Thursday, November 12, 2015

Family Catechism

Disclaimer:  As with anyone I talk about,  I do not necessarily agree with everything Voddie Baucham preaches.  I agree with much of what I have heard from this brother, but have not listened to everything he has said.  Remember always that whenever you listen to someone speaking about God's Word, that the true test is whether or not the teaching agrees with the Word of God. 

 2 Timothy 2:15 "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth."

When I first heard about family catechism, I admit a bit of skepticism led me to avoid any sort of formal training, creed, or catechism. I my own experience, I saw that it was quite easy to know the right words to say yet be speaking them in contradiction to what one truly believes. In my own childhood I memorized many passages of Scripture and was quite prideful of my knowledge of trivia and all those answers to questions that Sunday School teachers ask children. Given my personal experience, which was quite limited in understanding, I thought that it was most likely unproductive to just have your children parrot back what you tell them about the Bible. Still, as I read and study God's Word and seek to know how to train my children for God's glory, I find that the Old Testament speaks of fathers teaching their children and rehearsing the marvelous works of God to show His grace and mercy. I saw the charge in Ephesians to fathers to train their children. We all understand that parents teach their children, but we often don't know how this works in daily life. As we look around, much can be found in books that speaks of methods that promise results, but if we truly want to know how to raise our children for the glory of God, then we must see if God has given us a pattern or command about how He wants us to train our children

As I pondered the Scriptures that speak of parents and children, specifically what the Bible says about how children are trained, I found that God has indeed given us much to consider and obey in this issue. I also realized as I spoke to other Christian parents that many others were seeing the same serious lack of preaching and teaching in the church regarding what God had to say to parents. I see that even our church culture has been tainted by worldly and man-centered approaches to parenting. I saw that much of our church tradition is formed more by the outside culture than by God's Word. There is much more to consider on that front, but for today we will hope to answers a few of the questions that relate to Biblical Christian instruction of children by parents and what methods are prescribed by God's Word to fulfill the commands God has given.

I realize that one issue that tainted my thinking was not the specific issue of teaching answers to questions or apologetic arguments, but that in my own experience that these things were divorced primarily from the need for regeneration. To be more clear, as a child I learned the questions and answers, the facts and the histories, but knew nothing about how these were integrated into the full tapestry of God's Word in light of redemptive history. I knew who God was, but I did not know the Lord. Indeed, I was an enemy of a holy and just God, a rebellious young man whose pride in the flesh and desire for sin kept these truths from transforming my mind and heart.

We have been listening to Voddie Baucham, a pastor in Houston,Texas.  He is very passionate about parents training their children and fathers taking up their role as family shepherd.  He is a very animated man who loves the Lord and it shows.  Even our little ones will sit still to listen to him.

Mr. Baucham was the first person I had heard talk in depth about catechism.  Voddie Baucham belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention.  His family gathers for Family Worship every night, which all his children participate in from birth.  When children become verbal, they are taught to memorize scripture.

Our family has been practicing Scripture memorization for years. Our second daughter was just over 2 years of age when she could quote 7-8 verses of Proverbs 31.  We have changed the way we memorize and review over the years, incorporating practical methods that we feel are beneficial, and at times simply reading over a text many times to make it familiar in our minds.  Some seasons of life we have memorized many verses, while at other times we let it slip afterwards realizing as a family that we need to make God's Word the focus of our home a family.  One way to do this is by memorizing scripture.

Psalm 119:11 "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you."



My wife and I have discussed catechism before, but we wanted our children to know where the Bible states the truths we were teaching them.  This goes back to 2 Timothy 2:15.  We want our children to hold everything up in light of scripture.  We had never found a catechism that we agree with (mostly).  Or one that was able to give Bible verses for where they created the question answer format.

Voddie Baucham mentioned in one of his sermons about Truth and Grace Memory Books .  These are booklets arranged by age level with memory verses, hymns, lists, and catechism questions.  The questions each have a short answer and multiple bible verses.  We have found a few questions for which we will edit and possibly substitute other verses.  There are very few of these and as a whole we are mostly in agreement.  None of the things we want to change are fundamental issues, rather more about clarification for our children.

We have been doing this catechism for less than 2 weeks thus far.  We are doing the catechism questions slowly for now as our 2 year old son is still able to keep up.  We have memorized the first 8.  When we introduce the question, we sit as a family and read all the verses that pertain to that question.  

The whole family is starting at the beginning of the list for memory verses (2-3 year old level).  We are memorizing them at our own pace.  Our 2 year old knows 4.  Our 6 year old knows about 8.  Even Mommy and Daddy are doing these.  Some of the verses are ones that we have already memorized over the years.  We each have our own spread sheet that I mark about twice a week as I quiz them.

We are also using these booklets as copy work.  The girls write out the memory verses and catechism questions.  Our oldest son also writes out all the verses that pertain to the catechism questions.  We bought each of them a composition book that hopefully they will keep for their entire lives. 

We have thoroughly enjoyed using these booklets as a family.  The children have been asking really good questions as we read the verses.  They are also excited about learning verses to be able to mark their spreadsheets and discover the next truth to be memorized from God's Word.