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We called it confirmation class when I was young, and under the methods of the previous generation, I learned sternly. All was conducted with a solemn lawfulness, for these matters were grave, consisting of life and death. I memorized Martin Luther's explanation of the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, the Commandments, the Sacraments, and the Christian Table of Duties. There was little joy in the exercise; there was, rather, great anxiety to get it right.

PASTOR: "The Fifth Commandment."

WALLY: "Thou shalt not kill."

PASTOR: "What does this mean?"

WALLY (standing erect, his thumbs upon his pant seams): "We should fear and love God that we may not hurt nor harm our neighbor in his body, but help and befriend him in every bodily need."

We memorized biblical proof passages to support these meanings. I know these things by heart even today. Indeed, there was value in the severity of my training. But a faith without joy is a faith that knows about the Savior, but never yet has met him or felt his steadfast gaze upon its face.

During the years of my ministry, on the other hand, new methods of education have risen up to ease us all, training which depends on the youth's own willingness to come and learn: this generation must not feel burdened. Therefore, the blither spirits and contentments of youth have shaped the atmosphere of their religious schoolrooms.

I have watched with some dismay how this tendency to goodwill has replaced the genuine gravity of these matters (which do train the student in the difference between life and death). No longer need they memorize great portions of Holy Scripture, that the words may be handy in circumstances yet to come; no longer need they give a good verbal account for the basic, most important tenets of their faith and salvation.

Instead, each student writes a statement of faith. And these statements are offered to the congregation as proofs of—of what, really? Not of the youths' advancement beyond themselves and their own callow experience; proofs, rather, of juvenile sincerity as evidenced by a 13-year-old's concept of the Deity.

My own first year as pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, during which I undertook the confirmation class, was a dismal experience. This was a small congregation in the inner city, and though adults had strong hearts for the faith, their children were altogether undisciplined in religious ritual. I could count on no one's regular attendance. Homework simply did not occur. I could make friends with the kids—and did. But I could not of my own authority persuade them that the topic I taught mattered more than basketball or (in those days) Run-D.M.C. or Nintendo.

By the end of the teaching year, I took the hard line, seeking to establish with everyone how seriously we must take this learning, and no one was confirmed. I invited them all back for a second year.

During that year, two events happened to shape my confirmation classes ever thereafter.

The first was formed of my pastoral desperation. I decided to teach each student at home, under the required attentions of the adult who was raising that child. I would go to them. And I would make the parent/grandparent/older sibling as much my student as the kid, establishing relationships with both and expecting the older to oversee the younger's personal homework.

But in order to set up that labor-intensive program, I first went to each home seeking promises. I wanted a contract in hand by which to encourage (or enforce) the commitment when kids or parents lagged in interest or energy.

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February 2004, Vol. 48, No. 2