Dear Friends,
We are in the season of Lent – which for the early church was
not only a time for repentance, but also a time of instruction in the faith
leading to baptism and official acceptance in to the church. Likewise, in our own congregation, confirmation
is just around the corner for five of our young people. As we get closer and closer to the big day
for them, they have asked more and more frequently, “Pastor, do we really have
to memorize all this stuff?”
Their question is about the catechism. Do we really have to memorize this whole
book, and if so, why? What’s the
point? What’s the big deal? Why put in the time and effort, especially
with so many other things going on?
To answer this question, I’d like to share with you about a
retired pastor in our circuit that many of you probably know. Pastor Dale Young served as a pastor for many
years. A few years ago, Pastor Young had
a stroke that left part of his body paralyzed, as well as taking away his
ability to speak. He communicates mostly
with hand gestures and pointing.
However, recently we held our Circuit Winkel (pastors’
meeting) at the nursing home where Pastor Young is living. While there, he was able to sing along with a
hymn we sang, as well as recite the Creed and Lord’s Prayer. He said them just as clearly and loudly as
the rest of us. Even though he cannot
have a “normal” conversation in the way we can, he still can recite his
catechism faithfully.
It isn’t just Pastor Young.
Many of our shut-ins that I visit can’t remember my name, their age,
their family’s names, or many other things we take for granted. However, when we start into our Communion
Service, they can remember every word of Confession and Absolution, the Creed,
and Lord’s Prayer. Some even mouth the
Words of Institution along with me. They
still know what their faith is; they still know their catechism.
The reason they remember is because of the way your brain
works. I’m not a brain doctor by any
stretch of the imagination, but a quick study explains how this works. Memorization store things in different parts
of your brain through the repetition.
This is called rote learning. Rote learning is how we learn the words to
songs we often hear on the radio, and has also been used by some to play
musical instruments, or memorize entire books or numeric equations. It’s also how each one of us learned how to
speak, or learned vocabulary to another language in school.
The same method can be used in our faith. Speaking the words of the catechism over and
over and over throughout your entire life permanently engrains them into your
memory, allowing you to recall it far into your future. This faith then is a part of you and your
life even until your last days, when other memories become foggy. That’s why we emphasize so many years of
Christian education and catechism memorization.
We want our kids to recite the catechism dozens and dozens of times in
their Sunday school and Catechism careers.
God created our brains to work in such a way that we are able
to memorize things more easily and quickly when we are very young, even before
we begin school and catechism. The same
time we are learning the very basics of language skills, we ought to be
receiving our first instruction in the faith.
Parents and grandparents should be teaching the catechism and reading
the Bible (or a story Bible) to children as often as possible. Scripture primarily gives this responsibility
to the father as the head of the household.
It’s an enormous responsibility and task, but one that I know the
fathers of our congregation are up to.
“Train a child in the way that he should go, and he will
never depart from it,” Scripture writes.
We work hard to teach the faith that looks to Christ for salvation, to
engrain that faith in to our children’s minds, and pray ceaselessly that that
faith will stick with them all the days of their lives.
So why do we make
our children memorize the catechism? Because
their pastor wants to make sure that 70 years from now, when their future
pastor visits them, that the faith will still be firmly with them. I have the personal goal that our kids will
learn the faith better than anyone –anyone
– in southeast North Dakota.
To that end, I’d like your help. First, we need one more confirmation teacher
for next year – to help teach our kids.
It’s a fairly simple job: I’ll supply you with the materials to teach,
and if there ever is something that comes up you can’t answer, I’m available to
help. It’s a great way to serve the
church – training future generations in the faith we have believed for
thousands of years.
Second, confirmation questioning is coming up in only a few
short months. I would invite you to come
to support our confirmands as they recite the catechism and the other basics of
the faith. Our attendance at some of
these events has waned a bit in the last few years – understandable with all
the other events going on in our lives.
One of our confirmands from this year said to me point blank, “Can’t we
just skip questioning? The only people who
come are our parents anyway.” But
wouldn’t it emphasize the importance of this event if we had most of the
congregation show up as our confirmands confess their faith? If you
are planning on going, please let the confirmands know you’ll be there, to
encourage them to work on their rote
memorization. Pray for them as well,
as they continue their instruction.
Questioning will be April 28th,
at 7:00 p.m.
To end this (rather long – yikes!) article, I’ll point you to
the Books of the Month section for a few resources in teaching the faith. There are CDs of the catechism set to fun
kids’ music. There are kids’ Bible books
that faithfully point to Christ. There
are countless materials available to you.
Consider using some of them with your own family.
