The Adult Catechumenate and Christian Formation: You Shall Live!
This past week brought this 7 week catechumenate course to a close. With some regret for me personally, because I can no longer, as I tell me students, be the apostolate for the catechumenate—at least to them in the course. But I can in this blog post toward you. In this last reflection I’ll highlight a number of things from the last week of class that I believe brought light and life to the students, and, of course, to me.
Family Discipleship Initiative
One of the aims of the catechumenate is forming disciples for life. That means that discipleship formation continues after the catechumenate ends, including in the home. My colleague, Dr. Mart Thompson, spoke to the class about extending discipleship formation in the home through the LCMS Family Discipleship Initiative. It’s goal is to shape the discipled life of parents so that they might disciple their children.
Fostering a Missional Habitus
These and similar efforts aim to foster a mission habitus upon which we reflect in chapter 6 of Journey to Jesus. In the words of Alan Hirsch, the catechumenate shapes a congregation that lives as “people of the Way,” or as one of our catechumens put it, living the “forever walk.” We have embraced the vision of the “forever walk” through the course’s rhythm.
Redeemer Lutheran Church, The Bronx
A congregation that journeys as people of the Way is Redeemer Lutheran Church, The Bronx, New York. Rev. Dr. Dien Ashley Taylor and Deaconess Raquel Rojas spoke to the class about this “praying community of service that receives, teaches, celebrates and shares Christ Jesus” (Redeemer’s mission statement). Seeing the catechumenate “in the flesh” of Redeemer’s life through the ministry of these two servants of God was enlivening and emboldening.
Catechumenal Resources
Interacting with Pastor Taylor and Deaconess Rojas provided the students with resources for shaping a catechumenate in their calls. That has been one of the primary aims of the course, to resource the students. I bring some of those resources to you now:
Images of Baptism by Maxwell Johnson, an excellent resource for study of baptism
The Baptismal River by Richard Davenport, another excellent resource for baptismal study
Sacramental Streams by Richard Davenport for informing preaching and teaching on baptism
Living Under Water by Kevin Adams a Reformed pastor’s baptismal reflections
Resilience
This resourcing aims to strengthen resilience in catechumenal practice and in congregational life. As we demonstrate in the Epilogue to Journey to Jesus all the congregations we explored manifested a hearty resilience throughout the Covid pandemic, a significant amount of that resilience attributable to their catechumenates. And as we observe at the very end, while we make no claim that the catechumenate is “the answer” to the 21st century malaise of the church, we commend these congregations’ “deep wisdom, infectious joy, and confidence in the power of the gospel that permeates their reflections. We, too, believe that Jesus knows his way out of a grace, and so does his bride, the church” (175). And so, by the grace of God, do all of us who journeyed in the catechumenate course together.