Making Disciples: Coordinator's Guide - Brossura

Willimon

Brossura

ISBN 10: 150184816X ISBN 13: 9781501848162

Casa editrice: Abingdon Press, 2018

Riassunto

Making Disciples is a 13-session mentor-based confirmation program that pairs confirmands with adult mentors and guides them through a variety of learning experiences that will strengthen the student's understanding of the faith while connecting him or her with the community of believers in a personal way. It can be used as a stand-alone program, or in conjunction with your current curriculum as a special experiential unit. This is a confirmation program that is more like a process and less like a reading assignment, more engaging and congruent with the nature of the Christian faith than existing programs. Using an “apprenticeship” approach to confirmation Will Willimon produced a series of learning experiences where adult mentors and confirmands are both teachers and learners at the same time.This time-tested approach has been extensively revised and updated for usage in today’s churches that take seriously Christ’s command to be engaged in disciple making. The Confirmand's Journal is a place where an individual can write down highlights, memories, and details of their confirmation journey. This journal is a guided journal. Which means the confirmand will be given directions on things to do, and questions to reflect on, which will help them get started in their writing. Topics explore the basics of Christian faith: •God •Jesus •the Holy Spirit •worship •the Bible •gifts •ministry •baptism •spiritual life •death and resurrection •the church

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull'autore

Will Willimon is a lifelong Methodist. He is Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke University Divinity School and retired Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of The United Methodist Church, after serving for twenty years as faculty member and Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. As Bishop, he led North Alabama's 157,000 Methodists and 792 pastors. He has authored roughly a hundred books and is widely recognized as one of Methodism's most insightful, inspiring, and challenging voices.

Estratto. © Ristampato con autorizzazione. Tutti i diritti riservati.

Making Disciples: Coordinator's Guide

By William H. Willimon

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2018 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5018-4816-2

Contents

Welcome, 
Section 1: How Our Congregation Changed Its Approach to Making Disciples, 
Section 2: Confirmation: Where It Comes From, 
Section 3: Learning Activities for Growing Christians, 
Section 4: Mentor Support and Training, 
Section 5: Organizational Meeting, 
Section 6: Simple Schedule for a Three-Month Process of Confirmation, 
Section 7: Suggestions for the Confirmation Service, 

CHAPTER 1

Section 1

How Our Congregation Changed Its Approach to Making Disciples

As I met with the Christian education committee that evening, I could not hide my displeasure at the thought of three long months of Thursday afternoons, trapped with a group of unwilling teenagers in our annual confirmation class. Despite my earnest efforts to make sessions on the sacraments, church history, the Bible, ethics, and beliefs more interesting, who could blame these youths if the last thing they wanted was the pastor putting them through two more hours of school every Thursday in Lent. For me and for them, Lent was truly the season of cross-bearing.

I was reminded of an Episcopal friend of mine saying, "Confirmation is a second-rate junior-high graduation ceremony. After we have marched the kids through a series of boring classes, we then lay on hands to graduate them out of the church."

"Can't we come up with something better?" I wondered aloud to the committee.

"One can't devise an appropriate educational method," commented one layperson who teaches youth for a living, "until one has first defined what it is that one wants to teach. What is the 'end product' of this confirmation? What do you hope to accomplish?"

Off the top of my head, I responded to her, "All I want is a group of our youth who may one day grow up to resemble John Black." (John Black was a true leader of our congregation, everybody's idea of how a Christian ought to look.)

"That's it!" she said. "All we want is a dozen youth who, in their beliefs and lives, come to look like our best Christians. Is it too much to ask of confirmation?"

"Now, how on earth do we go about doing that?" asked another.

So, we put our heads together and went to work creating an approach to confirmation that would most effectively meet our goal. We agreed on a number of points.

Confirmation has as its goal discipleship — the production of people who resemble disciples of Jesus in their lifestyle, beliefs, and values.

1. We are uninterested in our youth knowing more "about" Christ; we want them to know and follow Christ. Therefore, confirmation must be more than the elementary mastery of a few facts about Jesus, church history, and the Bible. Confirmation is nothing less than giving people the equipment they need to be disciples here and now. (See my article, "Making Christians in Secular World," The Christian Century, Oct, 22,1986, pp. 914–917).

2. Christianity is more than a mere "head trip." It is a way of life together. The total person is engaged in the process. Education for the journey called discipleship must therefore be experiential, personal, and engaging, suggesting that confirmation doesn't end our growth as Christians. Our youth already are Christians. They are not ignorant of the faith since they already have been trying to live as Christians in their own way. Confirmation continues and strengthens Christian growth that has already begun. It is an important step in the journey, not the end of the journey.

3. The manner in which most of us became Christians was by looking over someone else's shoulder, emulating some admired older Christian, taking up a way of life that was made real and accessible through the witness of someone else. So, while books, films, and lectures might play a part in confirmation, they will all be subservient to the main task of putting young Christians in close proximity with older Christian guides — "mentors," we shall call them — who invite these younger Christians to look over their shoulders as they both attempt to live as Christians. The younger Christian will not be the only one who expects to grow and develop during the process of confirmation.

In meetings over the next few weeks, the committee devised a new approach to confirmation, based on our assumptions. We polled various groups in the church, including the youth, asking them, "Who comes to your mind as an adult in this church who would be especially good at helping our youth deepen their faith?" "Who are some of our most credible Christians?" I then took these lists (which were confidential) and selected twelve adults ranging in age from 23 to 68. I contacted each of them, telling them what we were asking them to do. Some expressed reservations, and all but two agreed to help. All were deeply moved that they had been named. I then assigned each of our ten youth to a mentor.

A setup meeting was called for the first week of Lent. Youth met their mentors, and the "journey" (as we called it) began. To each pair, we gave a one-sheet list of learning activities that had been devised by me and the committee. We told them to proceed at their own pace and to follow their own interests. The activities could be completed in a few weeks or inasmuch as three months.

The following learning activities were included:

• Read the Gospel of Luke together. As each of you reads at home, keep a notebook with you and note those passages that you find interesting, confusing, or inspiring. Every two weeks, make some time to discuss what you have read.

• Attend Sunday services together for the next three months. After each service, discuss your reactions to and impressions of the service, and any questions you may have.

• Get a copy of our church's budget. Find out where our money goes. Discuss together how each of you decides to make a financial commitment to the work of the church.

• Together, attend a board meeting of our church during the next three months. Decide what congregational board or committee you would like to be on at the end of the confirmation process.

• In your own words, explain "Why I like being a United Methodist Christian." Discuss two areas in which you would like to know more about our church. Ask our pastor or church librarian to help you find this information.

• Together, attend a funeral and a wedding at our church. After each service, discuss "Where was God at this service?" When in the service did you feel closest to God? Why is the church involved in this service? What is the purpose of this service?

• Spend at least fifteen hours volunteering together at Greenville Urban Ministries or at one of the other service agencies that our church helps to support. Why is the church involved here? What is Christian about the work done by this service agency?

As coordinator of the program, my work was much different than it was when I taught confirmation classes as the pastor. I kept checking with the teams on how things were progressing. One young person dropped out of the process. A number of mentors needed frequent encouragement and guidance. At the end of Lent, I met with each young person for an hour to discuss what was learned and to talk about what was still needed.

On Holy Saturday, all mentors and confirmands met at the church for a late-night vigil. There was a video about the church, followed by a prayer service in the sanctuary. At dawn on Easter, there was another service followed by breakfast. At the eleven o'clock service, each mentor stood with his or her confirmand before the congregation. Each mentor introduced the confirmand and told one thing that this young disciple was bringing as a gift to the church — some aspect of personality, interest, or personal talent. Then each confirmand thanked the congregation for one gift, such as a church school teacher, a helpful sermon, the church basketball team, something that had proved helpful to his or her growth as a disciple. Parents came forth, and pastor, mentor, and parents laid on hands as the pastor said, "Jane, remember your baptism and be thankful." "John, remember ..."

Another year with the new process convinced us that here was a method of confirmation that matched the intended result. The church needs to see that one of its greatest resources is its ability to bring generations of disciples together. Confirmation must be a time when a youth has the opportunity to confirm his or her developing faith but, perhaps more importantly, when the church has an opportunity to confirm the developing young Christian, saying, "You are one of us already. God has plans for your life. We want to take time with you to give you the skills, insights, and experiences you need to be faithful."

A major asset of this mentoring approach is that it can be adapted to people at any age or stage in their faith journey. It suits the half-willing twelve-year-old or the earnest nineteen-year-old. It can be done with a single candidate or one hundred. It moves us from the old, inappropriate schooling model to a sort of master-apprentice mode. Its activities can be devised to suit the particular contextual characteristics and mission of each congregation.

Recent studies suggest that in most mainline Protestant churches, our congregations have become the last stop for youth on the way out of church. We are doing a poor job of retaining our young. Unintentionally, we are giving our young a rationale for an unchurched, disembodied, individualized practice of Christianity. Of course, the sources of this problem are many. Yet, it seems clear that a renewed engagement with our youth through a new look at the purpose and method of confirmation can be a big part of the solution to a pressing problem of making, engaging, and retaining new disciples.

CHAPTER 2

Section 2

Confirmation: Where It Comes From

Our journey as Christians begins in holy baptism. Just as Jesus' ministry began with his baptism in the Jordan, so our ministry as Jesus' disciples begins with our baptism. Whenever we baptize anyone, we are fulfilling Jesus' command to "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:1920a).

When we are baptized, our lives are caught up in a powerful sign of what it means to live and die as a Christian. The New Testament is full of images of the meaning of baptism. Baptism is cleansing from sin ("But you were washed, you were sanctified. ..." [1 Corinthians 6:11b]), birth (John 3:5; Titus 3:5), death, and life ("Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life" [Romans 6:4]).

All of these baptismal changes — cleansing, birth, refreshment, life, and death — are not merely individualized experiences. Being a disciple is not only a matter of a new feeling or thinking or even acting. Being a disciple means being adopted into a new family: the family of God. Baptism delivers us from isolation to communion. MAKING DISCIPLES assumes that none of us becomes a Christian on our own. We need the whole community, each member witnessing to us, in order to grow up into Christ. Each mentor working with each confirm and is a baptismal sign that the family is busy taking care of its own, obeying Christ, continuing to make disciples through the witness of one person to another. Little in this faith is innate or natural. Each one of us must be received into the faith. How? By some knowledgeable Christian loving Christ and us enough to tell us the story, to witness to what Christ has done for each of us, and to help us to discern our vocation.

Confirmation is a part of the larger baptismal process of making disciples. Originally, "confirmation" in the Methodist tradition probably applied to the bishop's anointing and laying on of hands after someone had been baptized. At first, candidates were baptized. Then they were brought before their bishop, who laid hands upon their heads to "confirm" the fact that they had been duly baptized.

As bishops became overseers of more than one congregation, the local priest would baptize people, then later when the bishop came to visit, the bishop would lay hands on all those who had recently been baptized. This had the effect of disjoining the act of confirmation (laying on hands and anointing) from baptism. Gradually, the original meaning of confirmation as "completion" was changed to confirmation as "strengthening." The Rite of Confirmation was explained as a time to strengthen a young disciple for the rigors of mature Christian life.

The separation of the act of confirmation from baptism had some unfortunate consequences, however. The medieval church made confirmation a separate rite — a sacrament unto itself. While baptism was still recognized as the sole means of salvation, confirmation implied that, even after baptism, something else was needed. Does baptism equip one for discipleship or not? Is the Spirit bestowed in baptism or not?

Infant baptism had become the normal means of entrance into the church in the West. Confirmation was postponed until later, at the "age of discretion," when a person was old enough to recite the creed for himself or herself.

In many people's minds, confirmation was the means of "joining the church," the doorway to Communion and full participation as a Christian. This development had rather unfortunate consequences since it raised questions about the meaning of baptism. It implied that one had not really become a part of the church in baptism, that something else was needed — namely, the instruction of the church — before one could be a fully communing member.

In the Middle Ages, confirmation was not widely practiced in the church. Some of the Protestant reformers revived interest in confirmation, seeing it as a wonderful opportunity for instruction of Christian youth before their First Communion. They devised "catechisms" for memorization by the youth. This meant that First Communion and "joining the church" became a very intellectualized, cerebral affair.

Today there is widespread agreement in the church that we must more carefully describe what the church is doing in confirmation. Baptism is the God-given means of establishing us as members of God's family. In baptism, no matter what age it is administered, a person becomes a full member of Christ's holy church. In baptism, we are given all the gifts needed to be full and faithful disciples.

At various times in our lives, it is helpful to renew the baptismal covenant that we made with God and with the church, or that was made for us in baptism. The church provides the opportunity on occasions such as the Sundays of Pentecost, All Saints', and Easter Sunday. But confirmation is perhaps the most special time to renew baptismal promises.

In most churches, confirmation is thought of as a rite for adolescents. During adolescence, when a young person is beset by many questions, challenges, and threats to faith, confirmation may provide a good opportunity to remember one's baptism. When a young person is going through doubts and struggling to find identity, what a wonderful opportunity for the church to say, in effect, "We confirm you as a Christian. God has plans for you. You may be uncertain of who you are, but God knows you and will confirm you in who you are."

However, one could argue that confirmation could reasonably occur at almost any age. For instance, some have argued that confirmation ought to be reserved until young adulthood — say the early twenties — when a person is more truly on his or her own, beginning the responsibilities of adulthood, rather than during adolescence when teenagers are busy differentiating themselves from their parents. Generally speaking, confirmation ought not occur until the growing Christian is able to do some thinking and exploration for himself or herself.

The value of this program's approach to confirmation is that it can be adapted to nearly any stage in life after childhood. At whatever age it occurs, in confirmation we remember our baptism, we renew our covenant with God, and we recall God's covenant with us. Confirmation is not only an opportunity for us to "confirm" our commitment to God and the church, but it is also a time for God and the church to publicly and visibly "confirm" their commitment to us.

Whenever your church chooses to offer the experience of confirmation, it should be apparent that confirmation is part of the lifelong process of baptism — of becoming a disciple. During the confirmation learning experiences, there should be frequent references to baptism. When the Rite of Confirmation is celebrated, it should be celebrated within the context of a baptism, if at all possible, in order to link confirmation with baptism, and to make clear that confirmation is the continuation, rather than the beginning, of life in the church.

Baptism is a sign that if any of us comes to affirm this faith, it is as a work of Christ in us rather than a work done by us. Faith is a gift, something we receive rather than something we devise for ourselves. In MAKING DISCIPLES, relatively new, developing Christians will have the experience of receiving the gifts and guidance of more mature, seasoned Christians, thus reminding both mentor and confirmand that all of us, as Christians, are receivers rather than initiators of faith.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Making Disciples: Coordinator's Guide by William H. Willimon. Copyright © 2018 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Abingdon Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2018
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 150184816X
• ISBN 13: 9781501848162
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 56
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile