Students and Staff confirmed at Eucharist

The start of the Summer Term brings the joy of celebrating both Easter and the College Baptisms and Confirmations. This year 24 pupils and staff affirmed their Christian faith and were confirmed by the Rt Revd Ruth Bushyager, Bishop of Horsham, at our Whole School Eucharist on the first Sunday of term.

We met together in the Lent Term to explore the basics of Christianity and enjoyed our retreat day at the Chapel Royal in Brighton. For the first time this year, we joined together with Ardingly and Hurst Schools. It was really encouraging to see such a big group of young people thinking deeply about their faith and how God might be working in their lives. The pizza was good too!

The Whole School Eucharists are Lancing at its finest, offering the best of our human endeavour in the praise of God. The choir and sacristans were their usual outstanding selves and there was a good number of supporters for the candidates. There was a real sense of the wider Lancing community coming together to celebrate and to pray that the candidates would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide and strengthen them in their lives.

The candidates represented the full diversity of the Lancing Community, with every year group represented and a range of countries and backgrounds. For some of them it was the natural next-step on a journey of faith which their parents instigated for them as infants. For others, their baptism marked a moment in which they made a personal choice to do something different to their families’ traditions.

It is a huge privilege to journey alongside these pupils as they maturely and imaginatively ask the really big questions about who we are and explore what Jesus has to offer his followers. There was such joy as they were each confirmed, for them, their families, for me as their chaplain, and for the whole community, whatever their personal beliefs, as together we marked this important day for these children of God.

Fr Justin Pottinger, Chaplain