Confirmation Ideas
Confirmation is a rite of initiation in the Catholic church, and a frequent exercise in many Protestant and Reform churches. Over the years I’ve tried to help my students recognize that you do NOT need to start from scratch when building a confirmation curriculum for a given context.
didache comes from didaskein (“to teach”)
Instead, give yourself permission to look at other resources developed in other contexts, and draw from the best of them for your own space.
One of the best, most recent resources is the national Confirmation Project, a Lilly-funded research project that brought together practices from across multiple traditions. Their website is full of resources, wonderful bibliographic information, webinar recordings, and a host of other useful materials. Start there.
In the Lutheran context be sure to visit the Augsburg Fortress website, which will lead you to their Colaborate curriculum, their re:form curriculum, and their Here We Stand curriculum. All three are rich resources, and even if you only purchase their leader guides and work from there, you’ll have wonderful places from which to start,
In the Catholic context there are myriad curricula, but I would recommend patterning your designs on the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (or RCIA). You can find resources at the USCCB, at the National Gathering for Initiation, and in many other places (including an entire curriculum adapting RCIA to children).
Indeed, just about any denominational publisher will have resources available to begin from. There are also many blogs and online resources (not to mention Pinterest boards) that can spark your imagination. The challenge will be pick what is useful, enjoy the diversity, and not get overwhelmed. No matter what, however, don’t start from scratch by youself.
Useful blogs
- Building Faith
- Children’s Literature
- Children with special needs
- Picture book theology
- Flame Creative kids
Denominational and other resources
- ELCA (Lutheran)
- ELCA Study document on education
- USCCB (Roman Catholic)
- ECUSA (Episcopalian)
- United Methodist
- PCUSA(Presbyterian)
- Greek Orthodox
- Southern Baptist
- Unitarian Universalist
- CAJE (Jewish education)
- REA/APRRE (association)
- LACE (association)
- NAPCE (association)
- APCE (PCUSA association)
- NAIN (interfaith network)
- 21st C. New Evangelization
- Center for Spiritual Resources
- Faith and Wonder (biblical storytelling)
Emerging projects
- Youth and Family Institute
- Workshop rotation model
- Faith Inkubators
- Godly Play
- Practicing Our Faith
- FaithFactors.com
- Seasons of the Spirit
- Faith fair example
- ReImagine Faith Formation
Discussion of curriculum
- Children’s literature as a resource for ministry
- story-based approaches to curriculum
- Montessori approaches
- lectionary approaches
- Resource Center for Churches
- Keyhallonline (VTS)
- Galindo resources
- Rural church issues
Emerging issues
- Intercultural religious education
- interfaith religious education
- Feautor (free resources)
- social responsibility
- teaching tolerance
- art of hosting practices
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