Our Mission

The Catechesis Institute (formerly the Institute for the Renewal of Christian Catechesis, or IRCC) is a research and educational non-profit that seeks to promote catechesis in local churches and in academic research. It is a meeting ground for pastors, educators, historians, theologians, and anyone else who desires to see Christians formed in the faith in a robust way. 

At present, the primary way we accomplish this is through providing digital resources and hosting conferences and lectures that promote catechesis and connect those that are involved in various types of catechetical teaching and research. In the future, we plan to offer residential and non-residential mentoring models and cohorts aimed at helping pastors, teachers, and churches implement catechetical teaching. 

Above all, the Institute seeks to serve churches in building up believers in the faith so that “we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). Our hope is that through a renewal of catechesis in the church, we may see a renewal of the church’s capacity to bear witness to God’s kingdom and to be a sacrament of Christ’s healing and life-giving power to the world.

Denominational Affiliation

The Catechesis Institute is an ecumenical organization, rooted in the Anglican tradition but seeking to learn from and promote catechesis across denominational traditions. The intent is not to downplay the real differences that exist between such traditions. In fact, sound catechesis can serve the church by making clear where and why such differences exist, leading to more constructive disagreement. In this we strive for what Richard Mouw calls “convicted civility”—holding together both truth and charity in the search for godliness.

Of course, talking about a renewal of catechesis among certain Christians might sound strange. For certain branches of the Reformed tradition, or among Roman Catholics, it may seem that catechesis was never lost and so doesn’t need to be renewed. In that sense, the Catechesis Institute is aimed more towards a Protestant and evangelical audience. Nonetheless, it’s our hope that Catholics will find much to learn from the Protestant traditions, and vice versa—and both Protestants and Catholics learn much from the Eastern Orthodox. 

The director’s affiliation is with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), and much of our work comes out of and serves that tradition. Anglican at its best is a kind of “mere Christianity” that seeks to hold in common what the church has held “always, everywhere, and at all times.” There is an ecumenical impulse there that is neither sentimental nor naive, but historically and theologically rooted in the Great Tradition.