Confirmation Class 2015

 

The Confirmation Class of 2015 

L to R Sean Hickey, Jamie Horman, Matt Wagner, Grant Archer,

Marco Trillo, Emily Rios, Kayla Martinez, Gabriel Martinez,

Franco Urra-Morffiz, Robert Gray

On Sunday, April 19, 2015 we confirmed another fantastic group confirmation class.

Confirmation is one of my favorite things to teach as the Director of Student Ministries. Of course, I have a wonderful team of teachers who work with me including Andrew and Jen Sheehy and April Lewis. The class meets on Sunday mornings and includes one of the worship services. This has been a great strategy because it allows the youth to experience both the traditional and the contemporary services our church offers. They see the similarities and the differences as we gather as a community to worship God. They also get to meet people from these services and participate serving communion or being acolyte or crucifer.
The curriculum is the entire gospel of Mark. Along the way, a lot of great questions are asked and insights are revealed about Jesus Christ. We also include two sessions on the history of the Methodist church,the Wesley Quadrilateral and the sacraments of the church.

The Ropes Course at Warren Willis Confirmation Retreat

 

The class meets eight to ten times over 3 months and includes a retreat to Warren Willis United Methodist Youth Camp to join 350 other youth also going through confirmation. Several of our youth have been inspired to go to summer camp at Warren Willis after visiting the camp during confirmation.

Each confirmand is sponsored by a member of the church, who prays for them, writes them encouraging notes and cards, and provides them with a fun basket of goodies for the retreat. We had a great group of sponsors this year. 

 

Confirmand                               Sponsor          

Grant Archer                              April Lewis

Sean Hickey                              Angela Kim

Jamie Horman                           Robert Gray

Gabriel Martinez                        Joe Banos

Kayla Martinez                           Mirta Banos

Marco Trillo                               Andrew Sheehy

Emily Rios                                Kimberley Rios 

Franco Urra-Morffiz                   Kay Brezina                              

Matt Wagner                             Kathy Howard

Pastor Dur sees confirmation as one of the most important spiritual processes of the church. He likes to bring each confirmand up individually to kneel and to be confirmed. Then he prays with them and their parents and sponsor.

 Pastor Dur Confirms and Prays over Gabriel Martinez

with his parents and Sponsor, Joe Banos

Confirmands officially join the church as full members upon being confirmed. Franco Urra-Morffiz understood this as he checked the “Member of the Church” box on the attendance form during his confirmation service. He wrote a smiley face and the words, “I am now!” Welcome, Franco, and all your classmates of this year’s terrific confirmation class!
 

April Lewis, Andrew Sheehy, Jen Sheehy - My teaching team

 

Confirmation Class at 9:30am Service

 
  

 

Mission Trip to the Florida United Methodist Children's Home, June 15-19

This June, the youth ministry will be going to Enterprise, Florida to work with the Florida United Methodist Children’s Home. Our church has supported this amazing institution for many decades. If you check their website you will read that, “The Florida United Methodist Children's Home was established in 1908 to provide a home for orphans and other children that had nowhere else to live.”  Members of 1^st United Coral Gables have worked at the Children’s Home, volunteered there, and sponsored activities and buildings on the campus.

 

The youth are very excited about this mission trip. I made a preliminary trip to the Children’s Home in April to check everything out. According to Lynn Bellamy, the volunteer coordinator, we will be working in three different areas. First, we will be working at their resale shop called “Heart & Home”. Donated items are sold there to raise money. We will be organizing their store room and the new donations which come in each week. Some of the youth may get to work the retail floor as well. Second, we will be organizing the kitchen pantry at the Children’s Home. They receive donated items each week which need to be sorted and stored. Third, we will work on the grounds of the Children’s Home doing maintenance items or landscaping work. The youth are also hoping to interact with the youth who live there as well. We have to respect that this is their home and we are the visitors. We have had several discussions about privacy, respect and service and I think the group is prepared to do great things.

 

The campus of the Children’s Home is beautiful. They have separate bunk houses for girls and boys. We will have our own kitchen and bathroom facilities as well. Our group will divide into four dinner crews each responsible for a breakfast and dinner during our stay. Each youth will have their own ‘mess kit’ with plastic plate, bowl and silverware set and water bottle. This way we use less paper goods, are personally responsible for our own clean-up and work together as a group at mealtime.

 

I am excited to say we have twenty youth going on this year’s mission trip. We also have some great parents joining us as chaperones including Carrie Bodin, Meg Wright, Jeff Wright and, possibly, Axle Font. The group will have some fun, too. We are planning on visiting at least two state parks to swim, ride inner tubes and explore. At one of the parks, we will make our own pancakes at the sugar mill restaurant which dates back to 1830!

 

Please keep the youth ministry in your prayers all summer and especially June 15-19. We look forward to sharing our experience with everyone at church when we return. Love wins!

One of the original buildings on the FLUMCH Campus

The Resale Shop

Tubing at Kelly Park

The Fire Pit right outside our bunk house at FUMCH