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Catechism
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I’ve been having my interest peaked lately in the idea of teaching catechism at home. I’m vey unfamiliar with this, and not fully decided. I have never been to a church that incorporated this in any way, neither has my husband. We’re evangelical. Does anyone have any advice, for or against? What about any recommended resources?
Thank you kindly for the help,
Rachel
We are Reformed Presbyterian and memorize the Westminster Shorter Catechism. My 11yo is halfway through his second time. My 10yo is almost finished with his first time. Catechism is a wonderful way to systematically teach doctrine to your children. We also are going through Training Hearts, Teaching Minds by Starr Meade which takes the 107 questions of the Westminster Shorter Catechism and incorporates six lessons with Scripture to expound on each question. It is excellent.
We are Evangelical and use “Big Thoughts for Little Kids.” It’s a Presbyterian catechism with stories that go with different sections. My kids love it and I only have to adjust a couple of the points.
We love using Songs for Sapplings. They use the Westminster Shorter Catechism for their questions and answers. The Dirksen family has done a wonderful job with these songs and have a real heart for children to know God’s truth. Love their mission as a family and the songs make learning the catechism very easy. You can play all the songs on line, download the songs for free, purchase CDs, and/or download sheet music for free. They are also working on recording the songs in other langauges which are available on line as they are completed.
http://songsforsaplings.com/music/
Thanks for the link above. It appears those songs are set to the children’s version which we’ve never memorized (the Shorter Catechism was the children’s version in times past) but I nave friends who teach this children’s version to their very young ones. I’ll,pass it on to them.
These are the CDs we’ve used. We haven’t done these in awhile. I need to pull them back out. I think you can near samples.
We are Lutheran, so we use Luther’s Small Catechism. We mostly work on memorizing the 10 Commandments, Apostle’s Creed, and Lord’s Prayer along with our regular Bible verses and hymns. I have a book My First Catechsim that we also use that lines up these topics with Bible stories.
We are using the Training Hearts, Teaching Minds based off recommendations from this board. We are enjoying it! My kids (7 and almost 5) are definitely better than me at memorizing it, and we don’t always get the whole thing down, but we love the 6 days reading to go further in depth with it.
We also use songs for saplings and love love it!! Please donate to this great small family “business” as they are working on a lot of translation projects to spread these great truths around the world:)
There is the most wonderful app…..NEW CITY Chatachism. Please look at it if you are at all considering it. It has a way to record who has what items memorized. It has answers hidden, or click to reveal. If you don’t understand, or need further explanation…..there is a pastor (a variety of them….John Piper is one) who will give a 2 minute explanation. Oh my! It’s making me want to do it again! 🙂 IT is just done so nicelY! Typeing while nursing…pls excuse all the typos!
I appreciate all of the help and am looking into the suggestions – although I don’t have a phone or anything to have an app on (I do have an old iPad from my mom but it doesn’t work well enough for me to put apps on).
Take care,
Rachel
I wanted to add that I use the catechism from Northwestern Publising House. (we are Lutheran as well). We cover 5th and 6th grade and then for 7th and 8th our cildren will attend sessions with our Pastor and will be confirmed the end of 8th grade.
We are also Lutheran. Our children have all had formal classes with their Sunday School classmates, but we also go through the catechism in short at home. Using Luther’s Small Catechism Monday is 10 Commandments where we go through the commandments and their meanings. Ex. – You shall have no other Gods. What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. (There are Bible verses that point to where Luther developed this meaning, and the kids go over those in their class at church and we talk about them as well, though not every Monday.) Tuesday is the Lord’s Prayer and the meanings to the petitions. Wednesday is The Creed and the meanings to the different articles. Thursday is Baptism and what it means. Friday is the Office of the Keys with what it means. Saturday is the Sacrament and what it means. Even though my children have all been confirmed at this point, we continue to go through these every day as it keeps us grounded in doctrine.
Try GCP’s catechism for children. I found it online for free at http://www.opc.org/cce/FirstCatechism.html. It is Presbyterian. I don’t agree with all of it, but I just skip those parts.
There is a beautiful CD set that has it all set to music, too, called Ask Me Whoooo by Diana Beach Batarseh. She and her children did such a nice job!
Kari
Rachel,
There were a few other questions you had, and I realize you are in the middle of making a decision, so I’ll share a bit more…
I came from a church that catechizes the Sunday School class, though we’ve changed churches since then and our current church does not have a kids’ program. In our old church, the teacher gave out Nerds for every correct answer…naturally, there were lots of correct and enthusiastic answers…no foot-dragging there. But despite what the world would call shameless bribery and indoctrination of innocent children, we saw lots of results with the kids! They learned the catechism right along with their memory verses and often apply them at opportune (and not-so opportune) times.
One little 3-year old I know, when asked why he dumped his food on the floor, answered “For God’s own glory!”
But seriously, it is so handy to be able to remind the children “Where is God?” as they are about to make a terrifying journey to the bathroom in the dark, and they can instantly say “God is everywhere.” Or after they’ve lied about a sin, “Does God know all things?” “Yes, nothing can be hidden from God.”
You’ll get great conversations going with them. They’ll THINK about the things taught in the catechism, and so will you! So much the better if you have songs as memory aid…they’ll do the teaching, and the kids will do the learning and questioning. And if you have older ones, they may even be skeptical about what they are being taught. But it’s better they question it with you and learn to go to the Scriptures than deal with those questions with any false teachers they may encounter later.
I printed off the First Catechism in groups of 4-5 questions on 3×5 cards and have added it to our box of memorized material, which we review on Sundays, and I introduce new ones during the week. Then we listen to the Batarseh songs I mentioned earlier.
I am planning to teach the Westminster Shorter Catechism later when the kids are bigger, but the Great Commision Publication First Catechism is giving us ample challenge for now! And by the way, it dovetails very nicely with Marion Schoolland’s lovely children’s devotional, Leading Little Ones to God.
It is WONDERFUL that you plan to catechize your kids. If it catches on in your church, that is even better! Go for it, by all means!
Blessings,
Kari
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