faith journey so far, help them to understand why they want to commit to following Jesus as well as help them to look ahead to where they’re going. Make sure you ask what’s important and listen to what is and isn’t said in their stories.

• You’ll also help your young people understand who they belong to. Make sure you tell the church community what’s going on and check with church leadership. There may be ways of including them in the process.

The Belonging Service

• Get your youth in early on the planning and make sure they will be there. Encourage them to include things in the service – like songs, readings, stories etc - that are meaningful to their faith journey as well as the life of the church.
• Involve the families, youth group and the wider church – especially the leaders. It will give them a chance to celebrate the good job they’ve done nurturing the faith of our young people. One way of doing this is each young person having a sponsor (who they choose) who will introduce them (briefly) to the congregation.
• Invite the young people to prepare a short testimony/story about why they’re making a commitment to believe and belong – if there are a number of hem, this might fill the ‘sermon slot’ or alternatively you could ask the minister/another leader to draw the stories together once they have been shared.
• It’s good to have a point of commitment – this could be a statement that the young people have prepared themselves] which expresses their commitment to God and their church family.
• Pray for each person – invite families, leaders and significant friends to be a part of this.
• Give them something to remember the day by. We gave our kids either a Bible or a really useful Bible study book. You could get your local craft type ladies in on the act to make cross stitch keepsakes or weave crosses or whatever.

Celebrate the occasion with lunch or morning tea or supper. Make sure there’s lots of photos taken to look back on, and if you’ve got keen beans in your group, circulate a video camera inviting people to make congratulatory comments that the people can look at later.

Chris and MJ are rocks for many people in the PYM tribe and beyond. This year they moved to Dunedin to train for ordination at the School of Ministry.