Menu

Faith Formation

The King OT NT Adams church

New Resource for Adult Faith Formation through Preaching and Liturgy

, , , ,

Life in Christ: Rooted, Woven, and Grafted into God’s Story is a new resource from Concordia Publishing House by the Rev. Dr. Adam T. Filipek, pastor of Holy Cross and Immanuel Lutheran Churches in Lidgerwood, North Dakota. In this video, Pastor Filipek speaks about his approach to articulating the Gospel of Jesus Christ—both in the book and in his preaching. He advocates for a narrative approach with an emphasis on typology as way to connect Old Testament stories with the fulfillment of God’s salvation through Christ in the New Testament. Also central to his approach is connecting that story of salvation in Scripture to “the story” of the hearer, so that people in the pew experience the “for me” of the biblical narrative.

In this video of four minutes, Pastor Filipek provides examples of this narrative approach. You must be logged into Google to view the video.

To read some reviews of the book, Life in Christ: Rooted, Woven, and Grafted into God’s Story, and for information on ordering it, click here.

Stained glass window: From Immanuel Lutheran Church, Lidgerwood, ND; for more information on the church’s windows, click here.

Font St. George Anglican Jerusalem cropped

Register Now for Our July 5 – 7 Workshop

The deadline to register for our workshop at Concordia University – St. Paul, Minnesota is June 21.

We have designed this “visioning lab” on adult faith formation to encourage pastors, commissioned ministers, and lay leaders to imagine how you might design an adult catechumenate process for your congregation and to give you structured time to plan the initial steps for introducing this process at your parish. The cost is $140.00.

Join Rev. Dr. Kent Burreson (Louis A. Fincke and Anna B. Shine Professor of Systematic Theology, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis) and Dcs. Dr. Rhoda Schuler (Professor Emerita, Concordia – St. Paul) to discover that faith formation is not a program but a way of life. Through its life of community and worship, teaching and preaching, witness and service God transforms the baptized and the community, deeply and broadly.

Click here to register

Click here for a full description and schedule of the event.

Register Now for Our Visioning Labs on Adult Faith Formation

, , , ,

Registration deadlines are approaching for our Summer “Visioning Labs” designed to encourage pastors, commissioned ministers, and lay leaders to envision how you might introduce an adult catechumenate process into your congregation.

These visioning labs will offer experiences for you to consider and plan ways to incorporate catechumenal practices into congregational life. These experiences will include video and live interviews with pastoral practitioners, prayer modeling in the faith formation experience, practicing various catechumenal methods for Scripture study, and ritual experiences employed in the catechumenate. It will be a hands on lab!

There are two workshops/visioning labs scheduled

  • June 26-28 at Faith Lutheran Church, Ottawa, Kansas (near Kansas City)
    • Lead by Rev. Dr. Kent Burreson
    • Cost: $140.00
    • Registration deadline: JUNE 12! ONLY FOUR DAYS!

TO REGISTER for the June Visioning Lab …

Click here for June event in KS

  • July 5-7 at Concordia University – St. Paul, Minnesota
    • Lead by Rev. Dr. Kent Burreson and Dcs. Dr. Rhoda Schuler
    • Cost: $140.00
    • Registration deadline: JUNE 21!

TO REGISTER for the July event at CSP …

Click here for the CSP event

Click here for a full description and schedule for the event.

1024px-Mural_-_Jesus'_Baptism

The Adult Catechumenate and Christian Formation: Plumbing the Treasures

, , , ,

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.

Redeemer Meal

Real Characteristics of the Catechumenate

, , , , ,

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.

Immanuel Valpo Baptismal Pool #3

Un-catechesis: Catechesis during the Period of Enlightenment

, ,

Lutherans tend to approach catechesis in a one size fits all mode. Grounded in Luther’s Catechisms (which is, of course, a good place to be grounded), the approach is often fairly uniform across times and locations. It is very intellectually-focused, seeking to expose the catechumens to what Scripture and the church teach so that they might own it and confess it themselves. The pastor as pedagogue (hear: lecturer) has predominated. The catechumens become passive recipients of rich doctrinal content.

I am not suggesting that there is no place for this approach. Nor am I suggesting that the handing on (tradition) of doctrine is undesirable. But there are other ways in which catechesis can take place. And a prime opportunity for such a different approach to catechesis, or Un-catechesis, is during the period of purification and enlightenment. This period aims to facilitate the final steps in the process of the elect’s conversion, a process that most often culminates at the Triduum with the elect’s participation in their baptism, anointing, and the Lord’s Supper. Catechesis during this period focuses around reflection on the experiences the catechumens have had throughout the catechumenate and that they will have during the season of Lent. This intentional reflection intends to lead both the elect and the church into discernment. The elect should discern their readiness for baptism, for participation in the life of the body of Christ, and for the journey into a life lived by faith in the Triune God. The church should discern how ready they believe the elect are for those same things. Catechesis in this period aims to facilitate that reflection for the sake of discernment.

Central to are reflective questions and both corporate discussion and individual conversation about those questions. The questions should encourage the catechumens to reflect on the experiences of the catechumenate: hearing the Word in the Sunday divine service; anointings and blessings they experienced; the practice of prayer; discussion of the Word of God and the church’s teaching; and their conversations in the catechumenate group and personally with catechists and sponsors.

During the period of Enlightenment the elect will continue to break open the Word, but—as Dr. Schuler indicated last week—will consider the primary biblical narratives used throughout Lent that focus on the encounter with Jesus as Savior and Lord. They will reflect on the implications for them personally of meeting Jesus through these readings and their preaching. They will reflect on the significance of the scrutinies in which they renounce the devil, sin, end evil; their reception of the Lord’s Prayer as their own model of prayer and of the Creed as their personal confession within the church’s confession of the Triune God. The catechesis should prepare them for their 3-day journey into God’s life in Christ culminating at their experience of baptism, anointing and the Lord’s Supper at the Easter Vigil. The Un-Catechesis of this period should not primarily download doctrinal information to them—although there will certainly still be some of that—but it should unfold their experiences in and through the Word of God. Doctrinal unpacking will continue in the period of mystagogy after they are baptized. As Roman Catholic Timothy O’Malley says, “Lent is not the time for such explicit instruction of the catechumens. It is time to enter with the elect into the desert, to walk with them as they prepare to become sons and daughters of the living God through baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist (Divine Blessing: Liturgical Formation in the RCIA, 112). The catechesis in this period prepares them for the ongoing transformation of their identity. It is catechesis that directs them, in the words of Welcome to Christ, “to live in the covenant of their baptism . . . and lead godly lives until the day of Jesus Christ” (44).

Scrutines of Lent 2019 (2)

Congregational Transformation: Growing Deeply, Broadly, and Widely

, , , , ,

In Paul Hoffman’s words, the catechumenate creates a climate of expectation in the life of a congregation. That climate of expectation blossoms into the longing for personal and congregational transformation that is both deep and wide. It transforms individuals and congregations in deep ways touching on the center of their identities. It transforms in broad and wide-reaching ways, both by incorporating more into the assembly and by the myriad number of encounters that the baptized and the assembly have with strangers in the world.

Growing Deeply

Congregations engaged in faith formation patiently seek to transform the believing of newcomers and oldcomers alike. Believing entails the reorientation of one’s reality and life story toward inclusion into the story of God the Creator in His Son Christ Jesus by the power of the Spirit. Believing is a lifelong endeavor of trusting in God’s promise for the whole creation, and the individual as part of it, to bring about the restoration of the creation through his living Word. It encompass the whole person—body, mind, and spirit—within the body of believers.

Those who belong to the believing community transform not only their believing and their belonging, but also their behavior. One of the reasons that the congregations we researched ask that all newcomers walk through their catechumenate—unbaptized, profession of faith, or transfers—is because they want to shape a deep transformation that leads to the newcomer and oldcomer alike living faithfully within this community’s patterns of life.

Measuring the depth of transformation should reflect the ongoing, lifelong apprenticeship of disciples that the catechumenate seeks to foster. Such measures could include:

  • worship attendance and participation in the sacraments
  • the vitality of congregational ministries, ordained, commissioned, and lay
  • the intentionality of personal and congregational evaluation and discernment of the disciple life
  • flexibility of congregational ministries and faith formation to adapt to the congregational context
  • the involvement of laity in the faith formation process
  • commitment to one’s vocations
  • the degree of following the call to live in love by proclaiming Christ to and serving him in others
  • how often a congregation eats together

That is only a partial list. All of those measures could give an indication as to how the faith formation process is deeply transforming a congregation’s life.

Growing Broadly and Widely

The catechumenate’s impact in transforming lives and assemblies also ought to be measured by the number of persons incorporated into the assembly’s life. A well-practiced catechumenate should lead to the incorporation of more outsiders and strangers into life together. Yet even such growth is broader and wider than we might imagine. Personal and corporate encounters with the stranger in inquiry and on the edges of the catechumenate widen the catechumenate’s transformative impact. Such encounters run deep into the world surrounding the congregation as the baptized bear witness to their life together in their workplaces and play spaces, their learning communities and living communities. A community transformed by the catechumenate reaches into the world around it—both individually and corporately—with peace and justice. As Paul Hoffman indicates, “The tasks that one might do to meet the needs of others grow out of who one perceives oneself to be in Christ, and—grace being the gift that keeps on giving—the things that one does further form one as a disciple” (Faith Shaping Ministry, 87). Transformation that spreads far and wide.

In the end, faith formation is not a program, not even a set of processes or practices, but a way of life. Through its life of community and liturgy, teaching and preaching, witness and service God transforms the baptized and the community, deeply and broadly.

Palm Sunday 2019 (2)

Forging a Culture of Expectation for Transformation:   The Impact of the Catechumenate

,

A lively catechumenate should lead to congregational growth, at least incrementally if not substantially. That should be an expectation that any congregation has at the beginning of a new catechumenal ministry. As Paul Hoffman says in his book, Faith Forming Faith,

There is a culture of expectation that living together under the cross of Chris creates….The willingness to accept that paradigm shift to a culture of expectation is primary. Before considering beginning the catechumenate in one’s congregation, the best question that a parish should consider is, ‘Are we prepared to welcome and expect that awesome, amazing grace of God that the newly baptized will surely bring us? In other words, will we recognize and welcome the unexpected presence of God’s grace when it appears?’ (Hoffman, Faith Forming Faith, 46-7).

The expectations nurtured by the catechumenate include the following (at minimum): An expectation for new people (mission and growth); an expectation for congregational transformation (lively faith); and an expectation for parish life renewed around the catechumenate.

Expectation for New People

               The catechumenate nurtures the expectation that hospitality toward and committed attention to those exploring faith in God through Christ is at the center of congregational life. The catechumenate forms the mission of the church and the mission of the church fills the catechumenate with purpose and energy. Expecting new people constantly to be exploring the faith is an outcome of practicing the catechumenate as a fundamental expression of the church’s mission. As Diana Macalintal indicates,

Once the focus of baptism shifts from membership in the church to mission in Christ, other things change too. We start to see baptism more like a verb than a noun….Living the Christian way of faith requires, then, a daily discernment of how God is calling us to respond by faith to our baptism. How am I responding to God’s gift and living out the mission this gift gives me? And how do we teach others to respond by faith and take on the mission of Christ in the world? (Macalintal, Your Parish is the Curriculum, 17-18)

When such a missional response is forged, then we will expect a constant stream of new people.

Expectation for Congregational Transformation

At the center of the mission of the faith formation process is the baptismal paradigm of dying and rising, found throughout Scripture but voiced compellingly by Paul in Romans 6. Planting newcomers at the center of congregational life embeds the dying and rising pattern as the central way of understanding the shape of a congregation’s life. This process is about congregational transformation, not some program for welcoming new members. And this simply flows from our watershed baptismal event because from that day on the people of God in Christ are never not in formation until our baptism is completed in our death. We are constantly dying and rising, both as individuals and as congregations. Through the dying and rising pattern of the catechumenate, a congregation is called to be, and becomes, in Diana Macalintal’s words, a “place of lively faith” (Macalintal, 23).

Expectation for Renewed Parish Life

A place of lively faith will be a place that expects all aspects of its life to be renewed. A baptismal catechumenate at the center of parish life will encourage searching questions about the rest of the parish’s life. As Paul Hoffman contends,

In this bold new vision of living in the ancient Christians’ pattern of faith formation, we must see our life in church as fully immersed in the wonder of baptism. I propose that we rethink parish life in such a way that all we do is shaped by a reappropriation of our most basic and formative paradigm—the death and resurrection of Jesus, to which each of us is joined in our baptism (Hoffman, Faith Shaping Ministry, 3).

A lively catechumenate embeds the expectation that everything the parish is and does will orbit around the making of new Christians through the waters of baptism.

Hope-filled Expectations: The Fruits of a well-practiced, Spirit-anointed Catechumenate.

5000

Community Building over Meals

,

Slow Walking Series

Ritual scholars remind us of the universal experience and meaning of shared meals—that they do more than nourish the body with the food. By their corporate nature, the meals build community; the feast celebrates an important event, present or historical; the food and drink can take on symbolic meaning, whether it’s a champagne toast by the best man or the favorite dessert served at a loved one’s funeral lunch. Phillippe Rouillard, a Benedictine monk and theologian of sacramental theology, wrote, “The meal taken in common seals belonging to a same group. It implies an idea of communion and sharing … and the fact of inviting someone to eat with one is perceived as an efficacious sign of integration and communion” (“From Human Meal to Christian Eucharist,” in Living Bread, Saving Cup, 133). The early months of the Pandemic, when large gatherings with food and drink were dangerous places we were told we must avoid, instilled in us the need of shared meals, both ordinary and extraordinary, to be fully human.

Recognizing the intrinsic value of meals, some resources on adult catechumenate models encourage the practice. “Simple refreshments available as people are gathering will provide a welcoming environment, even just one or two beverage option and a tray filled with small pieces of fruit” (Go Make Disciples, 82, emphasis added). Describing the full meal that his parish practiced in their adult faith formation process, Paul Hoffman offers three values of a shared meal: “Our goal with the meal is to help people feel welcome, offer them a place to belong, and create a space in which relationships with other Christians can begin to form and take shape” (Faith Forming Faith, 9).

Of course, meals play a major role throughout Scripture, especially in the ministry of Jesus. Jesus “ate with tax collectors and sinners” and responded to that criticism with the parable of the Lost Son, who was welcomed home by his father with a feast of the fatted calf. To serve food at adult faith formation gatherings, whether “simple refreshments” or a full meal, recognizes the power of a shared meal and the potential sign that it may be “a foretaste of the feast to come.”

+++

Image:  The miracle of the five loaves and two fish

By Lucas Cranach the Elder – Wuselig, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85228885

Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden

Redeemer Post-Baptism Neophytes and Newly Confirmed 2019

The Formation—NOT the Information—Highway

, , , , ,

The faith formation process (catechumenate) is a journey, a lifelong journey toward the kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). It is a journey on the formation highway, not the information highway. We best leave that to Silicon Valley. Not that there is no place in faith formation for information. As we observed last week regarding the benefits of a church tour, “These goals for the seekers illustrate the dual purpose of information and formation within the catechumenal process . . . By walking through the worship space, touching the furnishings, and pointing out specifics, the tour leader’s imparting of information will be more effective than a classroom lecture.” But information serves formation. The goal and telos of the faith formation process is the transformation of those seeking relationship with God the Creator and His Son Jesus Christ.

The affirmation that the catechumenate is about personal transformation rather than solely the imparting of information is fundamental for slow walking out of an adult instruction class toward a faith formation process. Even our language of adult information betrays our understanding of what we are doing. Three characteristics are crucial toward making this shift from information to formation: 1) Faith formation facilitates conversion; 2) Faith formation centers on relationships; 3) Faith formation incorporates into community.

Faith formation facilitates conversion

               Faith formation doesn’t just inform about the Christian faith. It moves a person into a new way of life. As Welcome to Christ: An Introduction to the Catechumenate indicates, “Let us take seriously the matter of repentance and conversion. In the journey of the catechumenate, those preparing for Holy Baptism are in the process of becoming Christians….At its heart, the catechumenal process is a repenting of all that keeps us from being so joined [to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ], and a journey of conversion to a new life…Catechumens are turning from their former life and turning toward new life in Christ….[This] conversion involves the whole person—intellect, emotions, spirit, actions and more” (22-23). It is not just information about, but formation in this new life.

Faith formation centers on relationships

               Information dumping doesn’t further the building of relationships. Yet, in a faith formation process in which building relationships in the Body of Christ is a primary goal, information assumes a servant role. As Paul Hoffman says of the catechumenate, “Foundationally, it means a way of being with one another and with our God that is dialogical, relational, and drawn from the deep wells of the participants’ real-life experiences and interactions with the Holy Scriptures” (Faith Forming Faith, 33). We have to break away from the notion that our educational processes with adults (and youth too, for that matter) focus on content. They shouldn’t, unless we want them to whither on the vine. They should focus on transformation—of everyone involved.

Faith formation incorporates into community.

               Transforming everyone brings us to community. Faith formation seeks to graft into the Christian community those who encounter Christ in the community’s life and are transformed. In this journey the transformation happens both ways. As Welcome to Christ notes, “The realization grows that as the community helps to shape the identity of the catechumens, so the catechumens also shape the identity of the community. Its mission and ministry are shaped by this calling….For the community, the presence of catechumens is transformative, life-giving, and redemptive in the sense that the catechumens lead the baptized back to the place of their origin. In the water and word of Holy Baptism—as well as in the daily practice of worship, prayer, scripture, and ministry—we are the body of Christ, bearing gifts of healing and compassion for our world” (23).

The journey to life in Christ is abundantly rich. Conceiving of it as adult information robs it of this richness. It is not an information highway but a transformative journey that gives shape to the rest of one’s life and to the coming kingdom of God into which we are invited.

Load More