Confession humbles us and keeps us as beggars at the receiving end of Christ's gifts. The false pride of our old Adam is crucified. Many a troubled Christian has been greatly helped by disclosing the awful secret of his or her sin to a pastor only to hear Christ's sweet word of forgiveness. Individual confession and absolution is also a very potent weapon in the struggle against habitual sins such as drunkenness, sexual immorality, laziness, greed, gluttony, etc. The most important benefit is that we are given to hear a clear, external, objective, official word from God that applies the saving merit of Jesus' death to us personally and individually.
Private confession is both a private and a public act.
It is private in that it is a confidential conversation between a pastor and a penitent. It is public in that it goes on in the open church before the church's public ministry. Our agenda book rightly suggests that private confession take place where people regularly receive the Lord's Supper. A confessional chair is placed at right angles to the kneeling rail. Alternatively, a chair and a kneeling bench might be set up in some part of the nave.