06/06/2026
Last weekend, we gathered at our home church, Trinity United Methodist Church, for our final Joint Confirmation class — our Confirmation Retreat Weekend!
The weekend was filled with faith, fellowship, learning, laughter, and meaningful moments that our youth will carry with them on their faith journey.
We kicked off Friday evening with dinner, delicious pizza from our friends at Amano’s Pizza — thank you for helping make our gathering special!
The night began with worship and music led by Pastor Sooha and her guitar, setting a welcoming and reflective tone for the evening. Pastor Sooha then led the lesson “Divine Helper: The Holy Spirit as Guide,” where students explored the role of the Holy Spirit in their lives and completed a spiritual gifts assessment to reflect on how God has uniquely gifted each of them.
Pastor Joshua followed with a lesson on the Apostles’ Creed, helping the youth better understand the foundations of our shared faith. We are thankful to all of the mentors who assisted throughout the activities and discussions during the evening.
To end the night, everyone enjoyed games and fellowship outside — a joyful time of laughter, connection, and community.
Saturday morning began bright and early with breakfast and a spiritual reflection walk through the woods on our church property. The peaceful setting gave students time to reflect, pray, and appreciate God’s creation together.
The youth then toured Trinity and had the opportunity to learn more about our church’s outreach ministries, including a visit to the Trinity Thrift Store. A special thank you to Lori Synarski for speaking with the group about how the thrift store serves both our church and the wider community.
Kyle, youth leader from New Dover United Methodist Church, then led the lesson “Inviting Others Into God’s Story.” The youth reflected on how inviting God into our own stories prepares us to share His love and invite others into His story as well.
We concluded our retreat weekend with a beautiful Closing Worship Service that brought everyone together to celebrate the completion of our Joint Confirmation journey. It was especially meaningful to have parents, mentors, pastors, and students all gathered together in worship and fellowship.
Music throughout the service was led by YK Jun, Director of Worship (Music) at Wesley United Methodist Church in South Plainfield. His leadership helped create a meaningful and spirit-filled ending to our retreat weekend.
A meaningful moment came during Steven’s opening prayer, when he shared:
“As this retreat comes to an end and this becomes our final time together as one confirmation group…”
Those words reminded us how special this journey has been. While we now return to our respective congregations across four different towns to celebrate Confirmation Sunday within our own church families, the relationships built throughout this year do not end here.
This Joint Confirmation experience brought us together as one group — united in faith, friendship, learning, and service. We look forward to keeping our youth connected beyond Confirmation through future gatherings, fellowship opportunities, and shared ministry together.
As worship ended, we were reminded that this is also where service begins.
We are incredibly proud of each student for their growth in faith, understanding, compassion, and community throughout these past months.
Thank you to all of the pastors, mentors, volunteers, families, and churches who helped make this Confirmation year such a meaningful experience for our youth. 💛
-Sayreville United Methodist Church
-New Dover United Methodist Church
-Centenary United Methodist Church
