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BY DAVID SHOWALTER
UMCONNECTION CONTRIBUTOR

"I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God." – Genesis 7:7-8

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last…"
– John 15:16

We're conducting 2012 Confirmation classes at St. Paul. This means I am once again relishing the blessing, privilege and honor of guiding another incredible group of young people on their journey of faith as they consider if they will choose to live God's purpose for their lives through the church.

I'm teaching confirmation this year, bringing along a long-held belief, but also with a new set of eyes regarding our young people and my understanding of how we are to disciple them. My long-held belief is that God has "given" us, their church family, these precious young people, just as God blessed their biological family with them.

You don't have to be intimately involved in the lives of young people today to see that the pain and isolation so many people feel has infiltrated their world. In fact, during the developmental period of "mid-adolescence" (delineated by contemporary human development researchers as approximately ages 12 through 18), feelings of isolation, anxiety and even abandonment are often magnified.

It is tragically ironic that in a culture where technology has provided ways for people to be constantly "connected," research indicates that in many cases, our young feel alone, misunderstood and abandoned. I propose that the church is uniquely gifted and positioned by God to answer the deepest longings of our young (of all people for that matter) in such a culture. We are called "for such a time as this." I also propose that in order for the church to more radiantly reveal God as the answer to the deepest longings of this generation, we need to embrace what I call a "hermeneutic of adoption" for ministry.

In baptism, we promise to "nurture" those whom God is claiming into life-long discipleship. In receiving members we respond to a charge to "do all in (our) power to increase their faith, confirm their hope, and perfect them in love." These are the vows we as the church proclaim.

Then what? What does it look like to live these vows? Do the ways we receive persons into our church resemble "adoption" into their new family? Do we take the initiative to get to know them as individuals and as family members? Do we spend the time and effort it takes to embrace them and involve them in the life of the larger church in meaningful ways? Do we open ourselves to them as members of their new family such that they will trust us to grow together as life-long disciples of Christ?

With respect to our young, do we seek to link them with many adults from whom they can learn? Do we follow the biblical model we've been given and the vows we've taken by blessing them with the love and wisdom available in intergenerational approaches to ministry to – with – for – through youth and adults journeying together? Do we bless our churches by deliberately revealing to adults the passion, immediacy and urgency of our young?

As confirmation season continues and as I find myself asking these questions both personally and on behalf of the church I serve, the term "adoption" repeatedly comes to my mind. Will our confirmands and those joining our communities through professions of faith feel as though they are adopted into a family as they pledge their faithfulness to the church family we know as The United Methodist Church? Will they be received as such? What do we need to change and do in order for them to be incorporated fully into the body of Christ in the ways described above? These are questions I believe are worth asking, and passionately pursuing, in this confirmation season.

David Showalter is full-time youth pastor at St. Paul UMC in Lusby. He serves as the Washington East District Youth Coordinator and is a doctoral student at Fuller Theological Seminary.