Last month 213 individuals from 53 congregations – 130 youth and 83 adults – were confirmed, received or reaffirmed at six services at Trinity & St. Philip’s Cathedral in Newark. Congratulations to them all and to their churches, families and friends.
Bilingual bulletins in both English and Spanish were prepared for all services, allowing Bishop Beckwith to alternate between the two languages if the needs of the congregations required it.
Many thanks go to the following individuals at Trinity & St. Philip’s Cathedral who were instrumental in organizing the six services:
Gail Barkley, Warden and MC
Theophilus Thomas, Fellow Verger
Eric Ofosuhene, Verger
Vanessa Wigfall, Director of the Acolytes
Waymon Thomas, Sexton Osbourne Williams, Head Usher
Vanessa Hill, Celia Pratt, Lorna Sargeant, Dorise Wigfall and Minieve Williams, Ushers
Thanks also go to the three organists who covered the services:
Joshua Stafford of St. Peter’s Church in Morristown
Mark Trautman of St. Paul’s Church in Englewood
Christopher Jennings of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Stamford, CT
As I prepared to do the work that goes into a Confirmation service, I approached it from the perspective of the people about to be confirmed, received or reaffirmed. My own Confirmation experience has been my inspiration, as I was confirmed at Trinity & St. Philip’s only two years ago. This year it was important to me to have the candidates, clergy and guests feel happy about their day and not have to worry about any of the details. I wanted us to do whatever we could to allow them to just bask in the spirit of the occasion. The actual moment passes so quickly. If we could stop time and have each candidate have his or her moment extended as long as we could extend it, that would be a dream come true.
After going through the 2015 Confirmation season on my own and getting comfortable with the changes we had implemented last year, I felt more confident about claiming more of the directorial duties involved this year. I took a chance at injecting a little more of my personality into the production. I felt compelled to wear vibrant colors and evoke brightness and glee. The overall theme I had in mind was SMILES. I wanted to see smiles. I wanted to feel smiles. And when there weren’t any smiles, I wanted to generate smiles. I wished for everyone to feel good about being confirmed. On that special day, each candidate should feel like a star, and we all worked to help those stars shine.
So I made a point to experience every blessing as if it were my own and greeted everyone with a smile and a handshake and in some cases an embrace. Cheering on the candidates came naturally and spread contagious smiles. The cathedral staff caught on and carried on the warmth of our collective smile throughout the entire season. Keeping those smiles glowing kept the spirit flowing, and thinking about it has me inspired to prepare for our 2017 Confirmation season.
The 2016 Confirmation season culminated with our largest group of the year claiming the cathedral on April 24. And they owned it. We captured the procession on video (below, duration: 2:56) and caught a few smiles, too.
