confirmed.

Well today 36 lil'uns were welcomed into membership though Confirmation. Good times were had by all. Its seeing 36 kiddos in front of my when my calling becomes all the more clear. Synod-wide, the average church would have 10-12 of them end up being active members. Our church's averages would have 12-14 be active. The thought that even one of them will essentially deny the existence of God by the next decade is heartbreaking, but to know that stats would say that 6 or 7 of them will... man. Out of my little confirmation class of 12 back in 1994, I'm not sure how many are still connected to a church. There are 3 or 4 that I keep in loose contact with and none of them are active... people ask me often what the answer is, how can we retain our youth? If I knew I'd be rich. But I don't really know. I know parenting is huge, as is someone taking a vested interest in their lives and modeling a positive faith life. I wish I could be that guy in everyone's life, but I simply am not… which parents, of course, let me know all the time. Lovely creatures, parents are…
It really is on days like this that my whole job existence is put into question... You can't help but wonder what good it is to minister to youth when the majority of the application of faith isn’t until they’re beyond youthfulness… The fact is, there are plenty of youth group kids who are in Hell (to put it bluntly…) so why am I on the payroll? I mean the seemingly randomness of everything can just make your head spin. I think that if I had to articulate the one thing that would make me doubt God’s benevolence it would be the randomness of it all. I mean who remains faithful and who doesn’t… and the background of them all… I mean I know guys who had great parents and solid Christian up-bringing and now they are committed atheists…and then those from broken-no-good families with tons of things to be “angry at God” about and they are as devout as can be… where is there rhyme or reason to any of it? And people who have been in Christian schools since kindergarten, only to reject Biblical truth??
And what of Proverbs 22:6? “Train up a child in the way he should go, so even when he is old he will not depart from it.” What does that mean? What of those who departed from it? Were they not properly trained?
I know these things are not for me to understand, and they are honestly not stumbling blocks, just unanswered questions. But, thankfully, unanswered questions only turn me with more intensity to THE Answer and as I rest in His hands I know that He is indeed bigger, wiser, and greater than I… which is the greatest comfort of all. So now I let God be God and I’ll just work on being His little child.
Regardless, keep the 36 Confirmed in your prayers that they will indeed always seek the Lord in all their thoughts, words, and actions, and they would remain faithful to the True Faith until Life Everlasting.
In a lighter twist of irony… at my third open house today I told the story of how I don’t have a party story… it was awesome. :)