Confirm not Conform

I doubt I'm breaking any new territory here when I tell you that a great deal of youth ministry is parent ministry. But I wanted to write about this because no one told me this; it was something I only discovered when I was a youth minister myself.

I've noticed an uptick in sales of Confirm not Conform Adult in the past couple of weeks. It makes me wonder if people are looking for good source material for Lenten studies. Maybe that's what people are planning, but even if they're not, I thought I'd give a few suggestions on how you could use CnC Adult as part of your parish's Lenten formation.

Today I happened to look at the collect for the First Sunday After Christmas--the only post-Christmas-Day collect we heard this year, what with Christmas Day on a Sunday. It reads:

Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

It occurred to me today, on this World AIDS Day, that for many of the youth in our churches, AIDS is something that happens to Other People Far Away. But for many of us who work with youth, we went through the time when AIDS was a death sentence that affected people close to us. I wonder if sharing those stories and memories will help to make our current response to AIDS more compassionate and more urgent.

Last week, the radio program This American Life did a terrific show on the phenomenon known as Middle School. Among the many things that I found revelatory was this information from Linda Perlstein, author of Not Much Just Chillin: The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers.

This is one that people forget about, but it’s good to remember to build partnerships with your parish leadership. Especially when Confirm not Conform is a new program, you’re going to want the vestry’s support. Otherwise, when you get to the end of the program and the kids are making their presentation, the vestry will say, “What’s this about?” and it will take a lot longer to get the church leaders to understand and buy in to what you’re doing.

One of the things I am constantly telling mentors is how important they are, but that the kids don’t give a rip about them. Mentors become mentors thinking they’re going to be best friends with the kids. If they keep thinking that, they’re going to be disappointed the first time a kid doesn’t return their phone call or flakes out and doesn’t show up for a meeting.

Laura asked me to blog about what can help you get off to a good start with your CnC program. I think part of it is really educating the parents, mentors, and vestry. I wanted to talk about each of those partnerships with a short post, starting with the parents.

In general, I think it’s really important to find the time to provide an education for the parents about what you’re doing, and that’s hard to do because they think they know. And then the year starts to get super busy and suddenly you’re getting calls from parents saying, “Why did I sign up for this? It’s so time-consuming.”

As churches begin a new program year, I thought church leaders might find this Rules of the Road protocol useful in situations beyond the Confirm not Conform program. It’s not just for youth either. I can think of a vestry or two for whom this might be useful. Feel free to adjust this protocol as necessary to fit your particular circumstances.

Discussion: Rules of the Road

Since many of you subscribed to Confirm not Conform, oh, around a year ago, many of you are now receiving renewal notices. I’ve gotten a few calls and emails in the past couple of weeks saying in essence, “We love the program, but why are we renewing? Are there updates? What do we get for our renewal?” Settle in for a full answer:

When we first created Confirm not Conform, we sold the program to parishes outright. Because parishes were buying the program (not leasing), the price was higher, with prices ranging from $250 to $950.