Transforming Christian education and discipleship in the Church

 
 

 

Many Christians today never receive a foundational introduction to the faith. As a result, they never really grow in the Christian life. They remain, as St. Paul put it, like little children, “tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:4).

The Catechesis Institute is a research and teaching center dedicated to retrieving classical models of church-based education for a post-Christendom world. Rooted in the Anglican tradition, with an ecumenical scope, the Catechesis Institute provides resources, training, and networking for pastors, scholars, and teachers at any level.

Above all, we seek a widespread renewal of the church through biblical, historical, and theological models of teaching and forming the faithful.

What is a Catechumenate? This video, produced by Fr. Ryan Jones, explains the vision for a 21st-century catechumenate.

 
“Where wise catechesis has flourished, the church has flourished.”
— J.I. Packer
 

Get a free e-book

Subscribe to our mailing list and get a free digital copy of Hans Boersma’s Catechized for Beatitude.

 
 

Resources

Resources

The Catechesis Institute houses hundreds of digital, audio, and print resources related to catechesis. Whether you are looking for guides to begin a catechetical ministry or detailed bibliographies for advanced research—or anything in between—we have much to offer.

Use the search feature or click on the “Resources” button to learn more. Also, get in touch to make suggestions or requests.

 
 

Events

The Catechesis Institute sponsors a variety of conferences, lectures, workshops, and other events where scholars and practitioners can learn together.

Learn about upcoming events below or catch up on past events here.

 

 Recent Blog Posts

Featured
Passions of the Soul
early church, patristic, monasticism
Passions of the Soul
early church, patristic, monasticism

Rowan Williams on freedom from the passions: “The light of the resurrection is not only what allows us to see ourselves a bit more clearly…. It is what allows us to see the entire landscape of God’s creating activity in the radiance of Christ’s presence in the Spirit. This landscape is, by God’s grace, show to us as our homeland; it is where we belong. And this is what the life of apatheia, the life of freedom from the tyranny of ‘passion’, is finally about; living in the joyful and grateful awareness of God’s perspective on the creation God loves and transfigures; praying and labouring day by day for that inch-by-inch growth in clarity, freedom, charity; growing in the right kind of detachment that lets us see our muddled lives embraced and healed in Jesus, the author and the pioneer of our faithfulness.”

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early church, patristic, monasticism
The Riches of Catechesis
The Riches of Catechesis

To push back at my own thin dimension, I recently made myself try a small experiment. Every time I felt the urge to check my phone, to ask if it might delight me with a fun text or distraction, I “answered” by quietly reciting the Apostles’ Creed. The difference in my reaction, in my mind and in my body, shocked me. At first it was hearing “maker of heaven and earth”; another time it was “resurrection of the dead”; these phrases both calmed and cheered me. After saying the Creed for the fourth time one afternoon, I literally heard myself admit, “That’s the world I want.”

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New Catechesis Books from Lexham Press
New Catechesis Books from Lexham Press

Lexham Press has swiftly become one of the leading evangelical presses producing catechesis books—which I hope many other presses will follow! … But unlike many other presses, who might balk at the term catechesis, Lexham has unapologetically foregrounded it, publishing usable, orthodox resources for catechesis—rooted in solid theology with a pastoral and familial orientation. In this post, we review two new books in their catalogue: the Lexham Press Essentials Catechism and The Ten Commandments for All God’s Children.

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What was Lent like in the Early Church?
Lent, patristic, Egeria, Jerusalem
What was Lent like in the Early Church?
Lent, patristic, Egeria, Jerusalem

A fourth-century pilgrim on Lenten catechesis: “After the Creed has been repeated to the bishop, he addresses them all and says: ‘For these seven weeks you have been taught all the law of the Scriptures and you have also heard about the faith; you have also heard about the resurrection of the flesh and also the whole meaning of the Creed, as far as you can hear while still catechumens: but those things that are of a higher mystery, that is, of baptism itself, you cannot hear, being still catechumens.’”

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Lent, patristic, Egeria, Jerusalem
2023 Year in Review
2023 Year in Review

2023 in Review: John Behr on theological anthropology; Michael Cameron on Augustine; Catechesis and Liturgy at Iona House with the Anglican Catechist Training School; Curtis Freeman's Pilgrim Journey; Hanna Lucas' Sensing the Sacred; Alex Fogleman's Knowledge, Faith, and Early Christian Initiation.

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Knowing God in Patristic Catechesis
patristic, Augustine, Tertullian, Cyprian, Irenaeus
Knowing God in Patristic Catechesis
patristic, Augustine, Tertullian, Cyprian, Irenaeus

Rowan Williams has famously written that theology as a discipline is “perennially liable to be seduced by the prospect of bypassing the question of how it learns its own language.” My hope is that this project offers a picture of early Christian catechesis that helps us remember, quite literally, how early Christian theology learned its own language. What it means to know God is inseparable from the ways in which such knowledge is experienced; medium and message are tightly linked. In studying early Christian catechesis, we observe how knowing God belongs within a set of ecclesial practices in which the meaning of knowledge and faith are found in – and founded upon – Jesus Christ. Advancing from faith to understanding, from belief in God to the knowledge of eternal wisdom, begins and ends with Christ.

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patristic, Augustine, Tertullian, Cyprian, Irenaeus
Institutio viva voce: John Donne on Catechesis
John Donne, preaching, Anglican
Institutio viva voce: John Donne on Catechesis
John Donne, preaching, Anglican

John Donne on the importance of catechesis: “Except ye, ye the people be content at first to feed on the milk of the Gospel, and not presently to fall to gnawing of bones, of Controversies, and unrevealed Misteries, And except ye, the Ministers and Preachers of the Gospell, descend and apply your selves to the Capacitie of little Children, and become as they, and build not your estimation only upon the satisfaction of the expectation of great and curious Auditories, you stop theirs, you lose your own way to the kingdom of Heaven.”

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John Donne, preaching, Anglican
The Way of Beauty: Pope Francis on Catechesis and Kerygma
Roman Catholic, Pope Francis, Evangelism, kerygma, beauty
The Way of Beauty: Pope Francis on Catechesis and Kerygma
Roman Catholic, Pope Francis, Evangelism, kerygma, beauty

Pope Francis on the catechesis and the “way of beauty”: “Every form of catechesis would do well to attend to the “way of beauty” (via pulchritudinis). Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendour and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties. Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus.”

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Roman Catholic, Pope Francis, Evangelism, kerygma, beauty
A World Fit For Questions
questions, doctrine, worship
A World Fit For Questions
questions, doctrine, worship

Matthew Lee Anderson on Questions: “We need some kind of formation to get our explorations started…. ‘Home is where one starts from,’ T. S. Eliot wrote. We do not enter life as though it were formless and void: we inherit a framework, an intellectual shelter from which we explore the world. Every child is indoctrinated in a way of seeing things. The only question is, which one? … We do not begin our lives by choosing our beliefs because we do not “possess” our beliefs at all. They are not pieces of clothing that we pull off the rack and replace with ease. Our beliefs possess us, establishing a pattern for our lives and shaping our desires and dispositions. We inhabit our beliefs like we do our homes, and changing them can often be extremely painful.”

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questions, doctrine, worship
A Script for the Christian Life: Trevor Hart on the Creed
creed, imagination, arts, drama
A Script for the Christian Life: Trevor Hart on the Creed
creed, imagination, arts, drama

Trevor Hart on the Apostle’s Creed and the Christian imagination: “But bullet pointed though it may be, the Apostles’ Creed is nonetheless a power-packed summary designed precisely to capture our imagination and, far from shutting it down or rendering it otiose, to send it into paroxysms of visualization, curiosity, and exploration, and its brevity and clarity make this particular creed far more useful in practical terms than some others.”

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creed, imagination, arts, drama