Dean supports Confirmation Retreats for younger disciples

By Scott Rodgers

What an incredible way to spend a Friday and Saturday! That is how I would describe the Confirmation Camp at Camp Egan. This event brought together fifth- through seventh-graders from three districts—Muskogee, Tulsa, and McAlester—for a tour through the Christian faith.

Together we studied Church History, The United Methodist Membership Vows, United Methodist Doctrine, and Christian Worship. In addition, we had three wonderful worship experiences, which drew us closer to Jesus Christ.

Confirmation Camp serves a dual function. First, if a church does not have a Confirmation Class, the retreat can function as one. Second, if a church does have such a class, this retreat stands alongside the class, offering more information and experiences for the confirmands.

The hope of the retreat is to introduce and prepare students for professing membership within the church.

Other Confirmation Retreats were held at Canyon and Cross Point. The leadership of the retreats believes it is essential to teach students about The United Methodist Church as well as the agreements made in the membership vows. This helps the students to gain a deeper understanding of membership and thus make an informed decision about it.

Another part of Confirmation Camp is that we introduce some of our younger youths to camping ministry. We stayed at Camp Egan in Love Circle, had a bonfire, played on the slab, ate at Valley View Center—just simply got to be in a holy place for two days.

Hopefully, this will encourage the students to participate in other camping experiences in the future.

It really was a wonderful weekend. God’s love was on display to the campers, and we had a chance to teach and guide some of our newest United Methodists!

(Rev. Rogers, dean for the Egan event, is pastor at Fort Gibson UMC.)