More than 650 people gathered on March 16 at the Cathedral of St. Philip to celebrate 140 people from across The Diocese being confirmed, received, or reaffirmed.
The 140 represented 17 parishes among The Diocese of Atlanta’s 120 worshipping communities across Middle and North Georgia.
A year ago, only 400 people attended this service, but 657 showed up this time.
“This is the highest total attendance at a confirmation service we’ve had since before COVID,” said Sally Ulrey, Canon for Congregational Vitality and Ministry Development. “God is stirring up something good!”
Since December 2023, more than 610 people have been welcomed into The Diocese, received from other Christian traditions, or reaffirmed their ongoing walk with God as Episcopalians.
Ulrey said the increase in confirmations, receptions, and reaffirmations from December of 2023 to 2025 –- and in the attendance for confirmation services — shows renewed congregational life in the Atlanta diocese.
“Reports of our demise are illegitimate,” Bishop Wright told the crowd of 657.
In a joyful sermon, Wright directly addressed the three groups centered in the service.
To the confirmands, he said that making “a mature and public affirmation of your faith doesn’t mean you have all the answers now … it just means you’re willing to keep traveling with Jesus and his church. It means that now with new clarity you know better who you are and whose you are.”
To those being received from other Christian denominations, Wright said he imagined them saying to themselves, “You know these Episcopalians, they’re not so bad. I think I want to travel the next leg of my faith journey with them.”
“To you today we get to say welcome home. How humbling for us and what a joy.”
To those being reaffirmed, “You feel a new intention has come now,” Wright noted. “A new impulse to go deeper and to be freer has come over you. God is up to something in your life, and you can’t keep it to yourself. Why would you?”
The 140, by public affirmation of faith, are “believing, belonging, and becoming” like the earliest Christians, Wright said. Identifying with Christ publicly puts a person at odds with the status quo, a tension also at the heart of Lent.
“As we draw nearer to Christ in word and deed, we start to see the gaps more clearly between the kingdom of God and any earthly empire, past or present, Democrat or Republican,” Wright said.
“The deep sense of oddness promises clarity, peace, purpose, and joy, also freedom from guilt, shame, defeat, or despair. Instead of “I, me, myself,” the mindset shifts to “we, us, ours.
“The best thing for the church to do now in 2025 is to be the church to be dangerously odd, marvelously maladjusted, to relish our differences, to make Jesus your actual example,” Wright said.
The choir for the confirmation service was from All Saints’ Atlanta under the direction of Scott Lamlein, All Saints’ Director of Music.
In a first, Wright offered anyone else at the service who wanted to “rededicate yourself to Christ and his church” to come up and receive prayer.
“You’re welcome to begin again today,” he said. Three came forward to be rededicated.