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Catechumenate Formation for Pastors and Deaconesses-to-Be: Immediacy of Baptism and Implementing the Catechumenate

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Throughout the course over the last two years two issues have surfaced repeatedly: immediacy of baptism and implementation of the catechumenate. Some brief observations on both of those issues. Certainly, the desire for immediacy of baptism with adult candidates reflects the priority of the gospel and the gifts that God gives in baptism. We want people to have those gifts. It also reflects that infant baptism—baptism soon after physical birth— currently is the primary paradigm through which we view the baptism of others, especially adults. But adult baptism is best seen through its own paradigm. When seen through the lens of incorporation into the entire story of God in Christ and into the body of Christ in a particular place, then the Word before baptism plays a central role in forming the disciple toward baptism as a pinnacle event in the adult disciple’s ongoing life. Baptism is an encounter with the crucified and living Christ. The adult should have cognizance of who Jesus is before they come to the waters of baptism. They should have some familiarity with the body of Christ into which they are being incorporated. The ministry of the Word—that is always connected to baptism—provides that formation. Waiting as part of a pattern of eschatological waiting is a formative practice. The adult disciple is formed by life in the Word so that they can fully apprehend—as an adult—what God is doing to them in their baptism.

Regarding implementation, three words: Just do it. You have to risk, just try something. It doesn’t mean you have to lay out in the first year an entire adult catechumenate. That boat probably would sink. But just try something and then you can build on that. In many of the parishes we have worked with that have started a catechumenate they take those small steps the first year. They incorporate a weekly meal into their current adult instruction. They use one of the Scripture study methods, such as the African study method, with their elders first and then begin to use it with the catechumens. They incorporate other modes of teaching into their catechesis such as small group reflection. They implement the use of sponsors for adults. It’s not all of these things, but one or two of these kinds of things in the first year to get the ball rolling. This begins to implant these patterns into the congregation’s consciousness and lays the foundation for them becoming the pattern of the congregation’s life.

Interesting that waiting and patience are part of both the adult baptismal experience and the implementation of the catechumenate. It is formation that reflects Paul’s words in Romans 8:24-25: “But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

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Catechumenate Formation for Pastors and Deaconesses-to-Be

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“This course will examine how the church forms, catechizes, and incorporates adult Christians into the church and the fullness of the Christian life. It will give specific attention to the practice of adult faith formation, especially through the adult catechumenate, by (1) studying its ritual and theological origins and development, (2) examining contemporary catechumenal theology and practice, and (3) charting a course for adult formation that meets today’s and tomorrow’s challenges. The course will involve interaction with adult formation and catechumenate experts and church workers who are currently engaged in adult faith formation.” So reads the description for the course on the catechumenate that I (Kent) have been teaching for the last two years (and will again next year).  So, the next four posts will reflect upon our experience in the course over the last two years. I don’t think my students (hopefully all of them are reading this!) will mind being treated as fodder for the blog. I wouldn’t be reflecting on our experience in the class if they hadn’t given me something to say. I appreciate greatly their investment in the class.

               As my students would affirm, and as the course description implies, the course is unquestionably an apologetic for the catechumenate. I don’t make any bones about it. I want them to find things of value in the catechumenate’s intentional way of making lifelong disciples. Most enter the class with little exposure to the catechumenate. They are surprised to hear that the LCMS (alongside the ELCA’s leadership) was involved in the preparation of the Lutheran Welcome to Christ catechumenal materials in the 1990’s. The catechumenate is foreign territory for most of them, a novel concept. But they are all aware that our current ways (usually the 6-8 week adult instruction class) of making disciples isn’t working very well. The making of disciples, assimilation into the body of Christ, and retention for the long haul…well our current patterns don’t have an avowedly strong track record at any of that. My students are positioned to want to find something of value in the catechumenate. My persuasive rhetoric could persuade successfully.

               Following an initial introduction through the beginning pages of Paul Hoffman’s Faith Forming Faith, we begin with the rites of the RCIA and Welcome to Christ. Last year a required visit and this year an optional visit to the Easter Vigil at a Roman Catholic Church exposed them to how the Vigil makes the most sense in the context of a catechumenate (20 baptisms at the Roman Catholic Church in St. Louis that some of us attended). A brief history of the catechumenate and conversion follows, especially through the work of Alan Kreider. Then we center on a Lutheran theology of conversion and the acknowledgement that we need to look at conversion both from below (human perspective) and from above (divine perspective and monergism). The last section of this seven-week course considers contemporary issues in the catechumenate such as ritual and preaching, mission and hospitality, catechesis and mystagogy, and vocation. The only required texts are the aforementioned by Hoffman (best introduction to the catechumenate for any audience) and Kreider. The students must do a resource review to familiarize themselves with other resources. The final course project is developing a plan for introducing the catechumenate or aspects of it in their congregation. Since many of the students are finishing their education and will soon be going to their calls, this exercise might prove an immediately handy resource.

               In the next three weeks I’ll talk about some of the questions that my students have raised and reflect on the pedagogy of the course, an opportunity for self-critique. Entrance into the course is initially like sojourning in a foreign land. I am thankful my students are willing to become like catechumens themselves and journey with me and become no longer strangers but pilgrims into the catechumenate.

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The Adult Catechumenate and Christian Formation: Plumbing the Treasures

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At the end of his book Faith Shaping Ministry, on the basis of Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” Paul Hoffman writes, “Our treasure lies buried deep within the waters of baptism where Jesus himself unites us to a death like his and graciously raises us in a resurrection like his. This is not new. But it is a treasure—the most priceless treasure that one could ever imagine” (100). That has been the goal and raison d’etre of this course on faith formation and the catechumenate that I and my class have journeyed through the past eight weeks. That is really the heart of the catechumenate: plumbing the depths of the treasures of the church through the prism of baptism. As Hoffman says later, “The treasures for which we long are not far from us. They are not new or trendy. They lie deep within the gifts we’ve always had in the church. They are in our Scripture and our tradition” (101). Over the past eight weeks we have gone exploring the ritual, history, and faith formation and transformation of the catechumenate. Baptismal treasures recognized, held, and honored.

Yet, in this final two weeks of the course we have reached as deeply into the catechumenal treasures as we could, all for the sake of the future of adult faith formation. The goal has been that all of us might envision a road to the catechumenate within the congregations in which we live and move and have our being. The goal has been that we might plumb the depths of baptismal life through various aspects of the faith formation journey. And students have led the way in envisioning these gifts of the church. How does the catechumenate foster a holistic model of congregational life? What forms should preaching take to form Christian discipleship, preaching that flows from and feeds toward the catechumenate? How does the catechumenate shape a congregation to embrace hospitality as an identity marker? How does education in the congregation reflect not a consumer, attractional approach, but a formation of disciples approach? How does faith formation gift us with a baptismal vocation that subsumes all our other vocations within it? These are the treasures that our explorations and discussions have unearthed. As Hoffman concludes his final chapter, “The conviction is this: when we reach deep within the treasures of the ancient liturgies and texts of the Church, we find the transformation that Christ promises us in our baptism” (102). That’s where we have been as a class, that’s where we all should be—there, deep within the treasures. Plumbing their depths.

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Real Characteristics of the Catechumenate

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Over the last four class periods, our catechumenate class has had the opportunity to converse with two of the pastors—Pastor Dan Eggold of Grace, Lafayette, IN and Pastor Tim Droegemueller of Living Faith, Cumming GA—who were involved in our catechumenate grants and with Dr. Schuler. The conversations surfaced numerous characteristics that shaped a vision of what Gospel-oriented, effective, and strong catechumenates look like. I am going to highlight these characteristics so that you can have the same vision that we had as a class as we talked to these pastors and Dr. Schuler.

Strong catechumenates exhibit structure and order while being flexible and nimble. Faith formation with people that come from all types of circumstances and personal contexts demands a structure that the catechumen can rely upon, while being able to adjust to the demands on their vocations that surface, often unexpectedly. Demonstrating intentional structure in the catechetical classes and in the ritual process while being nimble in the approach to individuals and families is an act of invested hospitality. Such intentionality shows that the congregation wants and intends to be hospitable to the stranger. It creates a culture of love.

Creating a culture of love begins with pastoral care. It is a consistent theme in all the congregations that have invested in their catechumenates. The pastors and church workers perceive pastoral care to be a virtue that is at the center of the relationships that they form with the catechumens. And pastoral care goes hand-in-glove with pastoral leadership. Strong catechumenates demonstrate strong pastoral leadership, leadership that manifests to the baptized that the catechumenate is a priority for the entire congregation’s life. This strong pastoral leadership elicits lay involvement and leadership in the catechumenate. The baptized want to be involved and find their niche. As Pastor Eggold said, he doesn’t have to worry about the organizational plan for their weekly catechumenal meetings, especially the meals. He has a member who takes the lead with all of that.

And effective catechumenates are truly feasts. They provide an opportunity for the catechumens, sponsors, catechists, pastors, and the baptized to eat together as a family in Christ. Breaking bread together allows them to get to know one another and immerses them in each other’s lives. But the feasting isn’t only on physical food and drink. It is feasting on the Word. And that feast’s food and drink is the rhythm of the church year and the heartbeat of the lectionary. It is that Sunday in and Sunday out encounter with the Word that forges questions, reflections, and adjustments from and in the lives of the catechumens (and the baptized too). That, after all, is the goal: lives transformed by the gospel.