Celebrating Confirmation as a shared call to walk together in faith—especially in the messiness of real life.
Dear Friends,
This Sunday, June 8th, marks one of my favorite services at St. David’s: Confirmation. At our 9:15 a.m. service, our adult and youth confirmands will, in the words of our prayer book, “express a mature commitment to Christ, and receive strength from the Holy Spirit.”
You, the people of St. David’s, have a part to play as well! During the service, there is a crucial moment when the bishop addresses the congregation and asks, “Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?” You will respond, “We will!”
But what does it mean to support someone in their life in Christ? What does that look like for us, the people of St. David’s?
In his book “Being Christian,” former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams writes, “To be a Christian is to be affected—you might even say contaminated—by the mess of humanity.” As Christians, we are not removed from the world, better than the world, nor purified from the world when we enter the church through baptism and express our faith in confirmation. We enter the world more fully, open to its messiness.
When we are confirmed and publicly express our faith, we do not become some sort of “super people,” suddenly endowed with superhuman abilities to perfectly love, forgive, or practice kindness. Rather, I believe that expressing a “mature commitment to Christ” recognizes just how human we truly are!
So as our confirmands make a public commitment to Christ, and we commit to supporting them in their life in Christ, our call as a community is to come together and recognize just how much we need one another in all our messy diversity. We need each other’s support, discernment, wisdom, grace, and forgiveness. We need each other when we are sick, grieving, or struggling. We need each other to celebrate the joys and wins in our lives. And yes, we even need each other when we hold different theological views or belong to different political parties.
In our service of Confirmation, we affirm that none of us individually has all the answers, and none of us can do this alone. So, I am asking that if you are able, please be sure to attend the 9:15 a.m. worship in person this Sunday. It matters that you are there! I know that this service has a reputation for being longer, and it should be! This is a celebration of our communal life together. We need each other—especially in this messy, beautiful, human world.
Peace,
Elliot VanHoy
Pastoral Associate
Posted on June 5, 2025.