Sophomores at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in North Dakota have a grueling "final exam" at the end of their confirmation studies. The classes start in eighth grade and continue into the ninth, culminating in a public examination by both their parents and other members of the congregation in the fall of their sophomore year in high school!

Rev. April Peterson, who teaches the confirmation classes, has found The Divine Drama® to be an excellent resource for confirmation class, as well as enhancing that final questioning period. "I struggled to find a program that would work well for the kids, and I felt I had finally found something to use with adults and kids as soon as Harry [Wendt] started teaching," says Rev. Peterson.

Pastor Peterson says that since introducing The Divine Drama® into the confirmation curriculum, the students are consistently better at remembering the material. They are able to make the connections between the Old and New Testaments because they are able to tell a story using the pictures featured on the transparencies. The classes are structured around the transparencies, with lots of discussion about the material.

Rev. Peterson has had the benefit of comparison as well. For a while, the church used a different curriculum, but now has returned to teaching The Divine Drama® because they saw that the kids weren’t retaining the information.

As to the public exam night, because the kids are so well grounded in the Bible after having gone through The Divine Drama® , they are beginning to teach their parents a thing or two. "Parents are sitting in the pews [during the examination] saying ‘oh!’" says Rev. Peterson. These kids can tell a story, which draws the Biblical narrative together beautifully.

Confirmation Students Learn, Then Teach

Rev. John Sattler of Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, is always looking for a new way of doing things. In 1992, he took Crossways International's leadership training and soon began teaching CI's materials. He has taught The Divine Drama® to confirmation age students, using primarily The Biblical Narrative portion. Rev. Sattler says the best way to have kids remember the material is to have them teach it back to you a week later, using the previous week’s transparency. He has found that the kids are able to remember and re-teach the material on a consistent basis. Rev. Sattler has also developed a low-key form of evaluation to test the students' retention over a longer period of time. During the orientation phase of the confirmation process, the parents and students are brought together and are asked questions such as "What does David and Goliath have to do with Jesus?" and "What does the flood have to do with Jesus?" Invariably, the kids and the parents are unable to answer at the beginning of the year. By the end of the year, however, after having gone through The Biblical Narrative, the students and parents again sit down with Rev. Sattler and are asked the same questions. Now the kids are able to answer the questions and understand the implications in the larger sweep of Scripture. "They figure out that Jesus is real," says Rev. Sattler.

For more on The Divine Drama®, click here.

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