Family and Children’s Catechesis
Books for Parents on Family Catechesis*
Bevins, Winfield. Grow at Home: A Beginner’s Guide to Family Discipleship. Franklin, TN: Seedbed, 2016.
Chandler, Matt, and Adam Griffin. Family Discipleship: Leading Your Home through Time, Moments, and Milestones. Wheaton: Crossway, 2020.
Early, Justin Whitmel. Habits of the Household: Practicing the Story of God in Everyday Family Rhythms. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2021.
Johnson, Terry L. Catechizing Our Children: The Whys and Hows of Teaching the Shorter Catechism Today. Banner of Truth, 2013.
Mamalakis, Philip. Parenting Toward the Kingdom: Orthodox Christian Principles of Child-Rearing. Chesterton: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2016.
Meade, Starr. Comforting Hearts: Teaching Minds: Family Devotions Based on the Heidelberg Catechism. Philipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013.
Meade, Starr. Training Hearts: Teaching Minds: Family Devotions Based on the Shorter Catechism. Philipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2000.
Okholm, Trevecca. Kingdom Family. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2012.
Smith, James K. A. “Liturgies of the Home.” In You Are What You Want: The Spiritual Power of Habit (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2016).
Van Dyken, Donald. Rediscovering Catechism: The Art of Equipping Covenant Children. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2000.
Westerhoff, John H. Bringing Up Children in the Christian Faith. Minneapolis: Winston, 1980.
Westerhoff, John H. Will Our Children Have Faith? 1976; repr., Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 2000.
Wigger, J. Bradly. The Power of God at Home: Nurturing Our Children in Love and Grace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003.
Children’s Books
For Young Children
Catechesis Books, by Danielle Hitchens.
On the Day You Were Baptized and On the Day of Your First Communion by Sara Howell.
The Apostles’ Creed: For All God’s Children
The Lord’s Prayer: For All God’s Children
The King of Christmas: All God’s Children Search for Jesus
The King of Easter: Jesus Searches for All God’s Children
Storymakers NYC: The Faith Guide for Littles:
The Ten Rules
The Lord’s Prayer
The Apostles’ Creed
Signs of Grace
Andrew Wilson and Helena Perez Garcia, Sophie and the Heidelberg Cat. Crossway, 2020.
Gospel Coalition. New City Catechism for Kids. Crossway, 2017.
Andrew Green. The Illustrated Westminster Shorter Catechism. CF4Kids, 2022.
For Older Children and Young Teens
Jared Patrick Boyd. Imaginative Prayer: A Yearlong Guide for Your Child’s Spiritual Formation. Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2017.
J. Ryan Lister. Emblems of the Infinite King: Enter into the Knowledge of the Living God. Wheaton: Crossway, 2019.
Marty Machowski. The Ology: Ancient Truths, Ever New. Greensboro: New Growth Press, 2021.
Storymakers NYC. The Teen Zine, Vol. 1: The Faith Issue.
Academic Literature on Family Catechesis, Children, and Faith Formation
Alexandre-Bidon, Danielle. Children in the Middle Ages: Fifth to Fifteenth Centuries. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997.
Bengtson, Vern. Families and Faith: How Religion Is Passed Down across Generations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Davis, Timone. Intergenerational Catechesis: Revitalizing Faith through African-American Storytelling. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2021.
Dooley, Catherine. “Catechumenate for Children: Sharing the Gift of Faith.” The Living Light 24, no. 4 (June 1988): 307–317.
Gould, Graham. “Childhood in Eastern Patristic Thought: Some Problems of Theology and Theological Anthropology.” Studies in Church History, 31 (1994): 39-52.
Smith, Christian, and Amy Adamczyk. Handing down the Faith : How Parents Pass Their Religion on to the Next Generation. Oxford University Press, 2021.
Smith, Christian, Bridget Ritz, and Michael Rotolo, Religious Parenting: Transmitting Faith and Values in Contemporary America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019.
Smith, Christian, and Melinda Lundquist Denton. Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Smith, Christian, and Patricia Snell. Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults. Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 2009.
Zachman, Randall C. “Building Up the Faith of Children.” In John Calvin as Teacher, Pastor and Theologian: The Shape of His Writings and Thought, 131–146. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, Godly PLay, And Child Theology
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (CGS) and Godly Play are two of the most widely-used forms of children’s catechesis, drawing inspiration from the educational style of Maria Montesorri. Catechesis of the Good Shepherd owes to the writing and influence of Sofia Cavalletti and Gianna Gobbi, two Italian scholars working in Rome in the 1970s and 80s, and was introduced in North America in the 1980s, where there are currently some 1200 churches employing CGS. Its aim, as the US website puts it, is to involve “adults and children in a common religious experience in which the religious values of childhood, primarily those values of contemplation and enjoyment of God, are predominant. This experience is shared in a place particularly prepared for the religious life of children called the Atrium.” One of the particular merits of CGS is its focus on guiding children into the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church.
Godly Play was developed by Jerome Berryman, who adapted many of Montesorri’s and Cavalletti’s insights for a more Mainline Protestant audience (his own church background is Presbyterian and Episcopal), with a greater focus on learning particular stories of Scripture, especially the life and teachings of Jesus. As their website describes: “The Godly Play method is a curriculum of spiritual practice exploring the mystery of God’s presence in our lives. The Godly Play curriculum engages what is most exciting about religious education: God inviting us into—and pursuing us in the midst of—Scripture and spiritual experience. Godly Play practice teaches us to listen for God and to make authentic and creative responses to God’s call in our lives.”
Both approaches not only Montessorian pedagogy but also, more generally, attempt to put into practice insights drawn from what is often referred to as “child theology” or the spirituality of children. Such an approach considers the child not as an incomplete or transitional adult but rather as a unique “form of human life,” distinct from adulthood and valued as a unique way of encountering God. Child theology takes seriously Jesus’ claim that we must become like children to enter the kingdom of heaven (Mark 10:15; Matt. 18:3).
Theology, in the serious sense of the word, is not knowledge for the elite. Every time we are unable to transmit theology to children or the uneducated, we should question ourselves, and we will come to realize, as we go closer to the core of things, that our inability depends on our own ignorance. How many times were we aware that we were not succeeding in speaking to the children about the greatest realities because we were unable to proclaim them with the essentiality the children needed.
— Sofia Cavalletti, Religious Potential of the Child
Works of Interest:
Balthasar, Hans Urs. Unless You Become Like This Child. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991.
Berryman, Jerome W. Children and the Theologians: Clearing the Way for Grace. New York: Morehouse, 2009.
Berryman, Jerome W. Godly Play: A Way of Religious Education. San Francisco: Harper, 1991.
Berryman, Jerome. “Montessori and Religious Education.” Religious Education 75, no. 3 (1980): 294–307.
Berryman, Jerome. The Spiritual Guidance of Children: Montessori, Godly Play, and the Future. New York: Morehouse, 2013.
Berryman, Jerome W. Teaching Godly Play: The Sunday Morning Handbook. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Berryman, Jerome W. Teaching Godly Play: How to Mentor the Spiritual Development of Children. Denver, CO: Morehouse, 2009.
Berryman, Jerome. The Search for a Theology of Childhood: Essays by Jerome W. Berryman from 1978-2009, ed. Brendan Hyde (2013).
Bunge, Marcia J. ed. Child Theology : Diverse Methods and Global Perspectives. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2021.
Bunge, Marcia J. The Child in Christian Thought. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001
Bunge, Marcia J., Terence E. Fretheim, and Beverly Roberts Gaventa, eds., The Child in the Bible. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.
Carnes, Natalie. “We in Our Turmoil: Theological Anthropology through Maria Montessori and the Lives of Children.” Journal of Religion 95, no. 3 (2015):
Cavalletti, Sofia. The Religious Potential of the Child: Experiencing Scripture and Liturgy With Young Children. Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1992 [Original Italian, 1979].
Cavalletti, Sofia. The Religious Potential of the Child: 6 to 12 Years Old. Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2002.
Gobbi, Gianna. Listening to God with Children. The Montessori Method Applied to the Catechesis of Children. Loveland, OH: Treehaus Communications, 1998.
Houston, James, ed. An Introduction to Child Theology. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022.
Hyde, Brendan. Children and Spirituality: Searching for Meaning and Connectedness. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2008.
Hyde, Brendan. “Children’s spirituality and the Good Shepherd Experience.” Religious Education 99, no. 2 (2004): 137-150.
Hyde, Brendan. “Montessori and Jerome W. Berryman: Work, Play, Religious Education and the Art of Using the Christian Language System.” British Journal of Religious Education 33, no. 3 (2011): 341–353.
Marty, Martin E. The Mystery of the Child. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.
Miller-McLemore, Bonnie. In the Midst of Chaos: Care of Children as Religious Practice. San Francisco: JosseyBass, 2006.
Miller-McLemore, Bonnie. Let the Children Come: Reimagining Childhood from a Christian Perspective. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003.
Miller-McLemore, Bonnie. “Whither the Children? Childhood in Religious Education.” The Journal of Religion 86, no. 4 (2006): 635–657.
Montessori, Maria. The Child in the Church, ed. E. M. Standing. Chantilly, VA: The Madonna and Child Atrium, 1965.
Newey, Edmund. Children of God: The Child as Source of Theological Anthropology. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012.
O’Shea, Gerard. “A Comparison of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and Godly Play.” British Journal of Religious Education 40, no. 3 (2018): 308–316.
Rahner, Karl. “Ideas for a Theology of Childhood,” in Theological Investigations, Volume 3: Theology of the Spiritual Life, trans. David Bourke. New York: Herder & Herder, 1967.
A few online articles on Catechesis of the Good Shepherd can be found here:
Sarah Puryear writes in the Covenant blog about CGS as the “gold standard” of children’s education.
Jessica Keating writes about CGS and the cultivation of a “sacramental imagination in a secular age” at the Church Life journal.
*Many thanks to Ethan Harrison for some of the recommendations on this list.