Growing interest in a return to the Catechumenate
Over the years the institutional church has gone through all the cycles of any sociological institution. It is my belief that the "identity crisis" we as LC - MS Christians are currently facing is du
e primarily to the desire of previous ecclesiastical leaders to ride every populist wave of the past 40 years - somehow thinking that these sociological swells will land all upon the shores of an island paradise in which the hard work of making disciples is a distant memory. Then... as many, both then and now, have wrongly believed the
REAL work of the Church can begin. As I read the Scripture, the work of the Church is proclaimed with perpiscuity employing two common verbs - baptize and teach. The return of interest in the catechumenate strikes me as a strong desire to flee from the failed recent past and make baptizing and teaching the heart of a life long immersion into the Word and into the death and resurrection of Christ. In this hearts and consequently people, nations and the world can be changed.
e primarily to the desire of previous ecclesiastical leaders to ride every populist wave of the past 40 years - somehow thinking that these sociological swells will land all upon the shores of an island paradise in which the hard work of making disciples is a distant memory. Then... as many, both then and now, have wrongly believed the
REAL work of the Church can begin. As I read the Scripture, the work of the Church is proclaimed with perpiscuity employing two common verbs - baptize and teach. The return of interest in the catechumenate strikes me as a strong desire to flee from the failed recent past and make baptizing and teaching the heart of a life long immersion into the Word and into the death and resurrection of Christ. In this hearts and consequently people, nations and the world can be changed.
1 comment:
I find it odd that we want to follow programs that the Evangelicals in America are no abandoning after 20 or 30 years because they just do not deliver what they promise.
Some of the largest church-growth congregations in Evangelicalism that follow the Willow Creek/ seeker-sensitive movement have recently taken polls from their members and have discovered that almost 50% of them do not believe that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.
Preaching the gospel and thorough catechesis is what is needed to impart the truth that we are saved by grace alone. I find that even life-long Lutherans still in moments of weakness speak of salvation in terms of what must I do, rather than trusting in what Christ has done. Catechesis is a life-long endeavor that constantly teaches God's truth to people who are constantly bombarded by all sorts of philosophies and program from the world.
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