Confirmation at St. Thomas

Confirmation at St. Thomas occurs once each year when our Diocesan Bishop or another Bishop visits St. Thomas. Before the Bishop visits we run two parallel processes to prepare for Confirmation.

  • Youth - One process is run through St. Thomas Youth to prepare Youth for Confirmation - particularly those Baptized as infants or young children. For them, Confirmation is a key step in them claiming the faith for themselves, being prayed for by the Bishop, and strengthened for faith and mission.

  • Adults - Another process is run for Adults at St. Thomas that is more focused on connection with the broader Anglican Church and being Confirmed and Received into this family of churches. We accomplish this through our Anglican Essentials which we hold annually as a multi-week class or intensive retreat.

Archbishop Foley Beach

Sunday, September 27th

Archbishop Foley Beach is visiting us this year on Sunday, September 27th. He will be administering the sacramental rite of Confirmation as part of this annual visit.

  • Youth - Parents of Youth interested in Confirmation should attend the upcoming Open House on 8/23 and / or reach out to Sam Cargill. Visit the Youth page on our website for more info. He will be going over the process and introducing a resource to use at home called Family Catechism. We are encouraging all of our families in St. Thomas Youth to utilize this resource, even if they aren’t ready for Confirmation.

 
 

  • Adults - The next Anglican Essentials class is coming up this September. Anglican Essentials will meet on Tuesdays in September (9/1, 9/8, 9/15, 9/22) in the Fellowship Hall from 5:30 pm to 7 pm. We will explore church history, sacramental theology, and how to use the Book of Common Prayer. There will also be plenty of time for questions and conversation. An optional meal will be served at 5:30 pm and childcare is available. Teaching will be from 6 pm - 7 pm. Note, this class is open to anyone interested in learning more about the Anglican tradition and is required for those planning to be Confirmed. Learn more and sign up below.

Register for Anglican Essentials

More Information About Confirmation

From the Preface to Confirmation in the Book of Common Prayer (p. 174)

The Anglican Church requires a public and personal profession of the Faith from every adult believer in Jesus Christ. Confirmation or Reception by a Bishop is its liturgical expression. Confirmation is clearly grounded in Scripture: the Apostles prayed for, and laid their hands on those who had already been baptized (2 timothy 1:6-7; acts 8:14-17; 19:6). 

In Confirmation, through the Bishop’s laying on of hands and prayer for daily increase in the Holy Spirit, God strengthens the believer for Christian life in the service of Christ and his kingdom. Grace is God’s gift, and we pray that he will pour out his Holy Spirit on those who have already been made his children by adoption and grace in Baptism. 

At the direction of the Bishop, and after public reaffirmation of their baptismal promises, those having made adult professions of faith in other Christian traditions (including those confirmed in other traditions) are received into the Anglican Church with prayer and the laying on of hands by a Bishop. 

Confirmed believers who are already members of this Church (including those received from other traditions as above, those returning to active Christian discipleship after lapsing, and those experiencing a renewal of Christian commitment or significant life transition) may also reaffirm the pledges made to Christ and his Church with prayer and the laying on of hands by a Bishop.

Those being confirmed should joyfully affirm the theological statement of the aCNA

We believe and confess Jesus Christ to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no one comes to the Father but by Him. Therefore, the Anglican Church in North America identifies the following seven elements as characteristic of the Anglican Way, and essential for membership:

  1. We confess the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired Word of God, containing all things necessary for salvation, and to be the final authority and unchangeable standard for Christian faith and life.

  2. We confess Baptism and the Supper of the Lord to be Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself in the Gospel, and thus to be ministered with unfailing use of His words of institution and of the elements ordained by Him.

  3. We confess the godly historic Episcopate as an inherent part of the apostolic faith and practice, and therefore as integral to the fullness and unity of the Body of Christ.

  4. We confess as proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture the historic faith of the undivided church as declared in the three Catholic Creeds: the Apostles, the Nicene, and the Athanasian.

  5. Concerning the seven Councils of the undivided Church, we affirm the teaching of the first fourCouncils and the Christological clarifications of the fifth, sixth and seventh Councils, in so far as they are agreeable to the Holy Scriptures.

  6. We receive The Book of Common Prayer as set forth by the Church of England in 1662, together with the Ordinal attached to the same, as a standard for Anglican doctrine and discipline, and, with the Books which preceded it, as the standard for the Anglican tradition of worship.

  7. We receive the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1571, taken in their literal and grammatical sense, as expressing the Anglican response to certain doctrinal issues controverted at that time, and as expressing the fundamental principles of authentic Anglican belief.

In all these things, the Anglican Church in North America is determined by the help of God to hold and maintain as the Anglican Way has received them the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ.

"The Anglican Communion," Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher wrote, "has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning." It may licitly teach as necessary for salvation nothing but what is read in the Holy Scriptures as God's Word written or may be proved thereby. It therefore embraces and affirms such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the Scriptures, and thus to be counted apostolic. The Church has no authority to innovate: it is obliged continually, and particularly in times of renewal or reformation, to return to "the faith once delivered to the saints."

To be an Anglican, then, is not to embrace a distinct version of Christianity, but a distinct way of being a "Mere Christian," at the same time evangelical, apostolic, catholic, reformed, and Spirit-filled.