Adapting Head to the Heart Confirmation in the Time of COVID-19

Note: Faith Inkubators Senior Partner Monty Lysne is also the current Coordinator of Youth Ministry at Trinity Lutheran Church in Stillwater, MN.

COVID-19 has caused us all to rethink what it means to be church and how we operate. Like many of you, I had to adapt and change ministry processes in 2020 and 2021, and some of those changes may still be a part of our reality in 2022 and beyond.

We all have our own COVID-19 realities as each of us live in different parts of the world and have different factors in our lives outside of church. I would never claim to have all the answers on how to incorporate large group/small group middle School/Confirmation ministry in all COVID-affected settings, but what follows are a few of the adaptations we made and will still consider to keep the ministry and the connections alive:

  1. Give parents’ permission to temporarily opt out.
    As a parent of four myself, I know that school life and activities can seem more complicated than they used to be. Be a source of understanding and grace to those parents who just can’t deal with getting their kids in one more program, even if it is your Confirmation ministry. However, make sure that they understand this is temporary—not in a “I’m going to bug you incessantly about when you’re returning” type of way, but in a “please let us at the church know what you need and how we can help get you all back in the building” situation.

  2. Equip those “opt out” families with our updated home resources.
    Send them FAITH5 reminders and the Home Huddle sheet resources found in each Head to the Heart theme. Faith Inkubators have recently updated these sheets with a weekly focus to make them more of a complete, stand-alone resource.

  3. Gather outside with your group.
    For some of us, it means we may only have a few weeks until the snow flies, but make the most of those fall weeks and mitigate any space issues you have by spreading out and meeting outdoors. We tried to bring a “campfire” vibe to our gatherings that was fun and was nice change of pace, with music and the group surrounding a makeshift fire-pit on the lawn of our church. We set three long tables next to each other standing up the long way to make a screen for our projector. Each child brought their own chair and when it was time for small groups, each cluster of kids spread out in a properly distanced circle to meet.

  4. Meet via Zoom.
    Granted, this was not the best solution as kids during the depth of the pandemic were inundated with school Zoom meetings, but we tried it, and it was better than nothing. When we gathered, I simply went through each part of the Theme Event as if we were together, including small group time breakouts. The main PowerPoint for the theme was our main guide for the night. With a bit of practice, much of the standard Theme Event can be replicated.

  5. Record your presentation and post it.
    If you have the means, record your theme presentation and post it for those who are not able to join you live. I use a program called Screen Flow to simply record myself talking though the slides for the main presentation part of a particular theme. Here is an example:

 
 
Monty Lysne