I went on the first online session of the Nottingham Diocese Confirmation programme this evening (Tuesday). Brilliant!  A first for the Diocese – and possibly a first in Britain.  In the Parish we’ve had a few minor glitches with our own attempts to stream liturgies over the last nine months, so it was a little reassuring to find that even the Briars have had a few teething problems with their live streams in the past too.  But nothing went wrong tonight.  The topics were on Creation and our images of God. What the team shared was excellent, and spot on as far as reaching out to young people is concerned.

A key principle of effective catechesis is that it should, ideally, be delivered by those sharing and fostering faith with others in a similar situation to themselves.  In this case it was young people sharing their faith with other young people.  As the Briars team are only just out of school themselves by a year or two, they are ideally placed to lead this programme for teenagers in the parishes.  Next session there will be ‘break out’ rooms in place where suitably-supervised discussions among smaller groups of youngsters can take place in parish groupings in a structured way during the course of each session.

What is so refreshing is to see the faith and enthusiasm of the Briars team.  They look like they’re having a lot of fun.  And they’re fizzing with ideas, expressed and conveyed in contemporary terms.

One of my favourite poem-prayers is by the French priest, Michel Quoist.  It’s called “God says, I like youngsters.  I want people to be like them …”. Check it out at this link:

http://under-the-figtree.blogspot.com/2008/07/introducing-michel-quoist.html

MICHAEL KIRKHAM