My wife was raised in the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod). Those folks are very serious about the theological education of their children. Confirmation classes are reading intensive and very challenging. But as a result, my wife knows Lutheran theology backwards and forwards. LCMSers know what they believe in, and in detail.
I grew up in PCUSA and UMC churches and the basic message that I got out of Sunday school education was that being a Christian meant being a nice person. There wasn't any sort of confirmation class, to my knowledge. I never even knew why Jesus was crucified until I was in my 20s and took a Reformation history class in college.
So we've decided that we want our children to not only be spiritually formed, but theologically informed. We want them to know what they believe in. The most handy instrument for such teaching would be a catechism. But Luther's Shorter Catechism, which my wife used growing up, simply won't teach the Wesleyan perspective. We are both on the lookout for some sort of Wesleyan-based catechism.
Do you know of a good Wesleyan catechism?
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
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8 comments:
There is a book called A Fundamental Wesleyan Catechism, by Andy Heer... I haven't read it, though.
i don't know about one, but it would be worth coming up with. i would use it if you came up with one and it didn't suck.
You could probably take the Methodist Articles of Religion and form catechistic questions out of each article.
Maybe we could collectively come up with something. I am a layman, and I still have much to learn, especially about Wesley and Methodism.
I think you could be on to something big. If nothing can be found, would anyone be interested in a collaborative effort to come up with something? We could create some type of community blog where we can all post and share ideas to try to come up with something that we agree on.
If anyone has interest, send me an email or leave a comment here.
Just thoughts off the top of my head, but I think it could be a lot of fun and fulfill a need.
I was raised LCMS and I still remember some of the catechism I learned almost 30 years ago. We memorized the heck out of that thing.
I used the "This We Believe" materials for a catechism/Methodism 101 class I led a few years ago, and I thought it did a pretty good job. It'd be worth a look, I think.
Our denomination has this available:
http://www.ub.org/resources/store/alive.html
It's a Wesleyan/Arminian catachism. Just cross off the "United Brethren in Christ" part. ;-)
Ted Campbell's Methodist Doctrine: The Essentials is an excellent and concise catechism based on our doctrinal standards; I've used it in Sunday School, Bible study, and even at lay ministry school.
There are books out there. We have used them in our teaching of Sunday School from Cokesbury. There was also a decent book with Methodist catechism which I used when I was confirmed. Though, it's one of these flashy, modern ones.
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