My Confirmation Faith Statement Explored

Today I was digging through a file looking for something else when I stumbled upon my Confirmation Faith Statement. Maybe I'm the only one interested in what young me was thinking and believing then, but I found it a fascinating combination of agonizing over-church talk, proof-texting, and yet somehow having a meaningful message and belief tied up in there. Fun. So I thought I would post the statement for all to scrutinize. But to take it a step further, I will offer my own running commentary on my own faith statement. Because if we gonna judge anybody, let it be ourselves.

First, here is the statement in its entirety:

Believing in Jesus and his glory seems like a hard thing to do. But as I learned through the years of praising and studying the Lord, I learned what faith can do for me. In John 20:29 Jesus appeared before his disciples for the second time after he rose from the grave in which he said to Thomas and the others, "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe."

We all know that by keeping faith in the Lord, Daniel survived the pit of hungry lions in Daniel 6. The Lord will even show us the way to redemption as I learned from Acts 26 where Paul speaks of how Jesus bought him from sin.

So what do I believe? I believe that in my baptism I was born before the Lord and for years since I have had beliefs and doubts. Until I had witnessed his glory, I could never explain this witness except by saying that my belief and prayer has delivered me from things maybe not as big as a den of lions, but the fact that Jesus did it for me anyways, that is why it's special. So as a follower of Jesus I believe that faith in the Lord God will save you.

Okay, now lets break this down a bit. Before I go further I should say I actually really like my faith statement, and there is a theme in here that has really stuck with me, and it surprises me it was there so early. It is mixed however with a language and line of thinking that runs somewhere between naive and untrue, with a hint of boastfulness. Let's take a look:

Believing in Jesus and his glory seems like a hard thing to do. But

Stop right there. The first line is an interesting one to start a faith statement with. I wish the "But" was not there. It simply is true, it is a hard thing to do. The "but" part sounds a bit like "but I did it, so there, tehehe." There is a bit of history that lies behind these words too though. The history was that about two years before this, I walked away from God and wanted nothing to do with the church. As a blanket statement it wreaks of boastfulness, the history behind it is actually about (and I just wish I expressed it better) the fact that believing was hard for me, and the but is not about my triumph where others fail, but about my gratitude that I was back in church. That's why it turns to this "But I learned...what faith can do for me."

But as I learned through the years of praising and studying the Lord, I learned what faith can do for me.

So I just expressed the good and personal element of what it was for me to feel that challenge of believing in an unseen God as behind me, but let me now call a bit of BS on myself. What was I talking about when I said I learned through years of praising AND STUDYING the Lord? What studying am I talking about? At that point I had never really read through the Bible, or done serious study of it or the God we meet in it. I'd read parts, true. I knew some stories (as we will see), but I hardly spent time studying. Those are misleading words. Maybe I am referring to my three years of confirmation, or the little research I did to write that faith statement, but I'm basically exaggerating at best, lying at worst to sound more "ready". Perhaps I meant that I understood things differently then, I could see that. But it was not from studying. Fail!

In John 20:29 Jesus appeared before his disciples for the second time after he rose from the grave in which he said to Thomas and the others, "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe."

Now this is a really awesome insight for me to look back on. If you are having trouble connecting the dots (since there is a dot left unspoken here) this is what I was getting at: I found blessing in belief. For how difficult it is to believe, and the tumult I identified in my own relatively recent faith journey at that time, it was worth it. But what is so cool about this for me was that I was actually applying a text to myself. As a pastor now, I like what I see here, because what I want for everyone who reads the bible is to hear the message as speaking to them. This story somehow was doing that for me. It is interesting because I have no real memory of this verse being so meaningful, but it must have been. That's what I like about looking back at this, it gives insight into a part of the bible that made sense to me. That Jesus really meant for disciples after him to share in the blessings he offers and I was confessing myself as part of that great inheritance.Considering how little I really knew the bible at that point, to think that something of it made a cognitive impact on my teenage faith and understanding is special.


We all know that by keeping faith in the Lord, Daniel survived the pit of hungry lions in Daniel 6. The Lord will even show us the way to redemption as I learned from Acts 26 where Paul speaks of how Jesus bought him from sin.

Now before you go, "wow he really knew his Bible", realize that's how I wanted it to sound. Again, it comes off a bit more posturing. That is, I did not simply know where these stories were, I just knew about the stories and I spent time (and probably the internet) trying to find them. The proof is in the pudd'n when I reference Acts 26. You see, I was referring to Paul's conversion. But if you know your Bible you will know that Paul's conversion does not actually take place in Acts 26 but in Acts 9. What you find in Acts 26 is Paul telling King Agrippa about his conversion. But I didn't know the difference. I was looking for the story of his conversion, came across him retelling it, and thought that was where it was in the Bible. Silly rabbit.

That said, I'm also setting up the faith statement with a really interesting dot between paragraph 1 and paragraph 3. If paragraph 1 is, I overcame the hurdle of faith and found blessing. Paragraph 2 gives examples of some of the great blessings people found in scripture. The Paul one I know was very meaningful to me when I was at that point since like I said, I understood to some degree the idea of feeling like an enemy to God only to be rescued on the way and drawn into this Christian faith. The Daniel one, it was one of those Sunday school stories I don't remember from Sunday school as well but I think I came upon later in my confirmation days and apparently liked or thought enough of to mention. Probably because it expressed the blessing of holding to the faith. If I connected with Paul's story through feeling like my faith had a radical redirecting (although that concept was probably a bit more sensational than actual in some ways), I connected with Daniel in that I felt there was genuine rescue to be found in this faith and I felt like I would hold it forever (or at the very least desired to hold it forever). This connection sets us up for paragraph 3 because I'm bout to express how I felt rescued and blessed. Think of the flow of my faith statement almost as a formula or argument:

1. Faith is difficult but a blessed thing to find.
2. Just look at Paul who found it and Daniel who was spared by it.
3. I have found it and been spared by it, thus my faith is a a blessing worth its difficulty.

Let's go on

So what do I believe?

What a cunning little critter I was. I've set up my argument, even if I would still struggle to make it. After all, what do you believe is a tough question to sometimes articulate. It's a lot to ask of a teenager. And I'm surprised that I had such a train of thought, even if it had gaps in its presentation. The difficulty here, and the vagueness however also gets at something about me, I'm not always a very personal person. I'm actually often more emotionally detached, and I tend to only want to grant vulnerability to a certain extent. It is hard for me to do. That is probably why this is laid out in an argument/formula form. It allowed me to focus more on the point than the story. I'm just not as much of a story person, I'm an argument style person. And to those who hear me preach this will likely be of little surprise. I do try to be honest and vulnerable at times, I do try to change my preaching style to not always be so married to that way of thinking, but it is no doubt a default that can be seen going all the way back to my confirmation (which I made in 9th grade for those wondering).

 I believe that in my baptism I was born before the Lord and for years since I have had beliefs and doubts. 

Wow. Where did I pick this up? I don't remember baptism being a big emphasis of my confirmation or anything, but Pastor Ron or someone must have impressed it upon me. We come here to as honest and open as I get in this faith statement, which is I admit that for all my beliefs, I've carried doubts. Again, I have to impress how big a thing it was for me to have spent a period having not wanted to worship or follow God not out of boredom but anger. It was a guilt I carried for years, and part of the language and over-exaggeration is I think now, looking back, an attempt at self-redemption and seeking to assure myself that I would not make such a mistake again. It is in part why the abandonment of so many of my generation of the church is so painful. I see both a bit of myself, and a bit of what I could have been within it. And I know for every ounce of breath I have that it was for the better for me that God like the woman of the parable found her lost coin. In these words I'm saying how I don't feel like I belong, because that juxtaposition of internal guilt and yet externally finding myself belonging among people I did not feel worthy of being counted among was what grace was to me.

Until I had witnessed his glory,

Let me just say I wish I could strike this line from the statement. Along with the phrasing which just doesn't sound like me, I also think again we get to that self-posturing. I had beliefs and doubts UNTIL...like saying now no doubts. Nice try mini me. Here is that naive boasting that just makes me cringe now. I have had plenty of doubts along the way. What I have experienced does not change that, and it takes away from some of the profound honesty that precedes it. But who on their confirmation wants to sound like a still searching, unsure person? And truth be told, I don't think I felt like one. I felt very firmly rooted at that point. But more reflection, more years, more turmoil all show that it is quite sensational talk, and is tied to this self-redemption quest I carry.

I could never explain this witness 

So don't ask me to! Ha! Spoken like a true Lutheran. This was probably the phrase that guaranteed my confirmation, lol. Maybe it's because it is this coming Sunday, but the whole inexplicable, witnessing of glory kinda reminds me of the disciples witnessing Jesus' transfiguration.

except by saying that my belief and prayer has delivered me from things maybe not as big as a den of lions, but the fact that Jesus did it for me anyways, that is why it's special. 

Okay, so maybe I could explain it. Well, sort of. It's especially hard when you're trying not to go into details. But let me say, for how much I jest, even now I'm a little impressed by this statement. It is easy to be proud of oneself I suppose, but this here is what we in the business call "preachable". That is, the idea that God being with us even if our problems don't seem as big as the ones in the bible and even if our story of rescue lacks that dramatic flare, that's true to the experience of so many. It's my proudest moment of the faith statement, if I may gloat a little.

So as a follower of Jesus I believe that faith in the Lord God will save you.

Here's the funny part, this very Lutheran phrase was something I penned long before I ever intellectually came across its theology. I mean, I was in a Missouri Synod Church, I'm sure it was taught, but I don't remember it that way. No, the article of justification by faith was not something I really learned about until college, when I started reading Luther. Yet somehow, it already was a part of me in some way, thanks to the work of others. Take that lesson for when a person does not seem to be "taking in" what you are saying about grace, because more may be seeping in than we realize.

Another really great thing, was that my pastor chose my confirmation verse, not me. It's something I am very thankful for now. I don't know if it was because of this line, but the verse Pastor Ron chose for me was this:

Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. -Acts 16:31

I couldn't have said it better myself. I still can't.