Fill… Spill… Thrill…

Lisa Kramme
Director of Faith Formation
Nebraska Synod, ELCA

Each of our mission centers likely has a confirmation ministry. In fact, when you read the word “confirmation,” an image probably comes into your mind immediately. What do you think of when you read, “confirmation”?

Some of you may flash back to your own years in confirmation, remembering memorizing Martin Luther’s explanation of each of the Ten Commandments. Maybe you think, “confirmation” and get a sad feeling in your heart because, year after year, when youth are confirmed in your congregation, they leave the worshipping community never to be seen within the walls of the church again. Perhaps an image of a new curriculum you just started using comes to mind and you feel excitement about how it will connect with youth.

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Lisa Kramme
Director of Faith Formation
Nebraska Synod, ELCA

It was Saturday, June 26, and we had loaded into five coach busses earlier that morning, bound for Minneapolis and the 2010 Nebraska Synod Youth Mission Trip. Our bus was scheduled to stop for lunch at a particular fast food restaurant in Sioux City, Iowa, and wisely, each of the five busses was assigned a different place to eat.

All 47 of us ordered quickly, as the restaurant staff members were doing their jobs well. Those in our group who finished eating early found themselves on a backyard-size lawn, behind the restaurant and next to their drive-through lane. Some youth started tossing around a football, and others of us launched into conversation, meeting new people with whom we’d be spending the week. It was a fun time. However, it appeared the manager of the restaurant was watching us.

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Lisa Kramme
Director of Faith Formation
Nebraska Synod, ELCA

This spring I trimmed back our rose bushes. They had been in decline and were quite scraggly. “What can it hurt?” I thought. Doing the same watering and fertilizing routine of the last few years had not done the trick, so pruning down to the bare minimum seemed to be what needed done next.

Then the rains came. And the sun shined. And, seemingly overnight, the rose bushes not only grew back from the pruning, but they are much more green and full than they have ever been since I started caring for them.

Life can be like these rose bushes. Sometimes we do the same things over and over, believing that we are caring for our responsibilities as we should. After awhile though, what used to work “before” does not work “now.” We ask questions about what could be wrong, but the answers we come up with do not help. We are stuck.

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